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Dear Dr. Eric,

The Old Ritualist Orthodox do indeed touch their foreheads and bodies when making the Sign of the Cross - in fact, it is a principle with them to ensure that the forehead and body really "feels" the "striking" of the fingers during the tracing of the Sign.

Old Believers I've met insist on making the Sign of the Cross this way.

Alex

Speaking of which, sort of...

Father Hank Grodecki, the new director of the National Association of the Miraculous Medal presided at Mass yesterday at the Shrine Church. I noticed that he blessed us with his hand in the Christogram. Must be his Polish roots or something.

Dear Dr Eric,

You've raised a fascinating point!

In the West, ONLY the Pope of Rome now blesses using the Christogram . . .

I don't know if this came about due to usage, convention or what have you.

I've never seen a formal rule to this effect either.

And more and more RC priests ARE using the Christogram - why shouldn't they?

Alex

I guess my perception, and my original post was due to wondering whether people saw moves to communion with Rome as response to the priest issue, whether for ecclesiological o other reasons. On a related issue; with the relative rapprochement of priested groups with the Orthodox, are there now proportionally more priestless Old Believers?

And what responsesare now most common among the Priestless to umm..replenishment issues? Are most now willing to accept mariage by Orthodox clergy based on the economy principle?

NW

Ned, even the priestly still pretty much keep to themselves. The Erie group is in the minority of those Old Ritualists who have established communion with a post-Nikonian Orthodox church (in their case ROCOR). Most have not. Each soglas determines what their canonical relations are with other groups.

Actually Erie was priestless and gravitated towards becoming priestly. Several other groups in Oregon and Alaska have done the same. It seems the movement towards becoming "popovtsy" is far more common than the priestly becoming priestless.
FDD

Supplimenting Father Deacon's information regarding the Erie community, a majority of the group went for the priesthood there. The is a small portion that chose to remain priestless, and have set up their own prayer house. I have this by a member of that community (the portion that joined ROCOR).

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the "United Old Believers" (united with the "Nikonian" Churches, that is) have done nothing to make other Old Believers more comfortable with being "priested."

However, the Bila Krinitsa and one or two other priestly Old Believer Churches have done much to recover their heritage and to canonize their saints - Bila Krinitsa's calendar lists so many of the martyrs for the Old Ritual, they canonized St Ambrose etc.

There has even been an Old Believer Patriarch declared for one of the Churches.

And these priested Old Believers have gone far in relations with the Moscow Patriarchate - that does respect them tremendously and has little problem recognizing them along various planes.

Some have suggested, in internet articles, that the Moscow Patriarch might consider receiving St Avvakum the Old Believer into the general Russian calendar.

And during the last Synod of the ROC, there was a committee report on the situation of the "United Believers" or "Yedinovertsy" and it was lamented that there are, today, few such parishes of the Old Rite that represents one of the "Two Rites of the one Russian Orthodox Church."

When Old Believers come into a "uniate" status with the Nikonian Orthodox, they tend to feel the same kinds of strains that EC's often do!

For one thing, they are in communion with a Church that has saints, such as St Dmitri of Rostov, who were quite against the Old Rite - even though the Old Rite uniates don't have to accept them into their local calendars.

I've yet to hear of any United Believer groups being allowed to venerate their own Saints and Martyrs, such as St Avvakum - only Bila Krinitsa and the priested Churches do this because they now have a hierarchy that has canonized them.

So to my mind the United Believers are, in a number of ways, diminished by having communion with "Nikonian Orthodoxy" as such.

I believe they need to have their own priested Church, preferably with their own Patriarch, united with each other, with their own canonized Old Rite saints and martyrs and traditions intact - only then can they deepen relations with the Moscow Patriarchate and ultimately achieve a communion where the fullness of their patrimony is maintained.

Spasi Khrystos!

Alex

I basically tend to agree with Alex's analysis above. Incidentally, a priestless parish in Minsk has just joined the Moscow Patriarchate and been promised a priest to serve according to the Old Rite.

By the way, the "Old Orthodox Patriarch" heads what is probably the smallest Old Rite group with clergy - half of his followers decamped when he proclaimed himself "Patriarch" a few years ago.

As to Saints: Rome's usual policy is that when some group or other enters into communion, they bring their liturgical calendar with them, unless there is some saint on that calendar to whom Rome has a particular objection (thus, for example, the Chaldean Catholics do not commemorate "Saint Nestorius" nor do Syrian Catholics commemorate "Saint Severus").

To the best of my limited knowledge, no one at all has protested the glorification of Saint Ambrose of Bielaia Krinitsa, to take an immediate example - if anyone were going to protest, it would be the Ecumenical Patriarchate, since he was their hierarch, but they were notified of the glorification shortly after it occurred and they have not issued any rejection of it. Moscow hardly gets to vote, since he was never connected with the Russian State Church, and never set foot on their territory in any capacity at all.

Incognitus

Indeed, brat' Olexandr. One can look at the reasons mentioned in this thread and elsewhere, and see why only a very small minority have approached communion with either the ROCOR or the MP.

I certainly agree that the rapproachment from these minority "unionist" groups has helped to thaw the ice, but that really only began fairly recently with Patriarch Pimen's proclamation of the 1970s proclaiming dignity for the Old Rite - sort of their version of Leo XIII and Orientalium Dignitas.

St. Avvakum is not even mentioned in the Erie Old Rite prayer book calendar, so it does make one wonder. In Nikolaevsk and other Old Rite communities they have icons of him and keep his feast day; one can obviously find icons of him as in Bila Krinitsa and other places. At least the last time I was in Erie a number of years ago, there was no icon of St. Avvakum to be found.

It is a bit analogous to the Greek Catholics. The larger Old Rite soglasnie watch the likes of Erie and obviously aren't enticed to larger communion, much as the larger Orthodox churches look at the Greek Catholics and say "no, thank you".
Spasi Khristos!
FDD

Father Deacon,

I have it on a reliable source that the Old Rite parish in Erie does have an icon and shrine to Saint Avvakum. Why it was left out of their prayerbook could be a matter between ROCOR and the parish.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Yes - I am still a bit disturbed with the lack of any Old Rite martyrs from their otherwise quite detailed calendar, and no mention of St. Avvakum on the website. It has admittedly been quite a few years since I have been there (aging memory another thing entirely), and it is wonderful that they have an icon and shrine to St. Avvakum. I need to get back up there.
FDD

Fr. Theodore certainly is a superb iconographer, and the Erie community is most blessed to have him. His work at Erie and other places is very beautiful (such as his work on the icons at St. Elias in Brampton).
FDD

Hey. Thanks Diak.

When I talked about rapprochement, I was thinking earleir. I have here an essay saying that after the council of Moscow in 1779 a number of priested groups in Russia acknowledged in some way the authority of the Moscow patriarchate. And the Priested groups that did not participate in this remained relatively stable in numbers ever since. Is that right?

Is it right to infer from your comments that a lot of priested groups have emerged since from the priestless? In a way I find that interesting, since one of the things that comes through in the Roman Rite is also the fact that parishes in Australia can't imagine being without clergy, with some exceptions. Lay people consistently express a desire to change church discipline or the understanding of the Eucharist to deal with the problem, rathere than take on reponsibility for the parish community. I probably generalise, Pavel in rural WA might differ on that! And the Eastern Rites view things differently. But I wonder if it reflects the desire of people in the West for leadership or guidance, and the insecurities and difficulties of having community our fractured societies.

Ned W

Dear Fr. DIAKon,

It is almost like the Western Orthodox of the Antiochian jurisdiction . . .

The "Rite of St Tikhon" or former Anglicans maintain their devotion to St Charles I, King and Martyr and I believe the webstie of St Mark's in Colorado does make mention of him (Jan. 30) on an "on and off" basis.

An Antiochian Orthodox priest of the Rite of St Tikhon that I know (convert from Episcopalianism whose parents were Ukrainian Jews), actually set up a shrine to the Anglican St Charles in his parish church - and so far so good!

He also distributes icons of St Charles painted by an English Orthodox monk . . .

The Antiochians, he says, will look the other way . . .

Alex

Ned - could you enlighten me as to the "council of Moscow in 1779"?

In any event, the key happening in the Old Rite was several decades later - in 1846, when Saint Ambrose joined and restored the three-fold hierarchy to the Old Ritualists.

Incognitus