www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Without Iconostasis

The servers are wearing the what I call the 'byzantine surplice' instead of the proper vestments. Latinisation is alive and well...sadly...and ongoing.

At the Russian Orthodox church in Seattle, Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco reposed during the night. Since it is known that Saint John never would like down to sleep, and his bed had no signs of having been used, Saint John was evidently praying while God took him. The room was converted into a chapel, where there was Divine Liturgy occasionally, but it was necessary to have the icon-screen against the wall. The same was true in the crypt chapel where Saint John's mortal remains were interred, awaiting his canonization. There was an annual Divine Liturgy (at least), but there was not sufficient room to have the Holy Table behind the icon-screen.

Fr. Serge

Bless, Father...I would say that is a fairly extreme and rare circumstance. I would surmise, as have many before, that the parish noted was simply conforming to being "more [Roman] Catholic." I have been to quite a few churches that do not have complete icon screens, but at least had icons of Christ and the Theotokos set up.

Yes, massive self-latinisation.

What Herbigny (especially), AMM, asianpilgrim and Pavel Ivanovich said. Pavel has described something I've noticed for some time, the self-latinisation of shortening the sticharion so it's more like a large Roman cotta.

Herbigny has described most of the Greek Catholic world outside of the Internet.

Thanks for the link to the page on the Old Believers.

Here is the chapel with an iconostasis on the wall:

http://members.tripod.com/old_rite_orthodox/id19.html

But also a holy table. The screen is against the wall only because of limited space. The priestless Old Believers have the screen on the wall but no holy table of course (no priests, no Liturgy).

I did not either.

??? The Latin Church does not require abstinence from dairy products on any day. From the site cited above: While the site does include minimum prescriptions, of course more is encouraged if possible.