www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News New Byzantine Catholic candidate for sainthood

Dear Friends,

Just a note to say that Catherine Doherty of Madonna House in northern Ontario is now officially a "Servant of God" and her cause is now underway.

She was a Russian born in Nizhni-Novhorod in Russia.

Born into an Orthodox family, she came into union with Rome and dedicated her life to the poor and to Russian spirituality in the "Poustinia."

She founded Madonna House near Combermere and the Shrine of Our Lady of Combermere is now established.

This Russian Byzantine Catholic is venerated by many as a saint and I would like to recommend you all to her prayers.

A site dedicated to her cause is at:

http://www.catherinedoherty.org

God bless,

Alex

Dear Alex,

That is such good news. It's about time the sanctity of some Russians was realized.

However, did she not enter the Latin Church? I confess that I become very disappointed and extremely upset when Orthodox becoming Latins. I find myself terribly sensitive about such things.

If she remained Byzantine and spiritually wedded to Russia, then this is even more good news.

Now when will Tsar Nicholas' cause be taken up? Or are we still not allowed to canonize the Orthodox? :-) Until then, I suppose private veneration in the dark, shadowy icon corner will have to do.

In the matter of sainthood, I would like to present the candidacy of His Grace "al muthal'lath ar'rahmaat" Abi Fanios, Antiochian Orthodox metropolitan of Akkar who was a relative from my village of Dair Atiyeh. He studied in czarist Russia. Son of Antioch though he was, I think that's still enough to qualify one as Russian.

I know he's a saint simply by the fact that he sported long hair <G>, something the Antiochians rarely do now unfortunately. I am told he played good chess.....sounds like the kind of fellow you want to venerate yet, or should I keep going?

In IC XC
Samer

Like her friend Dorothy Day, Catherine Kolyshchkina de Hueck Doherty (called a baroness because she had been married to a Russian minor nobleman, Boris de Hueck, and herself Russian) was a great example of someone with a Catholic worldview &#8212; something often counterfeited by the secular world in the form of liberalism but rarely actually seen &#8212; in her ideals of community life and in promoting racial harmony and charity. Countercultural, even left-wing by the cultural standards of the time (1920s-1940s), but never Modernist.

But Samer is right &#8212; since about 1918 or 1919, this born Orthodox functionally was Roman the rest of her long life (she died aged 89, in December 1985). Why she changed and why she chose to be Roman I have no idea. Madonna House is a Roman community (now Novus Ordo) that has a Byzantine presence today not mainly because of her, but because of retired Melkite Archbishop Joseph (Raya), who has been a associate of MH since the 1950s and now lives there. (The late Helen Iswolsky in New York, OTOH, is an example of a Russian and born Orthodox who became Catholic and remained Eastern.)

Having read a biography of her, titled They Called Her the Baroness, I suspect her submersion of her Orthodox heritage may have been a bending to the prejudice of the times (something rare and out of character for her) that believed (and it's not dead yet) that only Roman is really Catholic. Her work had a lot of detractors and she didn't want her background to be yet another target.

But in the 1920s, in her adopted Canada, she was instrumental in the Roman Catholic archbishop of Toronto, McNeil, actually helping the Russian expatriate community build an Orthodox church. (Much like Aid to the Church in Need's work in Russia today.) He even gave them a chalice to use in the Liturgy. A meaning-filled gesture between apostolic Churches that especially in those un-ecumenical times really meant something. (And not made to appear cheapened by false ecumenism with Protestantism or indifferentism as is sometimes seen today.)

I can't grow my hair long &#8212; it goes Jiffy Pop ugly. But my beard, while a little stringy, is a decent length.

Happy American Thanksgiving. Pray for peace in the world.

http://oldworldrus.com

Dear Samer,

As usual, you ask excellent questions. I wish I had some excellent answers . . .

I don't know if by "Roman Catholic" it is meant that the Servant of God Catherine Doherty joined the Latin Church or a Catholic Eastern Church.

It could have been that she came into the Catholic Church via the Roman Rite, and then moved on into the Byzantine Rite.

The great and holy Melkite Archbishop Joseph Raya collaborated closely with her and her mission.

It is also clear that she was Byzantine-Russian in every which way, promoted authentic Russian spirituality and devotions. Her foundation continues to follow in her footsteps.

The people I know who knew her personally told me she was, in every way, Byzantine.

That's all I know, Friend!

You raise another interesting point regarding Orthodox saints and their veneration in the Catholic Church.

I had numerous discussions on this point with Fr. Serge Keleher when he lived in Toronto and I wanted to share his insights on this.

Fr. Keleher was pastor of St Seraphim of Sarov Greek Catholic Church in Toronto and used the St Herman Orthodox Calendar liturgically, commemorating all the saints listed there for each day, Orthodox and Catholic or both.

He also affirmed that, even though the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are formally separated, they don't question each other's canonizations.

Also, he saw RC prelates at Orthodox canonization ceremonies who took with them copies of the icons of the Orthodox saints who were canonized. For him, this meant that they implicitly recognized and respected the fact of their canonized status.

Catholics may, of course, privately venerate Orthodox saints and vice-versa.

Many Eastern Catholic Churches do liturgically venerate Orthodox Saints and have icons of them in their churches, including their names in the Lityas etc.

The Catholic Church herself has, on occasion, accepted and recognized a number of saints canonized by the Orthodox Church e.g. St. Seraphim of Sarov, St Sergius of Radonezh, St Gregory Palamas etc. These are all mentioned in the Catholic Saints online and other places.

Whenever Orthodox Churches came into union with Rome, they were always allowed to keep their Saints, not canonized by Rome, in their calendars and liturgical celebrations.

Rome today includes in its universal Roman calendar, Sts. Vladimir, Olha, Boris and Hlib/Gleb and Sts. Anthony and Theodosius of the Kyivan Caves Lavra. Yet, all these were glorified saints by the Orthodox Church and Rome simply adopted them into her calendar.

Rome even had a cause for the Orthodox St Job of Pochaev and this didn't go through because the Monastery of Pochaev reverted back to the Orthodox.

But this didn't prevent Roman Catholics and Byzantine Catholics from venerating him as a saint, especially during the ceremony of the papal coronation of the miraculous Icon of Pochaev.

I have an antique medal from that celebration, a Catholic one, and it depicts St Job on the reverse side, halo and all.

World Orthodoxy glorified the Royal Family of Russia, Sts. Nicholas, Alexandra and their children last year in August.

There is therefore no need, based on previous precedent, for anyone in the Catholic Church to start a cause for them.

What would be needed is the simple blessing of the local Ordinary of our Particular Churches to liturgically venerate them in our parishes. I know of some Eastern Catholic parishes who liturgically venerate them already. Rome could also receive them as saints into her own universal calendar, as she did with St Seraphim and others.

The more the liturgical veneration of such Orthodox saints is promoted locally in our Eastern Catholic parishes, the greater the impetus for a universal acknowledgement will be felt.

Another example is the glorification of the Rumanian Wallachian Prince St Constantine and his sons and advisor by the Rumanian Orthodox Church.

The Rumanian Byzantine Catholic Church also, I understand, venerates them as saints, even though they were glorified by the Orthodox Church At a recent ecumenical gathering of both Churches, these Orthodox saints were honoured with a moleben by both Orthodox and Catholics.

I would add in closing that there are already many saints in our respective calendars who belonged to other Churches, even heretical and schismatic groups, who, upon reunion, were kept in the calendars of the local, Particular Churches.

Eventually, they made their way into more universally recognized calendars such as St David of Garesja of Georgia who lived when Georgia was part of the Oriental Orthodox family of Churches.

David was even villified for this theology by Greek theologians of his day and called names by them such as "That putrefaction from Georgia."

Today, he can be found in most Orthodox Calendars.

Holy Tsar-Passion-Bearer St Nicholas and Family, pray unto God for us!

Alex

Dear Serge and Samer,

If you just link up long hair and incorruption of relics, you've got yourself the beginnings of a real cause!

But seriously, St Raphael Hawaweeny of Brooklyn also always described himself as a Slav by adoption since he studied in Kyiv, knew the Old Slavonic, Ukrainian and Russian languages.

This Antiochian was also instrumental in making so many ethnic immigrant groups to the U.S. feel at home, especially the Ukrainians.

After reading his life, I feel St Raphael is truly "one of our own" in terms of the Ukrainian and Russian particular Churches.

This is why I included him on my internet listing of all Ukrainian and East Slavic Saints.

The saint you mention, Samer, sounds like an excellent candidate too!

Alex

[Some even had a cause for the Orthodox St Job of Pochaev and this didn't go through because the Monastery of Pochaev reverted back to the Orthodox.
But this didn't prevent Roman Catholics and Byzantine Catholics from venerating him as a saint, especially during the ceremony of the papal coronation of the miraculous Icon of Pochaev.
I have an antique medal from that celebration, a Catholic one, and it depicts St Job on the reverse side, halo and all.]

I find this quite amazing since St Job was very anti Unia. he even set up Brotherhoods and printing presses to fight the Unia.

Orthoman

Just to add a little input to this thread. Catherine's husband Eddie was ordained a Melkite Catholic priest by Archbishop Joseph M. Raya.
--------------------------------------------

To me, Eddie was always a priest of God, which made it an awesome privilege to place my hands on his head and consecrate him, at 79 years of age, a priest forever. So it is a great and awesome privilege to praise and bless Father Eddie Doherty, the first priest I ordained, the first fruit of my fatherhood as a bishop.

---- Archbishop Joseph M. Raya


http://www.madonnahouse.org/doherty/eddie.html

----------------------------------------

Joe Prokopchak
archsinner

Just to add a little input to this thread. Catherine's husband Eddie was ordained a Melkite Catholic priest by Archbishop Joseph M. Raya.


By that point (1969) there may have been some Byzantine presence at Madonna House, thanks to Archbishop Joseph's influence, but I think Eddie Doherty's move to the Melkites wasn't so much from a shift Eastward in Catherine's work but because he had asked for and been denied a dispensation as a married man to become a priest in the Roman Church. The fact that he was twice married (widowed long before marrying Catherine in 1943*) was another impediment, but Archbishop Joseph knew somehow how to get around that, hence Fr Eddie Doherty.

*After several years of normal married life, early on in the history of Madonna House the Dohertys moved into separate cells and lived as brother and sister, because the rest of MH's members were celibate and possibly so that MH would be approved by the Church as a secular institute (quasi-religious order).

Recently I read that at least at some point in their lives together, St John (Sergeev) of Kronstadt (tsarist Russia, died 1908?) and his wife lived like this. A podvig some saintly couples have chosen voluntarily, but obviously not for everyone.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 11-23-2001: Message edited by: Serge ]

Serge,

Fr. Eddie Doherty was ordained after Catherine died.

Joe Prokopchak
archsinner

Dear Orthoman,

When you're good, you're great!!

You are absolutely right, St. Job opposed the Unia as you say.

When the Basilians were in charge of the Pochaev Monastery, St Job's anti-unionist attitudes did not escape their notice and they decided to "lock up" his Relics.

As you know, St Job was glorified an Orthodox Saint in 1654 I believe it was by Metropolitan Dionysius Balaban (of whom my wife is a direct descendant, I will proudly add).

The fact that he was an Orthodox saint also didn't endear him to the monastery's new owners.

But St Job was a national saint, venerated by both Orthodox and Catholics as a national hero and saint in opposing Roman Catholicism and the incumbent cultural oppression and denationalization that came with its colonial confessors in those days.

People of all faiths, including Roman Catholics not only flocked to venerate the Pochaev Mother of God Icons and Her Footprint, but also St Job of Pochaev himself. One of the 21 miracles celebrated on the back walls of the Lavra include one involving the cure of a Roman Catholic woman of blindness - she promptly became Orthodox in thanksgiving.

Soon the Basilian Fathers unlocked the little chapel where they had enclosed St Job's relics for the public veneration of the faithful.

In his monumental work on the Lavra (in Ukrainian), Metropolitan Ilarion Ohienko has photocopies of letters from the Basilian Archimandrites of Pochaev to Rome introducing the "Venerable Job's" Cause there and even mentioning that Rome was favourably disposed toward the veneration of this holy man of God.

Even Basilian publications themselves often contained a little icon of a monk praying before the Pochaev Mother of God. There is never an inscription to this icon or picture. But it is definitely St Job of Pochaev, something that Ohienko also points out. He himself included that picture in his book and shows how it is St Job.

While St Job was zealous in his defence of his Church and nationality against the encroachments of Catholicism, this was not the only thing that characterized his life.

His piety and asceticism and great devotion to the Mother of God are things that all Christians can celebrate about him.

Today, Byzantine Catholics can discuss the history of the Unia and can assess it critically, as can and do Roman Catholics and Orthodox.

St Job of Pochaev, pray unto God for us!

Alex

Fr. Eddie Doherty was ordained after Catherine died.

He was ordained a priest in 1969. Catherine died in 1985. She outlived him.

http://oldworldrus.com

Alex, I remember on another thread you mentioned St Job of Pochaev. He was anti-Unia but I don't know of any brutality like that the Orthodox (in part quoting Catholic writers of the time) accuse (St) Josaphat of. His position may be problematic from Catholicism's POV, but one could see him as representing the position "better no union than false union', a view not foreign to Byzantine Catholics themselves. In one of my books of hours I have a picture of him, copied from ROCOR's Velikyj Sbornik (the big multivolume set from 1951, from the St Job of Pochaev Press at Jordanville). Ironically, the book itself is The Hours of Prayer, itself translated and abridged, with Latin-style woodcut pictures for each hour, from a book published when Pochaev was in the hands of the Catholic Basilians. (I have one of the old six-ring little notebook versions, which I customized by adding Slavonic pages before getting &#8212; as a gift &#8212; my own all-Slavonic &#0269;asoslov.)

BTW, this past Wednesday on the archangels' feast day I chanted the Apostol at Liturgy in Slavonic for the first time.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 11-23-2001: Message edited by: Serge ]

Dear Serge,

Thank you for your scholarly note!

You are right, of course, about St Job.

It was all he and his monks could do to survive under very real brutality on the part of the "New Hagarenes" as his service mentions.

He had to dig a well for the needs of his monastery within the monastery precincts since when he and his monks ventured to the river, they were often set upon and beaten by Catholics, both Latin and Greek.

Again, his printing press was mainly concerned about keeping the Orthodox liturgical and East Slavic cultural traditions alive and unaltered, something that became a problem with the advent of the Unia.

Instead of argument, he often chose the Jesus Prayer as his response in situations that perhaps required a more overtly affirmative tone.

Another example of this is the Orthodox St Athanasius of Brest, martyred by Catholics for his condemnations of the Unia at the time of the Kozak revolts beginning in 1649.

Athanasius objected to the Catholic gendarmes attending the Divine Liturgy and listening for the people to say "And the Son" in the Creed. They didn't but added instead, "Istynno" etc.

He went to the Polish Parliament and loudly warned them of God's retribution if they persisted in imposing the Unia by force.

The King then sent Athanasius back to his Metropolitan Peter Mohyla, favourably disposed to rapprochement with the West, who told him to behave himself.

After the first Kozak victories over the Polish armies, the Jesuits arrested Athanasius, questioned him for some time before he was taken out, forced to dig his own grave, shot twice in the head, and was then buried while still alive.

Both Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics joined in pilgrimages in his honour on his feast, September 18. The Jesuits then appointed Sept. 16 as the feast of St Josaphat to keep Eastern Catholics from venerating St Athanasius who was also seen as a national hero, his anti-unionism not harming their religious fervour toward him.

Andrew Sheptytsky ordered the feast of St Josaphat to be restored to its original November 12 (25 Old Calendar).

The charges of actual physical violence against Josaphat were frequently made.

As someone who, I regret to say, dropped my veneration of St Josaphat some time ago, only to pick it up now, I have yet to see any real evidence from either Catholic or Orthodox side (everyone attacked him it would seem) to back this up.

He did have some agitators arrested on the day of his death. They were convinced that he was torturing and killing Orthodox and this action only got their blood going all the more.

Orthodox writers I have read about this episode have been horribly shocked themselves over the bloodthirsty brutality with which those Orthodox rioters killed Josaphat.

As you know, even Meletius Smotrytsky, his rival, became a Uniate in his despair over perhaps being the instrument of Josaphat's death.

Melety Solovey in his book on Josaphat relates the episode, attested to by Orthodox sources, when Orthodox Christians came to view the body of Josaphat lying in state in his cathedral.

A number of them were overcome with emotion and kissed his right hand. Again, his death occasioned further conversions to Rome.

It can also be shown that accusations of physical violence for purposes of conversion were used regularly by both sides in this entire sorry period of our respective Churches' history.

I like the fact that the services to St Josaphat have now been stripped of what could be seen as their former anti-Orthodox content.

I also pray the Akathist to St Job where there are definite anti-Uniate barbs.

But I understand these as criticisms of the way the Unia was being handled at the time, criticisms I agree with so I don't any conflict in terms of my being an Eastern Catholic and praying this akathist which I think we all should.

The history of the cult of Josaphat in the Byzantine Catholic Church was punctuated by bishops who tried to "downplay" his cult, especially non-Basilian Eastern Catholic Metropolitans of Kyiv. He still remains a controversial figure for the Orthodox and it is incumbent upon Byzantine Catholics to be sensitive to this.

God bless,

Alex

I can personally guarantee anyone that the cult of Nicholas Romanov is not and will not be approved in the Pittsburgh Metropolia.

I think the practice of not initiating any comment on this topic by our bishops and others is extremely charitable, and those who push this issue in Ruthenian circles insult the charity of us who do not initiate comments.

Martyered Victims of Nicholas Romanov, Pray for us!

Why would Ruthenians hate Tsar Nicholas II? What did he ever do to them or to you? They lived across the border, over the Carpathians, quietly governed by Emperor Franz Josef (I remember a Ruthenian church years ago that had a portrait of his mustachio'd self in the basement hall). A hundred years ago many of them identified with Russia and the Tsar. (The Ruthenians' Amerikanskyj Russkyj Vestnik mentioned in another thread was printed at the time in an attempt at standard Russian.)

Today, though, after a hundred years of derussification, Slovakization, Americanization and latinization, I can imagine the Ruthenians I used to know being at worst indifferent to Tsar Nicholas II.

I for one think Alex is right &#8212; born Orthodox canonized by our Orthodox Churches already have been added locally to Catholic calendars (the Russian Catholics commemorate everybody in the OCA's meniaon).

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 11-24-2001: Message edited by: Serge ]