Two questions about the EC & EO

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SyroMalankara said:
Aren’t the Ruthenians and ACROD/OCA merely 50yrs separated from each other, at least in the US?
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ACROD separated from the BCC ca. 1930. There are still distinctive features of translations, abbreviations, and elaborations that are common to both churches,

The idea of a separation doesn’t properly fit the relation between the BCC and OCA. In the Toth era, several priests and thousands of parishioners quit the BCC for the precursor of the OCA, which was then part of the MP. While the situation varied from place to place, there was, typically, little appreciation of the Rusyn traditions among the Muscovites; there was in many areas a deliberate effort to quash them. This situation led some who ventured there to return to the BCC (only Toth remained Orthodox among the few clergy who left the GCC during his time), and was a key factor in ACROD’s seeking to form an new diocese under the EP, rather than join an existing jurisdiction in the US, particularly the Russian church.
 
Peter_J said:
Hi again, EphelDuath. Have you gone yet (or made plans to go)?
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Thank you for asking 🙂

As of now, not yet. I am still learning as much as I can about the Eastern and Oriental churches. Right now I’m most interested in the Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholic, and Syro-Malankara churches because their principle liturgy is the Liturgy of St. James, which as I understand it, is the oldest Christian liturgy in the world. Unfortunately the only church even remotely close to me is a Syriac Orthodox church that from its parish photos, looks somewhat modernist, so I’m skeptical if I should give them a visit considering it would be a very long drive for me.

There’s also a Ruthenian Catholic church and a Melkite Catholic church nearby, so I think I will give both of them a visit at some point in the future.
 
EphelDuath said:
Thank you for asking 🙂

As of now, not yet. I am still learning as much as I can about the Eastern and Oriental churches. Right now I’m most interested in the Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholic, and Syro-Malankara churches because their principle liturgy is the Liturgy of St. James, which as I understand it, is the oldest Christian liturgy in the world. Unfortunately the only church even remotely close to me is a Syriac Orthodox church that from its parish photos, looks somewhat modernist, so I’m skeptical if I should give them a visit considering it would be a very long drive for me.

There’s also a Ruthenian Catholic church and a Melkite Catholic church nearby, so I think I will give both of them a visit at some point in the future.
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You can download a copy of the Liturgy of St. James representing the West Syrian or Antiochian Rite and the Liturgy of St. Mark representing the Alexandrian rite at ccel.org/fathers.html download vol. VII of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.

Fr. John W. Morris
 
SyroMalankara said:
Aren’t the Ruthenians and ACROD/OCA merely 50yrs separated from each other, at least in the US?
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The OCA is a unique beast - it’s not Ruthenian Recension at all. While it’s true the Tothian Schism attached to the diocese that would later become the OCA, the OCA was, and is, Russian Orthodox. It’s firmly grounded in Alaska’s ~20% Orthodox, most of whom are Natives and who are in parishes started by the Russian missionaries before the Tothian schism. And it’s almost 120 years.

The ACROD is newer - about 72 years old - and is a separate schism. And it is still very close. According to naysayers, too close.
 
Aramis said:
The OCA is a unique beast - it’s not Ruthenian Recension at all. While it’s true the Tothian Schism attached to the diocese that would later become the OCA, the OCA was, and is, Russian Orthodox. It’s firmly grounded in Alaska’s ~20% Orthodox, most of whom are Natives and who are in parishes started by the Russian missionaries before the Tothian schism. And it’s almost 120 years.

The ACROD is newer - about 72 years old - and is a separate schism. And it is still very close. According to naysayers, too close.
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ACROD equals Carpatho Rusyin Orthodox Diocese?
Sorry about the spelling, and what does the ‘A’ stand for?
 
Aramis said:
The OCA is a unique beast - it’s not Ruthenian Recension at all. While it’s true the Tothian Schism attached to the diocese that would later become the OCA, the OCA was, and is, Russian Orthodox. It’s firmly grounded in Alaska’s ~20% Orthodox, most of whom are Natives and who are in parishes started by the Russian missionaries before the Tothian schism. And it’s almost 120 years.

The ACROD is newer - about 72 years old - and is a separate schism. And it is still very close. According to naysayers, too close.
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What you call a schism, some might call returning to the mother Church. I am reading a very interesting book on the origin and development of the Eastern Catholic Churches in Eastern Europe. The Western Front of the Eastern Church: Uniate and Orthodox Conflict in Eighteenth-century Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia by Barbara Skinner. This is not a polemic for either side, but is a scholarly history that is very enlightening. (To the moderator: I only used the term Uniate because that is the title of the book not to offend Eastern Catholics.)

Archpriest John W. Morris
 
frjohnmorris said:
What you call a schism, some might call returning to the mother Church.
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Certainly, but note that that cuts both ways. In fact, “back in the day” Catholics were elated when large number of Orthodox became Catholic.
 
frjohnmorris said:
What you call a schism, some might call returning to the mother Church. I am reading a very interesting book on the origin and development of the Eastern Catholic Churches in Eastern Europe. The Western Front of the Eastern Church: Uniate and Orthodox Conflict in Eighteenth-century Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia by Barbara Skinner. This is not a polemic for either side, but is a scholarly history that is very enlightening. (To the moderator: I only used the term Uniate because that is the title of the book not to offend Eastern Catholics.)

Archpriest John W. Morris
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The Ruthenian Mother Church was never Moscow, and wasn’t Constantinople for MANY centuries.
 
Aramis said:
The Ruthenian Mother Church was never Moscow, and wasn’t Constantinople for MANY centuries.
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The point is that they have RETURNED to the Orthodox Church, not that they were under any particular jurisdiction prior to their leaving Orthodoxy.
 
prodromos said:
The point is that they have RETURNED to the Orthodox Church, not that they were under any particular jurisdiction prior to their leaving Orthodoxy.
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But the ostensible return to a mother was a return to a particular jurisdiction in America that was not, in any way, the mother of the Ruthenian church. Moreover the schsim occured long after origin of the Ruthenian church and never had all that much traction there.
 
dvdjs said:
But the ostensible return to a mother was a return to a particular jurisdiction in America that was not, in any way, the mother of the Ruthenian church. Moreover the schsim occured long after origin of the Ruthenian church and never had all that much traction there.
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Further, there was dissent amongst the EO as a whole over whether or not accepting them in via vesting was appropriate. In both cases, it was clearly a schism first - they broke away, and then looked for a new “parent church” to take them in en mass.

So, the sequence laid out would be:
  1. Catholic
  2. Vagante Priests
  3. being taken in by a different, non-Catholic, “parent” church
In all honesty, the Second Ruthenian Schism shows clearly how disunited Orthodoxy really is - Canonically, either Moscow (having already established itself as the US Orthodox National Church) or The Ukrainian Orthodox (as the parent church of Uzhorod) should have been the ones to take in the Ruthenian vagantes who fled due to CDF.

Which of the two cases one picks depends upon one’s thinking, but the US was a land-grab by the Orthodox, of sorts… each of the various national churches rejected the canons and sent their own hierarchy to usurp the canonical role Moscow should have had as the longest-present Orthodox church. But, if one accepts that the various churches have a right to do this, then the parent church from which they originated should have been the one to take them back (or anathematize them)…

The Catholic overlapping jurisdictions were a response to Bishops who had failed to accept that the multitude of Rites was worthy, and had tangibly put to paper that it was the case; the right and proper response by Fr. Toth would have been to appeal to Rome, rather than to walk away from the Catholic church. Likewise the fathers of the schism over CDF.

It was a bad situation for all concerned; triggered by Romans doing things they should not have done, and Ruthenians overreacting and ignoring their solemn promises, in favor of schism.

Still, every Corporate Union (except perhaps the Maronites) has left a rump synod that rejects union; any future corporate reunion is unlikely to be any different.
 
Aramis said:
The Ruthenian Mother Church was never Moscow, and wasn’t Constantinople for MANY centuries.
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By mother Church, I meant Eastern Orthodoxy. The Ruthenians were under Constantinople before they were forced to submit to Rome by the Polish authorities. They certainly were never under Rome.

Fr. John W. Morris
 
frjohnmorris said:
By mother Church, I meant Eastern Orthodoxy. The Ruthenians were under Constantinople before they were forced to submit to Rome by the Polish authorities. They certainly were never under Rome.

Fr. John W. Morris
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Kyiv was autocephalous well before the Ruthenians came into union with Rome.

And, unlike the Ruthenian Schisms of the 19th and 20th centuries, it wasn’t “Break away, then see if someone is there who will accept you.” It’s not directly comparable.

There also looks to be little evidence for the claim that Polish priests forced the Carpethians to come into union with Rome. Wrong regions.
 
Aramis said:
There also looks to be little evidence for the claim that Polish priests forced the Carpethians to come into union with Rome. Wrong regions.
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Exactly. While “Ruthenian” has a more inclusive meaning historically, in the context of the relation Fr Toth and the proto OCA - the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, or ACROD, “Ruthenian” refers to the people of the Carpathians very few of whom were ever under Polish rule.
 
Aramis said:
Kyiv was autocephalous well before the Ruthenians came into union with Rome.
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Probably not formally autocephalous.

But from the outset to the unions the relationship of the local churches in this area to the Patriarchal Sees was a bit murky, particularly in areas where there were strong influences of both Rome and, in Eastern Churches, Constantinople. This situation was laready clear from the role of the Pope during the mission of Cyril and Methodius and in the kingdom of Danylo.

Overall, Constantinople did not have a unique, strong grip on the local churches. Even to the point of needed paid Brotherhoods to try to keep the bishops in check. These Brotherhoods provoked a counter reaction from the Bishops and were a factor in their seeking union with Rome.
 
frjohnmorris said:
The Ruthenians were under Constantinople before they were forced to submit to Rome by the Polish authorities.
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We’ve talked about your casual use of the word “force” before. Given the relatively benign circumstances of the union as compared to its destruction, and the fact that the union was the idea of the Eastern Bishops themselves, not connived through murder, incarceration, and faux synods as in the liquidation of the GCCs in the last century, it would be very decent of you to avoid this outrageous language.
 
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