www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Farewell to my brethren

Thank you Chris. I can already feel everyone's prayers lifting up, and strengthening me and my family.

Blessings to all!

Dear Recluse,

This hits very close to home with me.

I am limited as to what I can say here but I am unwelcome in my home parish, so there's more than the liturgy that impels me to spend my Sundays in an Orthodox parish.

But there's more than a liturgy, or any person or persons, between me and my Church, so I keep going on in this shadowland where I do not recognize a formal schism, but do respect the fact of the schism and try my best to understand how that plays out in very practical and pastoral terms.

Add to that the fact that I dearly love the parish where I attend and the priest who shepherds us, and you'll have some idea of who I am and what I do. In short, were I on better terms in my home jurisdiction, I would be attending both and doing what I could to be active in both.

Wednesday of Great and Holy Week was very difficult for me. I found myself standing before Father saying that I wanted him to receive me into Orthodoxy. His eyes popped open and then hooded again and he said "Mary, you must convert." Something inside of me sagged, for I knew what was coming.

What he meant by "convert" was that there are a list of things that I must swear are false in the Catholic Church before he will receive me into Orthodoxy.

I sat and listened to the list after everyone left. Some things are indeed not what the Catholic Church teaches and so I would have no difficulty in swearing that they are false, because they are false.

But there were two things that I simply cannot swear. I cannot swear that papal primacy as my Church teaches it, and as I understand it, is false. I cannot swear that the Immaculate Conception is a false teaching.

I could keep the Immaculate Conception as a private devotion, leaving it to the hierarchs to work out the doctrinal issues in time. I could privately continue to accept the pope as the supreme primatial authority in the Church here on earth.

But to publicly swear before a priest of Orthodoxy to an item list, even if I did not have to swear an item list at the time of my Chrismation, that the Church of my Baptism is false is just not possible for me to do.

Father suggested that I let the Holy Spirit work for a while. I laughed to myself and thought that perhaps if I listened a little more closely, I just might quit trying to continue this one woman crusade that I started some years ago. It is not always easy to determine self-will from the will of God.

All that to say that you and your family have my prayers. Please do not become as so many do, who move from the Catholic Church to Orthodoxy. Remember where you came from. Keep those who remain in the Church of their Baptism, in your prayers.

Blessings, with great affection, in Christ,

Mary

Following Ethnick and Job, I also say God bless you and welcome to Orthodoxy. I became Orthodox just this past Theophany of 2007. If you have any questions about making the move, just let me know. God bless.

Joe

Greetings Mary,

Your concerns are valid. In fact, they are the reasons I am not Orthodox at this very moment. However, I have in time come to a different understanding. Through much prayer and study, I have come to look at the Church as it was before the schism (which began many years before the official 1054 date). I do not see a papal primacy/supremacy. I see a primacy of honor where all bishops are equal. I have read many quotes from Church Fathers (ie: St John Chrysostom) which seem to indicate a papal primacy, but many more quotes (including St John Chrysostom) which seem to indicate a primacy of honor. So that one is not a problem for me. The immaculate conception is an interesting doctrine. Even though we are a Church in communion with Rome, I have never been able to prompt a Ruthenian Catholic priest to admit to me that we adhere to this doctrine as the Roman Catholics do (although I am sure they are out there). The problem lies with the Orthodox vs Catholic understanding of original sin. I have never been able to wrap my mind around the differences. Some Orthodox will tell you that Our Lady was purified at the Annuciation. Others will tell you that she never sinned, but was born in the same state as any other human because Jesus received His true human nature from her. In other words, they leave this understanding undefined and wrapped in mystery. I am okay with these understandings--the veneration of Our Lady in the Orthodox Church is next to none. (But of course you already know this).
What year was the immaculate conception defined in the Catholic Church? 1854? I am very comfortable with the acceptance of everything set forth in the first seven oecumenical councils.
This one is interesting and indeed the most difficult for me. I will always believe that the Catholic Church has apostolic succession, sufficient grace, and valid sacraments--will I be denied acceptance into Holy Orthodoxy because of this belief? Most jurisdictions of Holy Orthodoxy will accept my baptism and bring me into the Church through confession and chrismation. My baptism is accepted through Ekonomia but will I be expected to confess that the Catholic Church is a false Church?

I thank you for your prayers dear Mary,
Recluse

I find this hard to understand, as I did nothing more than make a profession of faith. I did not have to explicitly reject anything. It was a positive affirmation.

I don't even understand on what basis one could say the IC is false for instance as it was never addressed in the councils.

Mary,

Your post moved me greatly. I found myself in a similar position some 8 years ago, standing before an Orthodox clergyman whom I deeply respect and whose friendship was and is very important to me, asking about the possibility of being received. He told me that he would chrismate me the following week if I desired it, but his caution to me was the difficult state of Orthodox Church polity and the need to consider the benefit of a unified magisterial voice pointing to official teaching. IOW, if I desired full communion with Orthodoxy, he wanted me to enter with both eyes open to its difficulties.

For me it is always what Orthodoxy affirms that has had the greatest appeal, and what it (or at least some within it) denies that I have never been quite able to overcome. The issues you mention are precisely my issues - the ones that cause me to remain where I am.

With that said, I am perplexed by the title of this thread: "farewell to my bretheren". Is entry into communion with the Orthodox Church a "farewell"? Perhaps...or perhaps not. I suppose it depends upon what one denies.

God bless.

In ICXC,

Gordo

"This one is interesting indeed and the most difficult. I will always believe that the Catholic Church has apostolic succession, sufficient grace, and valid sacraments--will I be denied acceptance into Holy Orthodoxy because of this belief? Most jurisdictions of Holy Orthodoxy will accept my baptism and bring me into the Church through confession and chrismation. My baptism is accepted through Ekonomia but will I be expected to confess that the Catholic Church is a false Church?"


Before I was chrismated, my priest laid it all out as far as what the Orthodox church believes and doesn't believe. But I did not publicly renounce the Catholic church. The ceremony was more or less a standard chrismation. It involved confession, chrismation, tonsuring, and being churched. Hope this helps.

Christ is Risen!

Recluse and All who suffer similar sentimets and discernments,

My family heritage in the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church via the married priesthood can be traced back 300 years. With that in mind, and being a "thoroughbred" Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic, I deeply regret the fact that the Church of my own heritage can no longer serve as the spirtual home for your family. Without in any way presuming to assuage the depth of your current consternation or to trivialize the genuineness of your discernment on behalf of your family and of yourself, I must nonetheless implore you to consider remaining with the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church. My reasons for saying this to you are the following:

1. As The Sultan of Suede so wisely cautioned, you may find similar types of challenges already in place in the Orthodox Church, perhaps even in some ways more formidable than in the Ruthenian Church. (See Fr. Thomas Hopko's various responses to feminist agendas in the Orthodox Church.)

2.Your leaving at this time will sevrve to reinforce what I believe is the perception that our Church has of the discontent over the RDL:

"Oh, its just a few nut cases on the forum. Good Riddens! We will be better off without them. The nerve of THOSE people trying tell us how to run OUR Church. Who do they think they are?!!" Also: "It's just a few arch-conservative disgruntled former Latin Rite Catholics who were just passing through our Church until the Old Latin Rite comes back. They have no real committment to OUR Church. See! See! I told you so! As soon as OUR Church changed anything they ran! They were just opportunists. I knew they wouldn't stay." We are better off without those troublemakers."

If this is the perception on the part of our Church and if indeed this is not an accurate perception, the question is how will our Church develop an accurate perception unless our Church leaders hear from EVERY person who is at the same point as Recluse and others? Of course, a person's case has to be respectful and credible. Being against change simply because it is change or "I have been singing this music for 45 years and I am not about to change" will simply be disqualified at the get go. It will also serve to diminish our Church's receptivity to legitimate cases.

More and more it is being revealed to me (I ACTUALLY hear religioius and laity alike say this) that to many it does not matter if our Church dies. Even if great numbers of people leave our Church I believe that some in our Church have given up. They have resigned themselves to what is perceived to be the inevitable fate of the Ruthenian Church (and for that matter ALL Eastern Christian Churches in the western world! This I have actually heard from Orthodox!!)

I actually hear: "As long as the Church is here for me I do not care what happens afterward." Many parts of our Church would in fact rather die than change. Many people have no problem clutching onto what they believe is "our Church" and taking that portion of it to their graves with them. I always thought that this was unthinkable or that you could inspire people to open up by cautioning them against taking our Church to their graves with them. But I am learning that taking our Church to their graves with them is what they are perfectly content to do.

But, this could actually be GOOD NEWS! This could be the major pruning, the "razing to the ground and rebuilding" that I will never stop advocating for and praying for. I believe that we will decrease, implode, come to the brink of extinction and maybe we NEED to! But, I believe that in these ashes there will be burning coals remaining as there are even now, few but they still do burn. These few remaining burning coals will be able to start a new grassfire for the Eastern Catholic Churches who will be at first smaller and fewer but mightier. So, as regrettable as dying may seem,it may actually be necessary as the precursor to the real "New Evangelization" of the Eastern Churches.
Funny how I should be pointing to a dying-rising rhythm for the future of our Church during Bright Week??!!

So, Recluse and others, I simply implore you to be a part of the "Phoenix" that I believe will rise out of the ashes of what we have known as the Eastern Catholic Churches. You do not owe your children a "perfect" Church. You owe them the invaluable life forming principles of Dad's example of committment to the truth and how love of anything means riding the crests and low points, of standing in there and giving it your all, of making that contribution that is uniquely yours, of making a difference and finishing the story, of realizing the destiny of a Church which perhaps you actually did not choose but rather one in which GOD chose YOU to live out your destiny.

You are man, configured to the same physical body as Jesus Christ who gave Himself up for His Bride, the Church, to present to Himself a "spotless bride, holy, immaculate." (Ephesians 5) Likewise, stamped in your very body, is the calling of every male in the Church; to give himself up for the Bride,the Church, to help "present a spotless Bride, holy and immaculate."
Ours is a calling not to go in search of a ready-made Bride that is ALREADY holy and immaculate, ready made for us, but to MAKE her holy ourselves through the gifts that we have been given.
I believe that this example will be far more valuable to your children then even the most perfect Liturgy, catechetical program, etc. that might be found in a Church other than the one that you have been serving.

--Fr. Thomas J. Loya, STB.,MA.

Father Loya,

Christos Voskrese!

Thanks for all of the work you do, especially your efforts in evangelization.

One item that I think you overlooked in your last post is the aspect of inclusive language.

Also, the absence of many services (i.e. Vespers, Matins, etc.) is something that has to be addressed by our church as well. I'll share a brief and recent story with you. Since I couldn't find a Greek Catholic Church anywhere that celebrated The Great Canon of St. Andrew during the first week of the Great Fast, I attended an OCA parish for it. The priest came up to me before it started to welcome me and also to see what my story was. I told him I was Greek Catholic and he asked me, not in a rude way, why I was going there that night and not to my parish. When I told him that there wasn't a Greek Catholic parish that celebrated what we were about to, the look on his face was priceless. He looked at me like I told him that I believed in the Easter Bunny. He said, are you sure, I told him yes I was positive. He just shook his head and mumbled (not in a mean way but in disbelief) as he walked back to get vested. It can't be ignored that 90%+ of our parishes do not celebrate Vespers and Matins and as far as I know 100% didn't celebrate the Great Canon during the first week of the Great Fast.

Monomakh

Father! Bless!

Thank you for your post! How very much I appreciate your insight. Much truth spoken!

My husband has sacrificed for me (and visa versa) and the process has been one of LONG SUFFERING! But, the sacrifices/sufferings have been redemptive. He and I have been "rewarded". I do believe what you are saying. We must be willing to stay for the long haul. After all, Love is all about sticking it out through good times and especially the bad times!

When I mentioned to one of the ladies at our Church that I am struggling with the New DL, she told me, "We NEED YOU PEOPLE, you cannot leave. You are our hope!"

The ECC is the BEST place for me and my family. I know it, but I am so discouraged with the new DL.

Can't we do more than write letters to Rome?

Bless Father,

Everything you have stated here has swirled inside my head for many months--perhaps years. Yes, it has been very painful in many ways and there are still remnants of guilt concerning the possibility that my discernment is not correct! Do I have a properly formed conscience?!?

There came an awakening of sorts for me when I began to see how much sense it made to accept the first seven ecumenical councils--that there was no need to further define the mysteries of our holy catholic and apostolic faith--even if pushed by protestantism. Furthermore, I saw, in many instances, the faith of our Eastern Catholic Church directly in line with the Orthodox Church--but we were forced to not talk about some Roman Catholic understandings because it was "not really how we think".
This dichotomy and identity crisis began to wear on me. I began to understand my true patrimony as the Orthodox Church and no longer saw our Church as a bridge to the schism--in fact I saw our Church as an impediment to reunification. The more I studied, the more I read the Early Church Fathers, the more I saw the Eastern Orthodox Church. Then I read a book called "We Are All Schismatics" by Archbishop Zoghby and I was able to assimilate and understand the generations of pain and animosity caused by the tragic schism.

Suddenly I was faced with the RDL! Without going into detail I will only say that I witnessed some real horror stories in the Roman Catholic Church that began with inclusive language and a revisionist mindset and ended with new age voodoo!

I lost my peace. I cannot pray a neutralized Liturgy. What sense is it to be angry every time I recite the Creed?!? Do I go to confession every day? My anger would spill over into my daily attitude. It upset my wife. I spoke to three different priests including my spiritual father and confessor. I cannot find my peace when I pray this neutralized inclusivist Liturgy.

I understand that there will be areas of concern in any Church. But I do not believe that the Orthodox Church will once again attempt to neutralize the Liturgy as the SCOBA attempted to do in the late 90's. I can deal with an imperfect Church, but I cannot deal with the loss of my peace during the holy Liturgy. The promulgation was a very sad day for me.

Kissing your right hand,
Recluse

It is the schism itself that prompts that habit of mind. There is a going away that is required of us, not just those who leave the Catholic Church for Orthodoxy, but for those who leave the Orthodox Church and come into communion with the pope, and some of those stories would rip your heart out. It is not a simple thing as long as there is no communion at all and it tears at the very fabric of our lives, and know it consciously or not, we are all, Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ, diminished on account of the rending.

But there are those of us who will come and go and the best thing for the rest of us to do is to encourage them, and welcome them and beg them to try not to become something they were not in the first place, because with or without a public renunciation, the pressures will be there to "convert" no matter which direction one chooses.

It is very difficult to cross the de facto line of the schism and not reject that place from which we came. I have yet to see it happen. I am the only one I know personally who might have a shot at it, but even then, I cannot be sure that I would not hear the cock crowing in my own life. There are probably others but their voices are not apparent to me.

Mary

Ebed Melech


As well you should, because there are indeed many problems in Orthodoxy.

Really I think we are both in our own ways in troubled waters (nominalism, secularism, people leaving for Protestantism, etc.), which is why reconciliation if it could ever be achieved would I hope among other things would be a re-invigorating force for both churches to help overcome our mutual definincies. I believe it will happen at some point, but still may be a long way off.

At the personal level I think we at various times come to forks in the road, where we find for different reasons the situations we are in just aren't working. The decision must be made to plow ahead (and whether we have the strength to do so), or if it's better just to change course. This can be something we face and struggle with in terms of moving to a parish across town in the same diocese, in another jurisdiction or another communion altogether. I can only speak for myself personally and say that I think what comes to the fore when struggling with something like this are the more immediate and personal issues, and that some of the bigger picture stuff tends to take a back seat. All of it must be weighed though.

Whatever we do the change should not I think be out of bitterness, spite or rejection; because those things will likely carry over. What I find troubling about elijahmaria's story is that she is being asked to reject things and not affirm things, where it seems to me someone who is hypothetically entering a church should be encouraged to retain that which positively shaped their previous faith life.

What both churches certainly can use are people who are sympathetic to the other side, and that can bear its own fruit. The first step to healing the schism is healing it in ourselves.

Beatifully said!

Or as Merton once said, "to reconcile all worlds within himself". (In context, he was referring to all Christian worlds...a sad but necessary distinction with him.)

Your words ring so true. When one "converts" to the "other side", one sometimes tends to carry a prejudice. I will make a concerted effort to always embrace my Eastern and Latin Catholic brothers and sisters with love, charity and understanding.