Visiting Byzantine Churches

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damooster

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I recently started a journey through the Diocese of Arlington with the ultimate goal of visiting every Catholic Church in the diocese. Some people approve, others don’t (my own fault, another story) but I have decided to continue.

The Diocese of Arlington has three Byzantine Churches and I originally planned on not visiting them, but I’m now thinking about it.

Where can I go to find the information I need to visit without getting in anyone’s way? Maybe a “Latin Rite Catholic’s guide to Byzantine Churches” lol. I would really like specific recommendations.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.
 
damooster said:
I recently started a journey through the Diocese of Arlington with the ultimate goal of visiting every Catholic Church in the diocese. Some people approve, others don’t (my own fault, another story) but I have decided to continue.

The Diocese of Arlington has three Byzantine Churches and I originally planned on not visiting them, but I’m now thinking about it.

Where can I go to find the information I need to visit without getting in anyone’s way? Maybe a “Latin Rite Catholic’s guide to Byzantine Churches” lol. I would really like specific recommendations.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.
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I don’t have any specific links, but have you looked at their websites? What are the three you are going to? I know Holy Transfiguration Melkite Greek Catholic Church, and Epiphany of Our Lord Ruthenian Catholic Church in Annandale. What’s the third? You could always contact the parish. Both have big festivals every year and are always encouraging Roman Catholics to experience their Divine Liturgy (Mass). I suspect they will help you and point you in the right direction. Sorry I couldn’t be more specific.
p.s. Holy Transfiguration’s Labor Day Festival is fantastic. You should check it out.
In Christ,
Kiechlin
 
Kiechlin said:
I don’t have any specific links, but have you looked at their websites? What are the three you are going to? I know Holy Transfiguration Melkite Greek Catholic Church, and Epiphany of Our Lord Ruthenian Catholic Church in Annandale. What’s the third? You could always contact the parish. Both have big festivals every year and are always encouraging Roman Catholics to experience their Divine Liturgy (Mass). I suspect they will help you and point you in the right direction. Sorry I couldn’t be more specific.
p.s. Holy Transfiguration’s Labor Day Festival is fantastic. You should check it out.
In Christ,
Kiechlin
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They are Blessed Virgin Mary in Manassas, Epiphany of Our Lord in Annandale, and Holy Transfiguration in McLean.

Thanks for the recommending that I contact them. I will do so this week.
 
damooster said:
They are Blessed Virgin Mary in Manassas, Epiphany of Our Lord in Annandale, and Holy Transfiguration in McLean.

Thanks for the recommending that I contact them. I will do so this week.
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I’m glad you made the decision to not exclude these ECC from your plans.

Annunciation of The Blessed Virgin Mary appears to also be Melkite. The websites for the other two don’t seem to indicate that they use a language other then English (mainly) for the Liturgies. I see that Holy Transfiguration has 6:00pm Vespers Saturdays which would also be a wonderful liturgy to attend.

There are many old threads here you can look for about visiting an Eastern Catholic Church. Even though this is written about visiting an Orthodox church people have referred to this piece 12 Things I Wish I’d Known… by Frederica Mathewes-Green in the past as helpful.

Last summer a Baptist pastor wrote several quite wonderful pieces on his experiences as an stranger going for the first time to a Divine Liturgy with no background. Again these were at an Orthodox Church but the Liturgy is the same. I don’t see the original posts when I look at his archives but I do see both of them reproduced here. Orthodox and ECC quickly spread word of his stories, really enjoying his pieces for capturing so much and with such affection.
 
5Loaves said:
Last summer a Baptist pastor wrote several quite wonderful pieces on his experiences as an stranger going for the first time to a Divine Liturgy with no background. Again these were at an Orthodox Church but the Liturgy is the same. I don’t see the original posts when I look at his archives but I do see both of them reproduced here. Orthodox and ECC quickly spread word of his stories, really enjoying his pieces for capturing so much and with such affection.
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There’s one other visit to a different Orthodox Church described by him here.

And I found the links to the first two on his own site: Not for Lightweights and Saint Anthony the Great - Part 2. There are photos with these.
 
\The Diocese of Arlington has three Byzantine Churches and I originally planned on not visiting them, but I’m now thinking about it.\

Unless they are something like a Russian Catholic Church which has no hierarchy in the USA, there are NO Byzantine Catholics Churches in the Latin Diocese of Arlington.
 
bpbasilphx said:
\The Diocese of Arlington has three Byzantine Churches and I originally planned on not visiting them, but I’m now thinking about it.\

Unless they are something like a Russian Catholic Church which has no hierarchy in the USA, there are NO Byzantine Catholics Churches in the Latin Diocese of Arlington.
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Forgive me if I used the wrong terminology or if I am mistaken. I emailed the diocese and they sent a listing of every parish in the diocese. There was a section on their list titled “Byzantine Churches” and then had the three parishes listed that I’ve previously mentioned.
 
damooster said:
bpbasilphx;6212265 said:
\The Diocese of Arlington has three Byzantine Churches and I originally planned on not visiting them, but I’m now thinking about it.\

Unless they are something like a Russian Catholic Church which has no hierarchy in the USA, there are NO Byzantine Catholics Churches in the Latin Diocese of Arlington.
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Forgive me if I used the wrong terminology or if I am mistaken. I emailed the diocese and they sent a listing of every parish in the diocese. There was a section on their list titled “Byzantine Churches” and then had the three parishes listed that I’ve previously mentioned.
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It’s great your Latin Diocese lists all the Catholic Churches in its geographic area even those ECCs which are not actually canonically in the Diocese. The Diocese of Oakland and Archdiocese of SF list ECCs well outside our geographic boundaries. Only one of the couple dozen ECC parishes listed is actually part of a Diocese- the Russian Church in SF. It’s very helpful to have these ECCs listed. And for us Latins it can also be confusing. Except for Russian Catholics of which I’m one and under a Latin Bishop, ECCs typically have Eparchies whose Bishops they are under. 🙂 And the St. Peter The Apostle Diocese for Chaldeans and Assyrians in Western U. S. A is a Diocese… 🙂

Annunciation of The Blessed Virgin Mary Melkite in Manassas and
Holy Transfiguration Melkite Greek Catholic Church both seem to be in the Melkite Catholic Eparchy of Newton
Epiphany of Our Lord Ruthenian Catholic Church in Annandale is in the Eparchy of Passaic.

So bpbasilphx has a good point.

I hope that makes some more sense.
 
damooster said:
So they are not considered a part of the diocese?
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Yes and no. They are Eastern Catholic Churches so no they are not in a Latin Catholic Diocese. They are part of the (diocese) Eparchy of Newton and the (diocese) Eparchy of Passaic.

Only the four Russian Catholic parishes, El Segundo and San Francisco, CA, Denver, CO and New York City, are left without a hierarch so they are under the wing of Latin Bishops… for now…

So, if your point is to check off every Catholic church canonically in your diocese you needn’t bother going to those three. If instead you’re interested in visiting all the Catholic churches in your area then those would be included. 🙂

Also I see your site says “Moo’s Journey Visiting every Roman Catholic parish in the Diocese of Arlington” Do you understand that we are in communion with the Latin Church but we not in the Latin Church? The Latin Church has its own rites, including the Roman Rite celebrated in almost all parishes these days, and its own Code of Canon Law. We have our own liturgical rites and our own Canon Law, as well as our own patrimonies in other ways.
 
5Loaves said:
So bpbasilphx has a good point.

I hope that makes some more sense.
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Yes, but a little more tact would have been nice. Enough with all of the bold letters:rolleyes:
I think it was apparent that the OP meant Byzantine Churches in the geographical area of the Arlington Diocese.
 
damooster said:
So they are not considered a part of the diocese?
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No, Each parish is part of its respective eparchies (the eastern term equivalent to diocese), which given at least two different churches, means two or three different eparchies.

When you go, they will not commemorate the local Roman bishop, but will commemorate their own bishop and the pope, and if there is one, their metropolitan (archbishop).

THey are catholic, and are located within the physical area allotted to the Diocese you’re in, but in the US, there are overlapping jurisdictions.
 
Kiechlin said:
Yes, but a little more tact would have been nice. Enough with all of the bold letters:rolleyes:
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I think I was a little short in a post elsewhere recently. 😊 I hope people will help me stay charitable. I was a bit ticked by the bold letters and curt response. Then I realized I’d completely ignored the OP’s comment that “the Diocese of Arlington has three Byzantine Churches”. It made me think twice- a good thing. I’ve been corrected plenty of times here and on another forum. I only dare to post on some topics in order to practice putting into words some things about the ECC and OCCs, and Orthodox, where I can get the feedback from folks in those Churches. In my life within the Latin Church there is rarely anyone who knows anything about us, so I often practice here that I may speak as accurately as possible there. 🙂
 
Just to show the Eastern Catholic number of members in the USA 2008 (Vatican)
  1. Chaldean CC:
    Eparchy of Saint Peter the Apostle of San Diego, USA – 40200
    Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Detroit, USA – 101000
  2. Ruthenian Byzantine CC (also Croatian, Hungarian, Slovak, Italo-Albanian):
    Metropolitan Archeparchy of Pittsburgh, USA – 59484
    Eparchy of Parma, USA – 12328
    Eparchy of Passaic, USA – 20258
    Eparchy of Van Nuys, USA – 2795
    3)Syro-Malabar CC:
    Eparchy of St Thomas of Chicago, USA – 85000
  3. Maronite CC:
    Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles, USA – 41592
    Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn NY, USA – 33000
  4. Ukrainian Greek CC:
    Metropolitan Archeparchy of Philadelphia, USA – 22428
    Eparchy of Saint Josaphat in Parma, USA – 10862
    Eparchy of Saint Nicholas of Chicago, USA – 10500
    Eparchy of Stamford, USA – 16873
  5. Armenian CC:
    Eparchy of Our Lady of Nareg, New York (US and Canada) – 36000
  6. Melkite Greek CC:
    Eparchy of Newton, USA – 26704
  7. Syrian CC:
    Our Lady of Deliverance of Newark, New Jersey – 13436
  8. Romanian Greek CC:
    Eparchy of Saint George’s in Canton, Ohio, USA – 5800
 
Kiechlin said:
Yes, but a little more tact would have been nice. Enough with all of the bold letters:rolleyes:
I think it was apparent that the OP meant Byzantine Churches in the geographical area of the Arlington Diocese.
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**Whenever I quote PART of someone’s posting, it’s easier for me to put backslashes around it thus: \ \.

Then I put my own words in bold to distinguish them.

Actually, not is it not apparent, as some people (mostly Latins) think that Eastern Catholic Churches in the USA are part of the Latin diocese.

With very few exceptions today, they are not.**
 
5Loaves said:
Also I see your site says “Moo’s Journey Visiting every Roman Catholic parish in the Diocese of Arlington” Do you understand that we are in communion with the Latin Church but we not in the Latin Church? The Latin Church has its own rites, including the Roman Rite celebrated in almost all parishes these days, and its own Code of Canon Law. We have our own liturgical rites and our own Canon Law, as well as our own patrimonies in other ways.
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Yeah, originally I had decided to just visit the Latin Rite churches so that’s why I included the title you saw.
 
5Loaves said:
In my life within the Latin Church there is rarely anyone who knows anything about us, so I often practice here that I may speak as accurately as possible there. 🙂
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thanks, I understand and agree with you completely, it’s just that posts can come off as just so curt sometimes, even though that’s not their intention. I’m glad you provided those links!🙂
 
To the OP
I live in the area and am a parishioner at Holy Transfiguration in McLean. I also know Epiphany of Our Lord in Annandale quite well and work for one of the parishioners there. Send me an e-mail. I’d be more than happy to take you around Transfiguration and/or Epiphany and to guide you through the Divine Liturgy.

By the way, I’m currently a Latin Catholic, but my wife and I have been exclusively attending Byzantine churches for a couple of years now and are in the process of changing our canonical status over the the Melkites.
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
To the OP
I live in the area and am a parishioner at Holy Transfiguration in McLean. I also know Epiphany of Our Lord in Annandale quite well and work for one of the parishioners there. Send me an e-mail. I’d be more than happy to take you around Transfiguration and/or Epiphany and to guide you through the Divine Liturgy.

By the way, I’m currently a Latin Catholic, but my wife and I have been exclusively attending Byzantine churches for a couple of years now and are in the process of changing our canonical status over the the Melkites.
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That’s really cool to hear. I’m in the Arlington Diocese and our good friends who now live in Florida are/were members of Epiphany of Our Lord-beautiful community, as is Holy Transfiguration!
 
My wife and I love our parish. Archimandrite Joseph and Archimandrite Charles are both great priests and were a great source of comfort for us when our daughter was in the hospital. The parishioners at Transfiguration are also very welcoming and loving. I don’t think we could’ve asked for a better parish, especially since we moved here from out of town and know almost no one here.
 
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