www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Is Rome and Orthodoxy really ready to unite?

There is also de facto intercommunion in the Middle East between Antiochian Orthodox and Melkite Greek Catholics

Dear Mexican and Brian,

You are both correct, of course.

Once again my tendency to exaggerate for emphasis has proven my undoing!

My motto should be open mouth-insert foot

I still hope that you could see my point in spite of my folly. The limited intercommunion in the Soviet Union in some years and in Syria today are pastorally sensitive, and praiseworthy as far as they go. These situations are notable largely because they are the exception and do not reflect a change in official positions of the respective churches.

If I had been more precise I could have written that the hierarchs involved might chose to share communion in formal unity. In which case I still believe that there would be further fragmentation.

I would be delighted to know an Orthodox priest is willing to allow me the chalice (as rare as that is), but I am fully aware that this does not change his churches' position toward the Catholic communion.

It may be that reunion of all the churches will only happen when the pewpeople want it, or when Christ DEMANDS it!

Your friend in Christ,
Michael

AMEN, my brother!!!!!!!!!!!! May God speed the day when we can again share the Holy Mysteries in a spirit of love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the reverse was true also in the Gulags and elsewhere, where both Latin and Byzantine Catholic clergy rendered spiritual care and administered the sacraments to their fellow Orthodox prisoners of conscience and faith in instances where there were no Orthodox clergy available to do so.*

Many years,

Neil

*I realize there is a distinction to be made here, in that any Catholic stance vis-a-vis intercommunion with the Orthodox has seldom been as stringently enunciated as from the other side and has especially long distinguished necessity and unavailability. However, it is notable in that the strict Orthodox stance would ordinarily prohibit their faithful from being communed or receiving the Mysteries from Catholic clergy, usually under threat of excommunication. No such anathemas were pronounced in these instances.

And I suspect the same is soon to come, if not already happening in some instances, between the Chaldeans and Assyrians.

Many years,

Neil

On the West Coast USA there are some Antiochian Orthodox parishes that are allowed to give the sacraments (Holy Confession, Holy Communion, Holy Unction) to Eastern Catholics who have no local church to attend. These Eastern Catholics do not feel comfortable attending a novus ordo mass having grown up attending the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

In addition, people of interfaith (Roman Catholic-Orthodox) marriages are allowed to have both an Orthodox and a Catholic godparent for their children. However, I disagree with this practice because I have seen some of these children get beaten up by Roman Catholic and Orthodox children who do not understand.

We are not ready for reunion yet. It will take an act of the Holy Spirit! When my family joined the Eastern Catholic Church - the Church of my French-Lebanese heritage, most of my Catholic friends said that I had abandoned the Catholic faith and they would not speak to me. My own Roman Catholic Confessor said that I need not come back because I was in schism. Needless to say, I was heartbroken but determined to join the church of my ancestors. Furthermore, a few Roman Catholic Priests at some local parishes here in Los Angeles have been known to call the Eastern Catholics "schizmatics." Even some Maronites call Byzantine Catholics "schizmatics." It's so sad to see this division among Catholics. A lot of education and repentance is needed -- all of us need repentance.

Today, another forum said that I have no right to call myself "Orthodox Catholic" even though my husband and I now belong to the Antiochian Orthodox Church from which the term "Catholic" originated. St. Ignatius was the third bishop of Antioch!

This labeling has got to stop.

Yours in Christ our God,
Elizabeth

O Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us and save us.

Elizabeth,

I'm having trouble understanding the context in which this might happen ??? Could you elaborate, please?

Many years,

Neil

Maybe not ready for full administrative unity but if the RC can fix the liturgical discipline... and the Orthodox have a less bitter attitude against Rome, sacramental intercommunion under special cases can be reached.

If the Syriac Church of Antioch (Non-Chalcedonian) has accepted intercommunion with Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox in certain situations, while the Coptic monophysites refuse.. a certain level of intercommunion can be reached between Catholics and Orthodox because of pastoral situation. It's a matter of fact that in Latin America, Orthodox people have had to ask RC priests for sacarments when there is no church (and this is almost always the case, until modern times).

I still do not understand why a Catholic of any rite would go to a non-Catholic Church when there is a Catholic Church available. If there were no Roman Rite Parish available to me, I wouldn't go to an SSPX Chapel or an Anglican Church just because the ritual was closer to what I'm used to, I'd go to the nearest Eastern Rite Catholic Church.

Dear Neil:
In one situation a little boy and his sister were attending the local OCA church. They were baptized Orthodox by a Jesuit priest who had converted to Orthodoxy. The Orthodox priest told the mom that they had dual citizenship: Roman and Orthodox. This priest is recently departed. He was born in Russia and celebrated Divine Liturgy for Catholic nuns until he died. Anyway the little boy told the Orthodox youth that he was a Roman Catholic and they beat him up. When she took him out of the OCA and into a Roman Catholic Parish the confused boy admitted to the Catholic boys that he had been baptized Orthodox. There were some hard feelings there too until the Catholic boys were properly instructed.

With godparents in both churches, the child gets confused because each Sunday he finds himself receiving Communion in a different church -- and the other kids wonder why he is not stable -- there every Sunday. Do you now see where problems can occur?

Dear Mary Elizabeth:

I myself was badly treated by Roman Catholics when I was in the Eastern Catholic Church. They didn't like my ethnicity. They considered me to be anti-American. It was difficult. So some Eastern Catholics would rather go to an Orthodox Church where they can bow to venerate the Icon and make a prostration - where this is not proper within a Roman Catholic Church. We still have a lot of evangelization to do within both Churches.

Hope this helps. Have a Merry Christmas.

Elizabeth Maria