www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News 2005 stats for the world's Eastern Rite Catholics

Which begs the question...what is Christ's vision for the Church?

How about...

"Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them all I have commanded you and lo I am with you to the end of the age."

Hmmmm....

The Apostolic Mandate divinely revealed is a pretty compelling vision. No need to rewrite anything. It is in the Gospels. And every local church is to be an apostolic outpost.

All we need to do is to unleash the Byzantine Orthodox lion, remove the cage walls such as artificial language barriers (where no significant immigrant population exists) and any residual Latinizations (such as the dormition of minor orders) and educate, equip and empower the people to evangelize...all the while ordaining men to ministry at a rate that anticipates growth, not decline. If you build it, they will come!

You also streamline where you have a great deal of duplication of effort and allocation of resources (smaller churches on the same block, for instance), convert those plant resources into dollars and tools for missioning and channel funds into areas of growth and potential growth.

Add to that, have our bishops, priests and deacons preach the love of God and of our Holy Faith and its place at the three altars of life - church, home and work. Preach the Gospel as something to live as well as something that is life-changing.

And then leave room for the Holy Spirit to work.

Gordo

You know if it were that easy...I wish, but after a conversation I had this weekend I'm starting to wonder.

A visitor at my church who attends another Byzantine Church in another city was astonished that our Liturgy ran more than one hour. Then she preceeded to say "what happened to the 45-minute Liturgy?"

Needless to say, this person then went on and said the Byzantine Church will go away because our Liturgy is too long. "People will go to the Roman Catholic Church because it's faster."

Then came the Orthodox/Byzantine issue where she very forcefully said "We are not Orthodox!" I pointed out articles published by the Vatican, in which they refer to us as Orthodox and she just shook her head. Then I asked her if she had ever been to an Orthodox Church and she said no. I think we all need to bus our people to an Orthodox Church for services one Sunday....they would all be so surprised!

I told her we need more catechisis, and she said no, "we just need a shorter Liturgy!" At that point I just gave up.....

She's fairly young (40-50s), but terribly uneducated about the Byzantine Church and I'm afraid that sums up most of the people in the pews. Evangelization must also include catechisis to our own people, otherwise anything we do will be futile, and we won't have the support of the average Joe.

I've seen a lot of funerals, and far fewer Baptisms and Weddings over the past few years, but I did not realize that the dropoff has been so steep. Truly depressing!

How depressing are these stats!!

The remedy is obviously evangelization.....

....however, are we getting any support from the hierarchy? How many of our priests are actively promoting evangelization? Set aside a few of the parishes, priests, blogs, and websites we know about, what is being done proactively?

It is so nice to see the movment and energy here on this forum, but how far, or how much does it extend beyond this "online parish?"

We cannont continue to tread water just to survive another 10-20 years. Appeal to your priests and hierarchs.

Solutions, in no paticular order:

-Mass media. Look at what the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese has on their website. We need multimedia and mass media programs. Why don't we have an "Ancient Faith Radio" on the net like the Orthodox do? Exposure, exposure, exposure!!!!!

-Internet. Every parish should have a wesbite, and if they cannot afford it, a template page should be provided like what the OCA website has. And every eparchial website should look nice too; the Archeparchy of Pittsburgh site comes to mind, along with the OCA one. It will be worth the money spent. We live in a technological world now.

-Advertisement. Advertise in the local Roman Catholic Diocesan newspapers, lay newspapers, make sure you are in the yellow pages. Be a visble parish in your city and town.

-Monasticism. It's crucial. We have 3 UGCC monasteries of sketes here in the States, but they are never talked about or actively supported. Clergy and our hierarchs never talk about them. These monks give their whole life to prayer. They should be supported for being the spiritual powerhouses they are.

-Liturgy. Good liturgy = good theology. Also, do what you can to support the singing in your parish since it is so crucial for a Divine Liturgy. If a guest comes to a service and it is memorable and beautiful, they will return.

-Education. Hold workshops or a series called something like "An Intro to the Eastern Churches." Advertise it. Get the support of other Eastern parishes in your area. Encourage your neighboring parishes to come.

-Seminaries. We NEED properly and well educated priests. Why can't we have seminaries with the good reputation like St. Vladimir's or Holy Cross? Thank God for the Shepytsky Institute and their work, but they aren't a seminary. We NEED to actively support our seminaries and seminarians. They are our future leaders. Invest in them.

-Art. Does your church have iconography? Does your church even have a sign indicating it is a church? A golden dome really stands out, as apposed to a long, rectuangular building with no sign or cross (yes, parishes like that exist). Have a "Welcome" sign infront of your parish. It shows we aren't some sort of an ethnic-only parish.

-Festivals. Hold festivals and picnics. They Greeks have perfected this. They almost always inculde church tours. It's education and fun all wrapped into one event.

-Pray. Pray for our hierarchs, priests, monastics, nuns, and seminarians. Pray that the Holy Spirit may inspire them like it did the first leaders of the Church on Pentecost. Our situation is URGENT!!! Action needs to be taken now!! Pray for them!


Those are only my ideas. But we can all agree that something has to be done, or we're looking at one or two eparchies per jurisdiction in 20 years, if even that.

Bishops and priests, please help us and the Church on this one.

-uc

The Ebed Melech has got it yet again. The mission of the Church has not changed and some seem to think they need to something strange or new. Taking the Gospel to all nations is still on the menu, it was never off of any of us.

Actually, my menu for the time being consists of a healthy portion of crow marinated for 24 hours and a pint of horseradish sauce right now! :p

But that aside... :p

Let us do what we should and do well what we do, always for love for the God of love!

Gordo

This is offered as an observer who is Latin Catholic-

Could part of the decline in numbers be due to the modern-day diaspora that led to significant numbers of Byzantine Catholics leaving Pennsylvania and Ohio?

The (Latin) Diocese of Pittsburgh once had more than 1 million Catholics. Now, it is about 800,000, due in part to the closing of the steel mills in the 1980s and corporate mergers/buyouts/takeovers subsequently.

Many parishes have far more funerals than weddings - and many of those weddings include a former parishoner who grew up there but now lives in Columbus/Washington, DC/Atlanta/etc. Now, us Latins can find parishes almost anywhere - the numbers in North Carolina are growing rapidly - but the Ukranian and Rusyns would have a much harder time finding a parish in the South or West.

In any case, evangelization and orthodoxy are the keys.

Gordo,

That is the only way to turn stats like this around. Make it a part of us and proclaim the message of the Gospel.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

PS Good news, you can barbeque the crow also . They do have hibachis in Japan .

You could of course always wrap them in tinfoil and do them in the oven on a low slow heat. Having eaten cockatoos (yum!) I presume crow would also cook this way.

The whole country is covered by eparchys. If they left one they would turn up in another so they would normally be picked up stats wise.

Something we can all do by ourselves is witness in our own lives to the teaching of the Gospels. That is very powerful and many have come to know Jesus this way.

Cathy is right about the apathy in the pew, although I don't think having a "Sunday School" to make them better Catholics is going to work.

I truly believe that the Catholic Church no longer believes in itself. The whole purpose of the Church is to save ones soul PERIOD! The people in the (Catholic)pews do not believe in sin and eternal damnation anymore. There are no confession lines and the entire congregation rises to go to communion on Sunday. We are either in the company of perpetual saints, or people who have lost their faith and my money is on the latter.

Since the 1960's, the Catholic Church now believes that Grace and the means for salvation can be found just about anywhere (if you are a Jew, be a good Jew, if you are a Moslem, be a good Moslem and etc.) We have Hindu's doing rituals at the Fatima shrine, Buddha setting on top of a tabernacle in Assisi and Moslems occupying Catholic Churches in Belgium.

This kind of stuff would not happen in the Orthodox Church (keep in mind I am Catholic). The Orthodox Church believes it is the true Church of Christ. In other words, they stand for somthing, unlike the Catholic Church (East and West) which has become pathetic.

In our American culture as everything moral is turned on its ear, people long to have something to hold on to; something that is stable. They want a belief system that stands in contrast to the crazy world they find around them.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Orthodox counterpart to the BCC (the OCA?) did not loose over half its membership in the past 15 years (so much for the "moving away" theory). I know for a fact that the SSPX, regardless of what you think about them, has experienced tremendous growth in the last 15 years. I understand that there are droves of ex-Anglicans headed for the Antiochian Orthodox jurisdiction, where there are more convert clergy than there are cradle clergy. From what I understand, Fundamentalist Protestantism is doing well also. What is the common denominator here?

The common denominator is that people are sick and tired of panzy leadership that will not stand firm in their conviction. They are also sick and tired of ecclesiastical terrorists who try to destroy their faith in the name of obedience. People want to be challenged, not pacified with a "lovey/huggy" sermon that could be delivered at the Masonic Temple without offending anybody.

Since a new wave of Eastern European immigrants is unlikely to show up to save the BCC, the ONLY way the BCC is going to survive is to bring western christians into their ranks, and the only way this is going to happen is to stand firm in tradition and conviction. A disgruntled RC or Anglican is not going to go to a parish that is going to give them an inclusive language Liturgy (i.e. wake up BCC!). They will go somewhere like the SSPX or Orthodox Church where they can hold on to something solid even though, and because, it stands in contrast to the world around them. Also, these communities BELIEVE that conforming to the pure and unadulterated faith, however they define it, is necessary for salvation.

I agree with Athanasios: an "inclusive" language Liturgy and other deviations will not attract people to our churches. Many orthodox Catholics will not be happy with the proposed liturgy translation. Even those who are more culturally BC will be alienated from the Liturgy because of the changes in text and music. I'm more concerned about the first group because that is the category many newcomer BC's fit in -- ones who have chosen the BC tradition. But the parishes that are composed of the remnant of the "cradle" BC's who might not even know why they don't like the new text will nevertheless be alienated -- finish off definitely those kind of parishes.

I didn't finish my last post correctly, I meant:

These deviations in our Liturgy will "finish off definitely those kind of parishes"

As a former Latin Catholic who went East to get away from liturgical and catechetical horrors, I couldn't agree with you more. Excellent post!

Dn. Robert

The stats on the demise of the Ruthenian Church is beyond shocking. To add to this the Bishop's are quick to close churches, rather than find a way to save them. Some of these old Bishops that are beyond retirement age should be replaced with someone who has some new ideas on how to be good shepards rather than accountants.

The question is who is going to make them offer to resign at 75yrs. I think a few know only to well that their offer will be rushed through at great speed and therefore are not even going to make a move.