www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Traditional Anglicans Seek Union with Rome

While this is true, it is also true that there are many lay people, priests, bishops and hierarchs who are truly committed to creating a unified Orthodox presence in this country.

Andrew

I think this reunion is going to happen, and it will happen very rapidly. Since his election the Pope has repeatedly talked about ecuminism, and this is a big deal. They will be giving the same status as the Polish Catholic National Church. I hope this happens because it means that Christ is calling his CHurch back together, it's is important to bring back those who feel the reformation is over. Anyway thats my two cents

The presence of uncountable Orthodox jurisdictions in several countries is undeniable. But I submit that the presence of all these parallel jurisdictions within the Catholic communion is even more problematic - because the Roman Primacy is supposed to be able to act in such a way as to promote the unity of the Church pro-actively. This is not just hypothetical. Shortly before the Greek-Catholics arrived in the USA (and we all know what reception the Latin hierarchy gave them), the German Roman Catholic faithful organized a quite strong movement to have a parallel German Catholic hierarchy in the US - and Rome squelched it at once, in spite of considerable pressure from at least two European governments. Rome's consistent policy is that there may be national parishes to serve people of this or that ethnic group, but not national hierarchies overlapping each other.

Why, then, are we faced with this ongoing crazy-quilt, and a constantly worsening canonical situation which (by accident or by design) divides the Greek-Catholic Churches one from another?

David has just posted the following sentence: "Thats why I go the Melkite parish, no Byzantine one nearby." Excuse me? This expression of confusion is an excellent example of what I am complaining about; the Melkite parish is most certainly Byzantine. The same is equally true of the Ukrainian parishes, and so on. [Come to think of it, the Melkite parish is more Byzantine, because the Melkites sing Byzantine chant.]

Sometime in the late nineteen-sixties there was a worth-while article in Diakonia advocating a united, territorial Greek-Catholic hierarchy in the USA, with a practical scheme for how this might be accomplished. The article is still valuable.

Incognitus

But the Catholic Church (notice I did not say Roman) has always included more than one Church. This would be the same thing, I don't think jurisdiction is all that big of an issue, in fact I think that multiple Churchs in Communion with the holy father helps both Latin and Greek, because it allows Americans to see the totality of the faith. This Churchs Bishops are valid and they are making gestures to Rome, which in my opinion demonstrates a much more geniune Collegiality of Bishops than the way most Latin Diocese actually work. Anyway I am firmly in favor of this and I hope to see it come to fruition.

Excuse me? No confusion on my part just on yours.

I happen to belong to the Byzantine Catholic Church. I am sure you still use the word Ruthenian to describe my Church but if you took the time you would notice that my Church has droped that word from its title.

So when I say there is no Byzantine Church in Rochester, that is what I mean. There is no parish from my Church in Rochester.

I am not stupid and I take offence at what you imply here.

Alex,
I understand what you are saying here but what about the Byzantine Catholic Church? It is a sui juris Church that is based solely in America.

A Prayer for the Anglican Use:


O Holy Ghost, the Lord, who gavest the Church the gift of tongues that
Christ might be known by peoples of divers nations and customs:
watch over the Anglican heritage within thy Church, we pray thee,
that led by thy guidance and strengthened by thy grace, that
Anglican Use may find such favor in thy sight that its people may
increase both in holiness and in number, and so show forth thy glory,
who livest and reignest with the Father and the Son, one God,
world without end. Amen.

Dear David,
For the sake of Christ, forgive me. I have certainly not called you stupid, nor would I have any reason to call you stupid. I have implied strongly that you - and many others - are consistently mis-using the term "Byzantine" in such a way as to exclude Churches and people who have every bit as much right to that term as does the Metropolitanate of Pittsburgh.

If the term "Ruthenian" offends you, you are not alone (Ukrainians find it highly offensive, for historical reasons which we needn't go into at the present moment, and the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese also finds it highly offensive). But if you individually or you as a Church want a term which describes the Pittsburgh Metropolitanate and no other Church, such words as "Byzantine" are not available for the purpose.

Incognitus

Think this all you wish but it is very thin skined to do so. How does calling our Church the Byzantine Catholic Church exlude any of the other Byzantine Rite Churches? After all, we are a Church the other is a Rite.

All it takes is a little understanding.

You also said I was confused, if I am not mistaken. I am not confused in any way.

This is an old argument that I have grow tired of fighting.

My Church has seen fit to drop the word Ruthenian, I will follow that.

The term "Ruthenian" does not offend me. You offended me. The term "Ruthenian" does not fit me. I am an American and so are the majority of those in the Byzantine Catholic Church. Whereas the other Byzantine Rite Churches have two things we do not.

1) A large immigrant component
2) A "canonical territory" the lies outside of the United States

The Byzantine Catholic Church is the only Church that fully resides within the USA.

When they made the Anglican Use, why didn't the institute the Sarum Use, since it is an ancient rite and the protestantized Anglican Use is...well, Protestant.

I know it was to "accomodate" those Anglicans who didn't want to give up their liturgical hertiage, but if that were the case, then perhaps we should've given them their truly ancient liturgical heritage and not allowed them to keep the so-called "Anglican Use."

I don't mean to be offensive, so if I was, I apologize.

Any thoughts?

Logos Teen

High Church Anglicans do incorporate features of the Sarum Use. Have you ever looked at the Anglican Use Book of Divine Worship? There is not a thing wrong with it. In fact, the English drafters for the new English Roman Missal should ask for their help.

http://www.walsingham-church.org/mass.htm

http://www.atonementonline.com/GiftNook/GiftNook.php

http://acca.asn.au/Vol1002H/201P1201.html

Fr. Deacon Lance

Dear LT:

The only logical reason I can think of, to "justify" the provision of the "Anglican Use" instead of the ancient "Sarum Rite," is that the conversions happened in the U.S. from Episcopalians, who are, technically "unlike" the Anglicans in the UK and elsewhere.

To these (U.S.) Episcopalians, their "tradition" is the Anglican-related "Book of Divine Worship."

But if conversions were to become wholesale from the worldwide Anglican Communion, there could be that possibility for the "resurrection" of the Sarum Rite, at least for those situated in the UK.

However, even the above scenario might not even come true. These former Anglican parishes could very well be absorbed by the existing Latin Rite parishes, or left free-standing and the "Anglican Use" extended to them (and to worldwide parishes)but each falling under the "supervision" of the local ordinary.

We just love "order" in the Latin Church!

Amado

Dear David,
Having apologized once, I shall be sufficiently un-evangelical as not to do so again. If an objectively verifiable truth offends you, that is your problem.

Once more: the Pittsburgh Metropolitanate has no right to claim for itself exclusively the designation "Byzantine Catholic". That designation also belongs to others. If you cannot recognize that saying "I am Byzantine, but I attend a Melkite Church" is ridiculous, I cannot help you.

Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Metropolitanate is going to considerable effort to rebuild its connections with the other Local Churches which share a common origin in the Eparchy of Mukachiv-Uzhhorod.

Incognitus

Dear DavidB,

It excludes the other Byzantine Catholic Churches by implying that your Church is the Byzantine Catholic Church, rather than a Byzantine Catholic Church. As you know, there are quite a few Byzantine Catholic Churches. Among them are the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, for example.

The word "Ruthenian" is an adjective used to distinguish your Byzantine Catholic Church from the other Byzantine Catholic Churches. This particular Church needs some sort of adjective -- and it doesn't have to be "Ruthenian" -- to distinguish it from the other Byzantine Catholic Churches. By taking the name "the Byzantine Catholic Church" without any qualifying adjective, this Church has appropriated a title that belongs, just as legitimately, to all of the other Byzantine Catholic Churches.

Let me give a parallel example. Several years ago, there was a movement in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church (my own sui juris Church) to rename the Church "The Church of St. Thomas Christians". Thanks be to God, this change did not occur, for it would have been, not only insufficiently specific, but also highly offensive. There are at least five different Churches that are legitimately "Churches of St. Thomas Christians". To call itself the Church of St. Thomas Christians would be to imply that it considered itself to be the one and only Church of St. Thomas Christians. Even if the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church changed its name to "The Catholic Church of St. Thomas Christians" (which would have been a step in the right direction), the name would still have been ridiculously offensive, because there is another "Catholic Church of St. Thomas Christians" -- the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.

Let me give another example: In the last few decades, some evangelical Protestant Christians have taken to calling themselves just "Christian", with no adjective whatsoever. As a Christian (and one who happens to be a Catholic Christian), I take offense at the way in which the word "Christian" has been twisted in many people's minds so as to refer only to evangelical Protestant Christians. In other words, many people think of other Christians (Catholics, Orthodox, etc.) as "not Christian", when this is obviously untrue.

I hope you understand what I am trying to say here. I do not at all mean to be offensive. I have nothing against the (Ruthenian) Byzantine Catholic Church. And I don't know enough about the word "Ruthenian" to either like it or dislike it. It just seems to me that, in a spirit of respect and charity for all of the other Byzantine Catholic Churches, this particular Byzantine Catholic Church ought to use some additional adjective to distinguish itself from the other Byzantine Catholic Churches (though there is no need, in my mind, for that adjective to be "Ruthenian").


Yours in the Peace of Christ,
Alex NvV

Dear Alex NvV,
Thank you for your posting - your points are accurate and well made.
Oddly enough, something similar happened in China - because the Latin missionaries used one Chinese expression for "God" and the Protestant missionaries used a different Chinese expression for "God". As a result, to this day a great many Chinese honestly think that "Catholicism" and "Christianity" are two entirely different religions, having no intrinsic connection!
As Confucius pointed out, words have great power, for good or for ill.

Incognitus