What are the Eastern rites like/

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Your question is too general. It’s like asking what the Western Rite is like.

The Eastern Churches are not all the same, there are 22 of them. Most Byzantine, then there are the Syriac, Copt, Armenian, Malankara, Chaldean, Malabar, etc. All these worship differently and have different Traditions and fathers. They all have different bishops.
 
My bad.
What are the Byzantine
Syro-Malankaran
Syriac
(Holy cow, that’s a lot of names)
What are the ones that you’ve also said like? What languages do they speak, mainly Greek?
Are their Masses like the Latin Mass, but only in Greek?
 
Byzantine Churches ecclesiastical language is Greek, Sts. Cyril and Methodius are Greek born brothers who created the Slavic language, and so many Slavic Churches which accepted and lived that Tradition for millenia, like the Russian, Ukrainian, Melkite, Romanian, etc exist today.

The Syriac and Chaldean Churches ecclesiastical language is Aramaic, the language of Christ. These Churches are located in the Middle East and India, and in the Catholic Communion today are Syriac, Maronite, Chaldean, Syro-Malankara, Syro-Malabar.

The Copts based in Egypt use Ge’ez as their ecclesiastical language.

The Armenians use Armenian, which was created by Sts. Sahag and Mesrob in the 400s. The Armenian Church was heavily influenced by Syriac missionaries, writings, and Saints, and later Greek and Latin Saints.

There is much, much more. One could spend a life-time on just one of these Churches and Traditions, its as deep as much as you want to get into it.
 
SyroMalankara said:
The Copts based in Egypt use Ge’ez as their ecclesiastical language.
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I think you are confused, friend. Ge’ez is the Ethiopian language. Copts are not in Ethiopia, but the Ethiopian church was part of the Coptic church for many, many centuries. There are still very warm relations between Coptic church and the Ethiopian church, but they are separate now for some decades. The Ethiopians got their own patriarch only in the 1950s or so. But they are different people. Copts use Coptic in the church, but Ethiopians use Ge’ez in their church. No one in Egypt knows or uses Ge’ez, unless it’s some Ethiopians. I don’t know if there are Ethiopian churches in Egypt. I don’t think so.
 
absolutely, you are right! Sorry for the mix up, I had a memory loss moment 😊
 
SyroMalankara said:
Byzantine Churches ecclesiastical language is Greek, Sts. Cyril and Methodius are Greek born brothers who created the Slavic language, and so many Slavic Churches which accepted and lived that Tradition for millenia, like the Russian, Ukrainian, Melkite, Romanian, etc exist today.
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Neither Romanians nor Melkites are Slavs. The Romanian people are Latin, although they have strong Slavic influence, particularly in the Church. The Melkite Church, while Byzantine, has no Slavic influence; they are a middle-Eastern Church.
 
thestudentAD said:
What are the ones that you’ve also said like? What languages do they speak, mainly Greek?
Are their Masses like the Latin Mass, but only in Greek?
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The language of the Divine Liturgy is generally that which is spoken by the people of a particular parish. Among the Melkites, you will find English or Arabic. Among the Ukrainians, it is common to find English or Ukrainian or Church Slavonic, occasionally. The Ruthenians tend to be exclusively English, aside from a smattering of Slavonic. The local Chaldean parish’s liturgy is in a combination of Aramaic/Assyrian, Arabic and English. Mostly Aramaic, with the readings and homily repeated in Arabic and English.

The Divine Liturgy isn’t really much like the Latin Mass.

This is a good example of a Ukrainian Catholic Divine Liturgy: youtube.com/watch?v=YzFOuz_hAbw
 
wynd said:
This is not a Ukrainian church though, right?
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Right. It was at a Roman Catholic Church, intended to introduce people to the rite. I chose this particular video because it is the complete liturgy and the production is very high quality. There are a number of others on youtube, but most of them only have part of the liturgy, or don’t show what is going on from such an clear perspective.
 
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