When/where did the concept of transferring church or rite begin?

[x1980x]

There’s plenty of information on this board about transferring from one Sui Iuris church to another with the applicable bishops’ permission.

I understand that the different ritual forms used in the CC arose over time in different places. Congregations used or preferred different styles and these were passed down the generations. We see something similar in the Protestant world today - there are many Protestant traditions where wide latitude is granted to congregations and pastors to worship in styles that are appealing to the people. For example, one tradition might hold “contemporary” services with the pastor in street clothes accompanied by a “Praise Band” playing Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) with electric guitars and drums and also hold more old-fashioned services with processions of robed deacons carrying candles, 19th century hymns sung a capella, and readings out of the King James Version, but the difference in practice would have no doctrinal significance and there would be no concept of a person getting a formal ritual transfer from “Presbyterian - Rock and Roll Rite” to “Presbyterian - Victorian Rite”.

At what point did the Eastern Rites become distinct churches with their own rules that were organizationally separate from the Latin Church? For example, was it meaningful for a person in the year 700 to request a formal transfer from the Latin Church to the Greek Church or was the question of Roman-ness or Greek-ness defined in a de facto way by which language you spoke at home, which liturgy you actually attended regularly, or which culture you felt closest to?

 

[Vico]

…

At what point did the Eastern Rites become distinct churches with their own rules that were organizationally separate from the Latin Church? For example, was it meaningful for a person in the year 700 to request a formal transfer from the Latin Church to the Greek Church or was the question of Roman-ness or Greek-ness defined in a de facto way by which language you spoke at home, which liturgy you actually attended regularly, or which culture you felt closest to?

Different laws were in place at each union and jurisdiction. The first combined Canon Law was in 1917 and planned to include the eastern but that was not completed and approved until 1983 CIC and 1990 CCEO.

In 1742 Pope Benedict XIV Etsi Pastoralis to strengthen the Italo-Albanians relative to the Latins.

Byzantine:
The Byzantines of Italy are always united with Rome.
Antiochian - Maronites formed at the time of Council of Ephesus:
The Maronite Church in 1182 formally confirmed its union with Rome.
Chaldean 1552 from the Assyrian Church of the East:
1553 Patriarch Simon VIII (Yuhannan Sulaka) “of the Chaldeans” ordained as Catholic bishop.
Others:
1595 Ukrainian, Belarusan
1599 Syro-Malabar
1611 Krizevci (Croatia)
1628 Albanian
1646 Ruthenian, Slovakian, Hungarian
1697 Romanian
1724 Melkite
1741 Coptic
1742 Etsi Pastoralis
1742 Armenian
1781 Syrian
1829 Greek
1846 Ethiopian
1861 Bulgarian
1894 Orientalium Dignitas
1905 Russian
1918 Macedonian
1930 Syro-Malankara

 

[twf]

I would imagine that in the year 700 Church membership was determined purely by geography. If you lived in Greece you belonged to the Greek Church but if you lived in Rome you belonged to the Latin Church. The ancient canons stipulate that there was to be one bishop per city and all of the Christian faithful within that city (and the surrounding countryside) were to belong to his particular church. Switching churches would have simply been a matter of moving. I don’t know when the modern concept of formal transfer arose, but I imagine it has only come to light in recent years - the last century at most - as it is only in recent times that the Church finds a world where immigration is a regular and widespread phenomenon leading to substantial groups of various ritual traditions living in regions that traditionally practiced another rite.