This thread has deviated from its beginning. If the members wish to discuss unity/union/communion, may I suggest starting a new thread in another section.
Welcome to the forum. We hope your time with us is spiritually enriching.
As far as your question goes, I would suggest that you call the church and ask the priest whether all services are held in Ukrainian. The Ukrainian Catholic Church is one of the Eastern Catholic Churches.
Let me be honest. I hate math. I didn't say I can't do it. With two master's degrees and course work in statistics, I can do it. I still hate it. I am sure in the fine print in Genesis when Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden, it includes math along with the curses placed on humanity along with sweat of the brow, and death. To each his own but I would say bad teaching and awful textbooks may be responsible for many kids not being able to do math.
There does seem to be a changing tide coming soon to North America. My parish was almost completely dead five years ago, and now one of the reasons we are talking about removing the pews is because we need more room for people in the nave! Granted, we are a small parish, but the trend here is significant. In addition to Roman transplants and reverts, multiple young men have converted from… EXPAND ▼ nonbelief in the past couple years, and there is a young women beginning to inquire. Some of our young men are also seriously discerning calls to ordination. Also, there are many stories online of young people seeking God and turning to religion. And they don't settle for watered-down, half-secular faith. They already experienced the pains and shortcomings of modernist, godless life. They want the real thing, so they turn to traditional churches and rites (TLM, hardcore Orthodox, etc.). The momentum is growing. In some places, the faith will continue to slowly (or quickly) die. But in others, the light of Christ will shine anew, rekindled - or, rather - resurrected from the death that has befallen our Western societies. Our God rose from the dead and won the war already. Too often, it seems we have forgotten that. If we in the church do not proclaim his victory, then why should someone come join us? We need a change of attitude to one befitting of Christian (life, not death). Maybe then, we will start to see our parishes buck the trend of dying and start living again.
In my area, it seems all the parishes were built just to die. The buildings barely had capacity for their starting congregations, and it was always downhill from there. Combined with very few ordinations, and the result was almost completely disappearing within 1.5 generations. Now, at least in this area, the momentum has changed. We are still way below our former numbers, but I'm confident that will change soon. While my parish seems to have had the greatest comeback so far, it is not the only one. There is reason to hope. So let's not focus on the doom and gloom. Instead, let us be excited for the future that Our Shepherd can bring - widespread renewal with intensity too great for us to imagine at the moment. And let us pray that he will bring it soon. And let us work towards it in our own lives and do what he places in our lives to work towards that future.
I'm not sure what it would be like to try living the faith at a parish that you watch slowly die out over 10, 20, 30 years. Maybe if I lived through the experiences many of you have, I'd have a different outlook. For now, though, it seems to me like we need to stop focusing so much on what has gone wrong and talking like we we're disconnected observers who can't do anything to change it. Let's start talking about hope for the future instead of despair about the past. Christ is risen from the dead, by death he trampled death, and to those in the tombs, he granted life. Let us therefore stop passively waiting for our Eastern Churches to rot in the grave and instead start living like God gave and gives us life (because he does).COLLAPSE ▲
This popped up on my YouTube feed several times since Pascha. St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Church (now Pro-Cathedral) in Van Nuys (now Sherman Oaks), California made this recording in the mid-1960s. The full album is posted on the channel and is excellent! [The parish I was blessed to grow up in sang many of these settings.]
Not only cooler heads, but modern technology. I have often wondered if the schism would have happened if there had been cell phones. If Cardinal Humbert had had a call saying that the pope he represented had died and his authority as that pope's deputy was dead with him, he may have just gone back to Rome quietly.
Greetings. I posted this in another forum in November 2024, but think readers here might like it, too, and perhaps even add interesting comments.
I was in Sicily for two weeks starting in early November 2024, mostly on the island's east coast but I finished in Palermo in its northwest. Some of my father's ancestors came here to New York City from Palermo, Sicily's capital, and from Sciacca, a much… EXPAND ▼ smaller place unmentioned in my travel guide on the west of the south coast. I didn't make it to Sciacca and a few other places I wanted to see. Sicily is small enough that you can travel across its greatest length by car in about 4 hours. I was enrolled in an Italian course in Catania on the south-southeastern slope of Mount Etna so I was constrained a bit travel wise.
Perhaps the most interesting unexpected thing happened while exiting Siracusa by bus after a day trip there heading back to Catania. I spotted another bus - a local, I presume - with the destination Santa Panagia - a quarter in the north of Siracusa. Panagia, a Greek word which means all holy, is an expression for the Virgin Mary popular among the Eastern Orthodox and eastern Catholics. Sicily has long been a crossroads. Arabs and Normans had a big influence in Palermo whereas Greeks had a big influence most strongly on Sicily's east, though the famous ancient Greek ruins in Agrigento are near the center of the south coast. Italian Wikipedia says that Siracusa was strongly tied to the Church in Constantinople in the Byzantine era.
Among the Byzantine Catholic Churches, the Melkite Greek Patriarch has the Primacy of Honor. However, the Italo-Greeks were and are part of the Patriarchate of Rome, which would theoretically put them First. In the Great Schism they sided with Rome since they were in Southern Italy and by God's Grace, survived to this day. Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti! Christ Is Risen! Truly He Is Risen!
Welcome to the forum. We hope your time with us is spiritually enriching.
That said, may I suggest you find a Byzantine prayer book and use it. You will find a regular Morning and Evening prayer rule that may fulfill your needs to begin in this direction. I am a Latin Catholic and I have used this method for over half a century. The discipline of having a structured… EXPAND ▼ prayer life was my life saver when I was a college student and continues today. There is a good prayerbook available from Holy Trinity Monastery that might fill the bill. You may find it on Amazon. There is also a reprint of a Byzantine Catholic prayerbook mentioned on another thread here https://www.sjoc.org/books/our-daily-bread, too.
Welcome to the forum. We hope your time with us is spiritually rewarding.
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Apotheoun posted two videos awhile ago and closed his post with a quote that has me thinking deeply today.
Quote
The word "innovation" was brought up in the first video, and it is important to remember that in the ancient Church that term was just another word for heresy.
Somewhere I have read a challenge of innovators to the effect "let the innovator show how his innovation… EXPAND ▼
Christ is in our midst!!
Apotheoun posted two videos awhile ago and closed his post with a quote that has me thinking deeply today.
Quote
The word "innovation" was brought up in the first video, and it is important to remember that in the ancient Church that term was just another word for heresy.
Somewhere I have read a challenge of innovators to the effect "let the innovator show how his innovation is consistent with the Faith." The Deposit is complete. The Holy Spirit is a spirit of peace and certainty; He is not a spirit of chaos.
My prayer is that the Conclave will give us a pope who will do what Pope St John Paul 2 was elected to do: a course correction to bring clarity after the chaos of myriad interpretations of what Vatican 2 was about.COLLAPSE ▲
This is my very first post, so pls be patient. I have a question that I can't find an answer for. I grew up in the Byzantine rite, went to catholic school, married, had my children chrismated. I stopped going to liturgy for over 15 years but came back and rejoined my parish. I've noticed changes to the liturgy. The biggest two, referring to Mary as Theotokis and standing
This is my very first post, so pls be patient. I have a question that I can't find an answer for. I grew up in the Byzantine rite, went to catholic school, married, had my children chrismated. I stopped going to liturgy for over 15 years but came back and rejoined my parish. I've noticed changes to the liturgy. The biggest two, referring to Mary as Theotokis and standing through the entire liturgy. I was taught to kneel during the consecration and communion. I was never taught to call Mary Theotokis. I had to Google the meaning. There are also small variants in some prayers and the tones of hymns have dramatically changed. I thought I lost it until I found my old school liturgy book to confirm what I knew. Could someone pls be kind enough to answer my question? Sorry for the long post. Thank you.
AnnaG,
Christ is Risen!
“Theotokos” is a Greek word that means “Birthgiver of God.” Our Church Slavonic translation is “Bohorodice.” Some of the very earliest translations used “Birthgiver of God” but this term was found to be inelegant, so most Greek Catholics started using the term “Mother of God.” It is not a literal translation, but it was perfectly understandable and allowed most English speakers to find that relationship with her. Others seemed to consider the use of the term “Mother of God” as a translation for “Theotokos” unacceptable. It seems they fall into two camps. Some consider the use of the term “Mother of God” to be unacceptable because it is a non-literal translation. Others simply think that using the Greek word “Theotokos” to be somehow more Eastern. There seems to be no consideration that Americans simply do not know this Greek word. No official reason was given for the change. And no education was given at all about the revisions to the Divine Liturgy.
Kneeling in the Christian East is more an act of penance than it is humility. In the Christian West it is more an act of humility than it is penance. So in the Roman Catholic Church they kneel on Sundays during the Eucharistic Prayer as an act of humility before God. But since in the Christian East kneeling was more an act of penance and Sundays were day on which we celebrate the resurrection, kneeling was not done since it was a time to replace penance with joy. Byzantine Catholics were caught between both worlds and adopted kneeling as a sign of humility. Today the trend is towards standing on Sundays. miloslav_jc provided some good links to read.
The changes to the music are much more complicated to explain. The revised texts for the Divine Liturgy meant new music books. A cantor from Philadelphia (now deceased) updated the existing settings from 1965 that you probably remember just enough to accommodate the revised texts, but he left any hymn where the texts did not change alone. However, the bishops (through the seminary) instead chose to hire someone to “restore” them to a standard from 1906. The problem with this is that Ruthenians in the United States brought with them slightly different melodies that became the norm here in our parishes. And the process for this new setting of liturgy text placed the preservation of the 1906 melodies over modern American English accentuation. Plus, if you compare any two pieces (from the 1965 and 2007 settings) where the melody and text have not changed, you can find change for change’s sake. This has resulted in clunky music that is no longer as fun to sing. The 2007 settings come across as if English is not our native language. That's really a shame.
Some of the classified documents being de-classified and released by the Trump administration show how the CIA had assets in place in the Vatican to manipulate the elections of Pope John XXIII and Paul VI (working in their favor to help them get elected for their own geo-political reasons). What would this mean for the supposed infallibility of the Popes? If
Some of the classified documents being de-classified and released by the Trump administration show how the CIA had assets in place in the Vatican to manipulate the elections of Pope John XXIII and Paul VI (working in their favor to help them get elected for their own geo-political reasons). What would this mean for the supposed infallibility of the Popes? If CIA can get popes of their choosing elected it throws a real big question mark up on the idea of papal infallibility. I'm not mistaking infallibility for impeccability so that's not the question/argument I'm getting at. I just don't know what this will mean for us as Byzantine Catholics. Do we return to Orthodoxy? Do we remain in communion with Rome but reject papal infallibility (which we should already be doing)? What are your thoughts?
This is a crack pot theory promoted by people that don't like Vatican 2, Pope Francis, and it means nothing for the Byzantine Catholics because every Pope since 1958. Sedevacantism is an insane theory that has no logical backing to it. The church would cease to exist...this idea that the CIA has any control over the Catholic church's leadership is also silly.COLLAPSE ▲
I'm surprised about the quite positive RISU write-up as there were many Ukrainians that "had issues" with Pope Francis. These include the meeting in Cuba with the Moscow Patriarch and the many pronouncements about peace (as opposed to just peace) with Russia.
Perhaps RISU decided that it should pay respects to the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church without bringing up negative, or controversial things, at this solemn time of mourning.
My next to youngest sister has severe scoliosis and has had several surgeries. If you can get it, a surgery might be worth looking into. Christ is risen! And you have my prayers
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