www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Perhaps some testimonies are in order

My parents are Atheist/Agnostic and I only went to church a handful of times with extended family/friends as a kid. I would say I grew up with no religious inclination whatsoever. The first real flicker I can recall were some experiences while on a high school trip to the Soviet Union in the 80�s.

Two experiences in college were the turning point for me. I began attending mass regularly with some friends and fell in love with it. I read the Gospels for the first time and found the person and life of Jesus Christ to just spoke directly to my soul.

I attended Latin Rite services for the most part in several different parishes. Usually though at the one run by the priests at my college. I also did some reading about the history of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and attended services in a few of those parishes. I was very close to formally joining the church in college but held off. While in college I also attended a couple of Orthodox liturgies and high church Anglican services to see what they were like.

I fell out of church for a while after graduating, but thought about it a lot. When my wife and I started going to church it was to Protestant services because that was her background; though her Dad was Catholic (but had left the church) and she prayed the Rosary with her Grandmother as a kid. I definitely could tell I wasn�t a Protestant though. Eventually we settled on the Episcopal church, though it felt like a way station and in the back of my mind was always the idea of Catholicism as an eventuality.

Anyways, about two years ago something sparked my interest in Eastern Christianity again and I began taking an intensive look at the theology of the church. I have to admit up until that point I didn�t really investigate the theology of the respective churches I had attended a great deal. I think I always had this underlying assumption that the differences were varying cultural manifestations of the same thing. I basically decided my whole theological outlook was Eastern and one day out of the blue I pretty much told my wife I was going to become Orthodox. I had not at that point been to an EO liturgy since attending one in college fourteen years earlier. Once she got over the shock, and after some emotional (to put it lightly) discussions, she agreed to try it for a year. I know I�m lucky.

It turns out a mission was very close to us and I called the priest and talked to him. We visited after that and have been going since that time. We will be formally received in to the church this summer.

Most likely I will take as a name saint Andrew the Apostle and First Called (it's my real name). I have an affinity for some unknown reason though for the great martyr and healer Panteleimon the All-Merciful. Perhaps he'll just be my backup.

Anyway, that's pretty much my story.

May God bless you and your wife Andrew, and I hope that your faith journey in the Orthodox tradition will bring you ever closer to our Lord!

In Christ,
Alice, who thinks that Andrew is a beautiful and meaningful name, but also likes the name 'Panteleimon'...You CAN take two names you know!

Daniel,

I read this when you posted it previously. Such a good testimony. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Peace and Joy in Christ...

Ευχαριστώ πολύ!

Actually some us are already doubling up. My wife has the feminine form of a male name, so she is going to take St. George (because of her real name) and St. Paraskevi. After she decided that, I actually found an icon online with both saints from a village called Korchyn in Ukraine.

My daughter is also taking two saints because she couldn't decide between two different ones.

I wrote about my return to Roman Catholicism some time ago: Complacency and Abortion [marysremnant.org]

and My Conversion Story (or, "The ...e, "Complacency and Abortion") [marysremnant.org]

My journey to Byzantium however is still ongoing; it will be a while till I write that one

Great journeys! My story is ongoing, Interesting is just HOW I go to the UGCC. My Granny was Ukrainian, but her whole family was Greek Catholic in the Old Country (the real one, not Penna.) They ended up Ukrainian Orthodox. So I've been around Orthodoxy my whole life to a point. Now when she married my Pap she quit Orthodoxy and followed his religious desires. Rightfully, she should have stayed Orthodox and raised my father orthodox. But that didn't happen. So along comes my mom, Irish Catholic Eyes were smilin'. I was raised Roman Catholic. I served mass 4-5 days a week, were friends with our priests, rode bikes, hunted, fished, the whole nine-yards. Then I got a little older, around 16ish-17 and started to loose interest in Church.
College came, I didn't really think about Church.
I woke up one day and knew I was missing something. I had started going back to church.
Believe it or not, a priest directed me towards the UGCC. Said that I should really go see the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church. This just came up in conversation. He said although my family is orthodox, I grew up Catholic and since the two are so close I should go to the Catholic Church.
Well, I went, and fell in love. I can't imagine anything else. I grew up loving church and helping out at church.
The prayers are the best, I love the eastern catholic prayers, I love the community, I love our priest. I have to go shower to get ready for my one thing I look foward to all week, Divine Liturgy.
My quest is ongoing.
It took a few generations to get the family back into the Byzantine Church. I'm glad I am one of the very few of my generation in my family to still be active in the Byzantine Church. I wish I could change that. I would love to see more people be able to pray and have the Eastern Experience and embrace it everyday. I will raise my family to embrace the East so that after I am gone, I pray they will be there, solid memebers of the East.

No more testimonies?
Share brothers and sisters

My story�

I am Ruthenian by birth, third generation in the USA. Grandpa left his home in the village of Cabiny (pronounced CHA-bin) in the Presov region of the Carpathians (near present-day Medzilaborce) in his late teens and arrived on U.S. soil November 15, 1902, beginning life as an American citizen in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania along with others of our family who had arrived years before him. Among those who emigrated to America prior to Grandpa were family members who were founding parishioners of the very first Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church ever built in the United States � St. Michael the Archangel, built in 1886 in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania (a few short miles up the road from Mahanoy City). In fact, it was one of my family members who served as perhaps the earliest historian of the Greek Catholic Church in America � his journalistic account of the elaborate ceremony during which the new church foundation was blessed was printed in the local Greek Catholic newspapers of the time and survives to this day (how I wish I had inherited my ancestor�s journalistic skills!). Ironically, too, Grandpa�s first American home in Mahanoy City was right next door to a family whose son would later serve as my own pastor, confessor and teacher at our Byzantine Catholic parish in Joliet, Illinois for roughly the first thirty years or so of my life!

Quite naturally, I grew up 100% Byzantine in a typical Rusyn �extended household� � one aunt, two uncles and my immediate family (Mom, Dad, two older sisters and me) all sharing the same family home, a couple of blocks from Church. In fact, it wasn�t until grade school that I learned the name �Jesus� � up until then, Our Lord had always been �Bozho� to me!

I grew up fully immersed in things Byzantine � attended our Byzantine Catholic grade school fourth grade through eighth (the school didn�t open until I was in the fourth grade), served as an altar server for six years (at the same altar Dad served at as a kid!), even became President of the Altar Boys my eighth grade year. I also substitute cantored for a number of years (both Slavonic and English). Speaking honestly, I still sadly miss the Slavonic Divine Liturgy, and I�m sure I always will. In fact, my prayers over the graves of my Rusyn ancestors are always said in Slavonic (I figure that they wouldn�t understand me if I prayed in English, anyway!).

I fell in love with and married a wonderful Roman Catholic girl in 1975. Our wedding took place at the RC Cathedral for the Diocese of Joliet, which required the written permission of my BC bishop for me to do so. Interesting sideline � seems that Father was somehow left without the Church�s regular cantor for a week or so� said he�d be glad to intervene with the bishop on my behalf with regard to my �wedding dispensation� IF AND ONLY IF I�d bail him out with a week�s worth of cantoring! Now some would call that blackmail; Father preferred to call it the barter system in action!

As a term of my dispensation, the BC bishop required that any children from my wife and my union be baptized and chrismated into the Byzantine Catholic Church. This we would have done even without the bishop�s formal insistence. Today we have three wonderful children, 24, 22 and 15, all baptized and chrismated at our old Byzantine Catholic parish in Joliet, where I, too, received my Holy Mysteries of Initiation, as did my father before me. Even as recently as 15 years ago with the baptism of our youngest, our Church had not yet resumed the practice of administering the Holy Mystery of Eucharist to infants. I guess it�s only been during these most recent years that our Church has experienced great strides in a wonderful �new� direction� BACKWARDS!

For various reasons, over the years I and my family moved geographically further and further west, while at the same time our old Byzantine Catholic parish closed and relocated further east. Today, my visits to my �home� Byzantine parish are sadly few and far between. My �pull to the East,� however, has not diminished one bit, and despite the fact that my family and I are currently settled in as parishioners at a wonderful Latin parish near our home, I have never considered myself to be anything but a Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic. In fact, truth be told, the Roman Catholics with whom I currently worship are probably getting sick and tired of my incessant extolling of the glories of the Catholic East!

What I believe�

As a blood Ruthenian, I have no doubt whatsoever that God has a plan for the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church. When one analyzes the history of our Church and our people, one can conclude that we, by all rights, should have been gone, entirely snuffed out, years ago. Between the physical persecutions suffered in the old country, the gross injustices suffered upon coming to America, including parish-by-parish mass conversions to Orthodoxy, as well as the current misperceptions that live on today wherein our Orthodox brethren still look upon us somewhat as �uniate traitors� and our own Latin Catholic brethren�s perception that we�re something less than �real� Catholics� given all that, well, we probably just shouldn�t be here today. And yet, God sees fit to allow us to remain�

What I fear�

As a cultural entity, the Ruthenian people are somewhat unique. We are all aware that there is no country known as �Ruthenia� per se. Any cohesiveness we feel as a people comes not from any shared geopolitical boundaries but from our shared theological traditions � our Church. Simply put, without the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church there are no Ruthenians.

The recent activities regarding the evangelization of our Church to me appear to take the form of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there can be no question that growth is absolutely essential for the survival of our Church. On the other hand, I fear the loss of our Ruthenian identity, an identity that is so inexorably tied to this very same Church. Frankly, I become more than a little fearful when I hear that our Church must be �razed and rebuilt.� Perhaps this feeling is exacerbated by the fact that I don�t yet know exactly what that means; I don�t know what the plans are. And if, in fact, the plans are not yet formalized, then I think that it might be a bit premature to assume that a total �razing� is a necessary element of ultimate evangelical success.

Yes, I do find it exciting to see so much enthusiasm being generated on this board with regard to the upcoming evangelization activities planned for August 6. At the risk of being heavily flamed, however, it does not escape my observation that a hugely disproportionate percentage of the enthusiasm seems to be coming from converts to our Church (God bless them!), with very little being heard from cradle Ruthenians. His Grace, Bishop John of Parma, says in his current �Voice of the Shepherd� address, �We do not deny that we have an identity � but an identity that admits others.� I believe it would be wise to keep His Grace�s words in mind as this �new springtime� of the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church in America is created. I pray that our Ruthenian cultural identity, the very identity His Grace speaks of, is not sacrificed in the name of �progress.�

Maybe I speak merely for myself; maybe I speak for the countless cradle Ruthenians who appear to be so surprisingly tacit with regard to this movement (perhaps it�s a Rusyn character trait, born out of centuries of �keeping the faith� in the face of innumerable, unspeakable atrocities)� I don�t know which is actually the case. But I do know that I somehow suddenly feel a strong urge to defend the people � our people � who stoically provided centuries of selfless �building� with regard to our Church, especially now, in the face of recent dialogue aimed at �tearing down and rebuilding� the very Church they lived and died for. It is very clear to me from what I�ve read on this board that fears such as mine have no place at the August 6 meeting and, in fact, will not be tolerated; perhaps it�s best I don�t attend. I know that many will be quick to tell me that ethnicity may in fact be one of the very demons that need exorcism in order for our Church to thrive. Perhaps they�re correct. Perhaps the name �Ruthenian� is destined to disappear from the title of our Church altogether. If that is God�s will, so be it. Still, God help me, I cannot deny my heritage. As a Ruthenian, I sadly fear the potential stripping of our cultural heritage from the very institution that created and maintains that heritage for us � the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church.

I pray that those who will decide the future of our Church will also remember to honor and appreciate its proud, stoic past as well.

Thank you, my friends, for allowing this ol� Rusyn the opportunity to ramble on.

�Ja Rusyn byl, jesm� y budu!�

Al (a pilgrim)

Pilgrim,

Next time you come let us have dinner together.

I confess, I do not know every implication of what Father means when he says "raze and rebuild" though I believe he is talking about administration, evangelism, and sharing of resources. Too often the Church seems to coddle those who do not do the work of ministry but hold the title. Too often we have allowed poorly done liturgy and temples that look nothing like who we say we are. Those are the matters Father speaks so often about. At the same time, as you have observed, he has led us back to Orthodox practices that should never have been beaten out of us.

Every liturgy retains some Slavonic. I should think that if we had not gone vernacular in 1965 we probably would no longer exist. I think our use of vernacular predates our use of Slavonic. So, the switch to English should not be seen as a move away from our roots.

I do not think that anyone can retain all of the elements of our youth. Not only do cultural things change and not always for the better, but our memories become selective. There are many things I miss from my youth. There are many things I wish I could forget as well.

As far as who is leading the charge for growth it has always been the case in my experience that there have been a larger proportion of cradles who would as soon see the Church die as she it change than there are those who would wish the same among the converts. I also note that converts come to the Church as it is. It is not so much that we wish the Church to change as it is we want to tell the world about the treasure we've found. As a consequence more and more people come who look slightly different from those who are cradle. Would you really wish it to be otherwise? If the Church did not develop there would never be a second generation.

Who planned this event? Was it all converts? Hardly, the core group of eight is comprised of four cradles and four converts. The Cradles include our bishop, our priest, one of our two deacons, and the founder of a new Eastern Catholic order of nuns. The converts include four lay people who are working hard to make our Church vital and growing (a redundancy I'm sure you recognize). I believe that's a healthy mix.

Have no fear for fear is our enemy.

Dan L

Dear Al the Pilgrim,

Thank you for sharing your story of being raised a cradle Ruthenian. As a newcomer, not even as yet a Byzantine (the process is underway), I appreciate getting a glimpse of what it was like to grow up in the Church that I have come to love.

My appreciation is not merely motivated by a kind of nostalgia for something I never knew. Reading your post, I thought, "That's what I want for my children" -- not that experience exactly, but that kind of immersion in the Byzantine Church.

My ancestors came from Ireland and Bavaria. I have no ethnic connection to the Rusyn homeland. But I do have a profound -- and growing -- sense of gratitude for the Ruthenian people for handing on these traditions. Though I am not Ruthenian, I am humbly thankful to Ruthenians for the Church that they have welcomed me into.

I know that this gratitude is shared by other "converts" -- and on that basis I do not believe Ruthenian culture will ever disappear from this Church, even if it becomes less central to parish life. This Church has come to all of us by way of a particular history that passes through Ruthenia. Who could wish to forget that?

In particular, I believe you will see a rebirth of interest in Slavonic. I am gradually learning this beautiful liturgical language, and have come to prefer hymns in Slavonic to their English translations (especially Marian hymns).

Perhaps it's strange to feel such a connection to a heritage that is not mine by birth. My Latin Rite family certainly thinks so. But I know for certain that my life and the life of the Ruthenian Catholic Church were always meant to be tied together.

And because I -- and so many other new Byzantines -- need to hear from cradle Byzantines like you, need to learn from you, I encourage you to seriously consider coming to the August 6 meeting. It may be true that your fears, as such, have no place at that meeting, but your perspective on the inherent strength of the Ruthenian Catholic Church would be greatly needed.

Thanks again for your honest, thoughtful message.

--Eric Scheidler