What sui juirs church do I belong to? etc

[Max_Williams]

I have a bit of a canonical question. I was baptized and raised Russian Orthodox. I then spent almost two years attending a Greek Orthodox parish (while never being a formal member), before being received into the Melkite Catholic Church. As I understand it, Orthodox are supposed to be received into their equivalent Catholic church, so does this technically mean I am Russian Catholic?

On a related note, I’m not sure exactly who to consider my bishop, etc (for fasting rules and other things). The Melkite parish I was received at is 6 hours away and I’ve been going there every month or so when I can. On Sundays in between, I’m attending a Ukrainian parish that is two hours away as well as a Latin parish (for confession and weekday mass).

If someone could point out some resources regarding this (I read the Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Churches and it wasn’t very helpful) that would be appreciated…

 

[HeDa]

Talk to your local parish priest and see which church you are registered in. He would know.

 

[Max_Williams]

well, if you’d read my post again, you’d see that I don’t really have a “local” parish… But I know as much as any of the priests do… I just have a letter stating that I was “received into the Melkite Greek Catholic church…” by the relevant priest.

 

[Spyridon]

De jure there is a Russian Catholic Church.

De facto there isn’t, there’s not a single RusC Bishop in the world and only a few parishes.

You’d be a Melkite Catholic, IMO.

If you wanted to belong to a Slavic Eastern Catholic Church, go Ukrainian Catholic.

 

[Max_Williams]

yeah, as I said, I’m attending the Ukrainian parish a lot more than the Melkite one xD

 

[HeDa]

Where I live we can see in the registry for all parishes in the diocese which Catholic Church we are part of so that is why I answered the way I did.

 

[Spyridon]

If you wrote a letter to your Melkite Bishop explaining your situation I’m 100% confident you could switch canonically over to the Ukrainian Church no problemo.

Talk to your Priest first, then probably talk to the Eparchy.

 

[Max_Williams]

yeah, I’m sure I could. I’m not ready to do that though. I love the Melkites too much.

 

[Spyridon]

Oh and with regard about fasting regs and such:

Follow the Melkite discipline as long as you are canonically Melkite even if you’re only attending the Ukrainian parish - when you’ve made the canonical switch, then observe the Ukrainian discipline…

However, I’m not really aware of any significant difference between Melkite and Ukrainian discipline…

 

[Spyridon]

Well then just stay canonically Melkite and abide by the Melkite disciplines while worshipping with the Ukrainians.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

I’m Roman Catholic but many weeks I attend the Ukrainian Church, and I also follow a lot of Byzantine devotional and spiritual practices.

 

[Max_Williams]

I just follow the Melkite calendar

Thanks

 

[dochawk]

De facto there isn’t, there’s not a single RusC Bishop in the world and only a few parishes.

There are a handful of Catholic churches without bishops. For that matter I think it’s the Georgian Catholic Church that no-one is quite sure whether is extinct or not!



Anyway, that doesn’t have a bearing on enrollment or not.

You’d be a Melkite Catholic, IMO.

I don’t think so. As much as Rome might wish it would go away, the Russian Catholic Church exists, bishops or not.

However, I’m not really aware of any significant difference between Melkite and Ukrainian discipline…

Other than Ruthenian/Pittsburgh, I don’t think that there are significant differences (variations on olive or all oil, which days if any fish/wine allowed, and the like). Pittsburgh, however, isn’t much stricter than RC.

hawk

 

[Spyridon]

’t think so. As much as Rome might wish it would go away, the Russian Catholic Church exists, bishops or not.

Well, like I said, the Russian Catholic Church exists on paper - de jure.

But for the vast majority of people the Russian Catholic Church doesn’t exist de facto.

There are 0 Russian Catholic Bishops.

There are 0 Russian Catholic Priests.

There’s only 2 Russian Catholic Jurisdictions on Earth, with only about 3,000 Russian Catholics - in total, in the entire world, who exist in less than a dozen parishes in those 2 jurisdictions. Those few parishes and people are served by other Priests of other Churches since, like I said, there are 0 Russian Catholic Priests.

Like I said, for the VAST majority of people, de facto the Russian Catholic Church doesn’t exist.

 

[Augustinian]

Consider this. When Ruthenian Catholics left the Catholic Church at the turn of the 20th Century, they entered the Russian Orthodox Church.

If they are coming back from the Russian Orthodox Church, why wouldn’t they go back to the Ruthenian sui juris church?

 

[dochawk]

Like I said, for the VAST majority of people, de facto the Russian Catholic Church doesn’t exist.

But canonical enrollment is de jure not de facto.

And they do have two parishes I know of in California, in the LA area and in SF (I thought I was going too be able to check out the SF one when I had a conference but I didn’t leave enough extra time to get from there to the airport if they took two hours that day.

hawk

 

[dochawk]

If they are coming back from the Russian Orthodox Church, why wouldn’t they go back to the Ruthenian sui juris church?

They do–while under RO supervision (actually OCA, I think [Edit: no, this is wrong, on further memory; OCA is the other schism directly caused by the pig-headedness and bigotry of the same bishop!]), they actually belong to ACROD (American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of North America).

hawk