www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Declining attendance in the Byzantine Catholic Church

Glory to Jesus Christ!


This is not only an oversimplification but is incorrect; it suggests that Eastern Christianity is indistinguishable from Gnosticism, and Western Christianity from British empiricism. A better way of putting it would be that EC tends toward apophaticism, and WC toward cataphaticism. But even this oversimplifies.

Wondering's explanation is much closer to the truth: any authentically Christian Church will find it a struggle to live in "this" world, east, west, north, or south. The explanation for the decline in the Byzantine Ruthenian Church cannot be reduced to one or two factors -- but certainly the decadent, licentious, selfish, and, yes, "gnostic" culture in which we live and which exercises a deep (and often unrecognized) influence on us is a part of it. However easy it may sound in theory, "be not conformed to this world" requires an inhuman -- indeed, divine -- strength.

In Christ,
Theophilos

I am not Apophat. I'm apo-big-boned.

Seriously folks, of course my definitions were simplistic. For 98.739% of folks -- using precise Western calculations -- it's not theological issues that led them to drift away. It's not wanting to be strange or different or foreign.

Us folks crossing ourself "backwards" could easily be one of the key psychological things that drove tons of our people away over the decades. It's just so weird.(in the Western context.)

--tim

Tim,

Right now, Eastern and Western Catholics are called to do much the same things to reinvigorate our faith life and practice. Western Catholic have been told (by council and Popes) to celebrate the Divine Office, both publically and privately; to fast more, and for the right reasons; to keep the liturgical year; to teach children (and adults) the faith; to serve the poor, and in the right way; and so on.

But most Latin-rite Catholics who do this (and I know quite a few!) often look mainly to the PAST for exemplars. Eastern Catholics often look to the Orthodox, but even then primarily to the small minority of Orthodox who thoroughly live their faith - and many of those are themselves looking to the past. I think it is sometimes the DOUBLE distance (in time and in geography) that makes Eastern Christianity a farther "stretch" - except for those are strongly drawn the apophatic Christianity, or who are certain that Western Christianity is somehow wrong and seek another way to be a Christian. (Again, I know both kinds.)

It might be at least as useful to look at what East and West have in common as to direction, even if the details differ. Rather than emphasizing that we keep a different calendar, or "better" ways of observing a feast, or "more apostolic" ways of fasting, we can be enthusiastic to see ANY Christians keeping feasts and fasts according to their own tradition - this sort of "holy rivalry" might bear more fruit that trying to convince others that "our way is better" or "better fits North American culture."

Yours in Christ,
Jeff

P.S. Your point about the sign of the cross is well-taken; it's an interesting exercise to consider how this message is presented, and how it might be received.

P.P.S. Our parish attendance is up a good bit; it dropped during the controversy over the installation of an iconostas and the concurrent re-painting of the church in a more "Eastern" style. We have a number of new families with small children attending, which is a joy to see. I can't speak to 1990-1995 except to say that I think at one time our numbers did include many who perhaps "ought" to have been in church but weren't.

Thank you. If I'm not mistaken, there are about 12 million Eastern Catholics worldwide.

As has often been remarked, there are lies, damn lies, statistics, and ecclesiastical statistics.

Fr. Serge

What is your point? Are there more or less than what the figures say?

So much for being Eastern? Huh?

Do you think it is the duty of the Eastern Catholic to literally be Eastern first Catholic second? That our very first priority is easterness? Do Orthodox share the same thinking? That if there is no church with whom you are in communion, it is best at least follow form?

Let's be open, honest, and actually admit to something: This is a pan-Eastern problem.

Are the Orthodox growing, shrinking or shifting? Where we see Orthodox growth in the USA - it is among parishes supporting the immigrant communities they serve in Eastern Europe. Continued discussion or triumphant hype about the EOC or Christ the Savior Brotherhood conversions of near 2 decades ago aside, a little honesty would go a long way here. More missions and priests does not mean more growth.





At one point the OCA (like us) had fewer but much larger parishes. Today they have more (smaller) parishes.

But this begs the question for the OCA what is the correlation between the number of missions, the number of clergy and the number of members? The last part is especially tricky as I have read "estimates of OCA faithful number from about 28,000 to 1 million to 2 million"!

I TOTALLY dismiss the any number in the 7-figure range at this point. There are NOT 6 Million Orthodox in the US. There are NOT 2 million Orthodox in the Greek Church. There are NOT 1 million in the OCA.

Today, they (OCA) have more parishes and priests, but what is the ratio of clergy to parishes, or membership to parishes or clergy to membership? Do more clergy and parishes mean the OCA has grown? Good hard numbers that I trust have been hard to come by. But some of what I am seeing is leading me to indicate that they have mostly maintained the number of laity in ways

With some total 1026 clergy listed in the last year book, 197 of them deacons, 829 priests

Using the Hartford Institute's estimated membership of 39,000
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/tab2.pdf
You get -
ratio of clergy to laity: 38.01
ratio of priests to laity: 47.04
39,000 / 456 parishes = 85.52 members per parish

Using Fr. Jonathan Ivanoff's estimated membership of 27,196
You get -
ratio of clergy to laity: 26.50
ratio of priests to laity: 32.85
27,196 / 456 parishes = 59.64 members per parish

(YES, some of those priests are retired, some are in monasteries. Accounting for that could make some numbers look better, some numbers look worse.)

Where the OCA has grown, has been in their ethnic diocese � through immigration.

So lies, damned lies, statistics and ecclesial statistics considered� Anyone interested in doing a REAL head count of weekly attendance and contributing members?

The point? Not to attack the OCA or defend the BCC.

The point is that we are at worst we are dying. At best we are trading in our ethnic enclaves for essentially social enclaves of small personal chapels of people who fast and celebrate their "easterness" being served by a whole lot of clergy.

So, Raskolnikov, what is to be done?

In many instances, ecclesiastical statistics are grossly exaggerated - in some instances, they are (deliberately?) below the actual figures. In some instances, it's impossible to say with certainty, and comparing them is problematic, because there are different ways of determing membership.

Even the idea of "an honest head-count" is difficult. If, improbably, one could arrange to have the head-counters visit every parish of the given diocese or jurisdiction for every service on one and the same Sunday, the question would still arise as to which Sunday one might choose - there will be a drastic difference between the attendance on Pascha and the attendance one week later.

And so it goes.

Fr. Serge

You can do something about it. Request a membership for the Southern Missions Conference - 2008. [groups.google.com] Help out with the conference and participate in follow up activities.

The Church is doing something about evangelization!

Tertullian,

Glory to Jesus Christ!

According to Fr Ron Roberson, the figure is over 16 million worldwide.

Now, how much faith you put in statistics is another issue.

Regards,
Deacon El

My friend in the Antiochian Orthodox Church mentioned that there will be a Missions and Evangelism Conference in September. The main speaker will be the famed Archpriest Peter Gilquist who was formerly of Campus Crusade for Christ. There will be something that he would have to say. PM me for PDF details. I have it with me.

There will be Missions and Evangelization Conference for Greek Catholics in 2008 in Orlando Florida.

The future of many Byzantine Catholic parishes in North America may look pretty bleak, but I honestly can't see a major evangelism outreach in the neighborhood solving the problem. The idea of Mr O'Malley or Mrs Moretti down the street joining the Ruthenian Rite, Ukrainian Catholic or Byzantine Romanian Catholic church is just too unrealistic an expectation, and if you drastically tone down the church's ethnic flavor, you'll lose alot more people than you could possibly hope to attract. Instead their is a much more fertile ground for evangelization, that I think should be the prime area of focus. From the many people I've spoken with, I'd say that percentage wise, there are probably just as many fallen away Byzantine Catholics as there are Roman Catholics. In most cases I'd say the people who most need to be evangelized are family members who totally dropped out (turns out not everyone went RC or Orthodox) or come to church twice a year. I know it's ALOT easier said than done, but I do believe that's the answer.

Lawrence,

The problem with your point of view is that in my opinion most of those "fallen" away BCCs don't view themselves ethnically. They are no longer Slavic but American. You will have the same troblem inviting them as you would Mr. O'Malley.

BTW, I know of a 40ish person I work with who is Ukrainian. He doesn't identify himself with any of that. He is an American from Indiana who doesn't go to Church. Only thing Ukrainian is that he use to call his grandmother Baba.

Ray

My own observation is that the cultural divide ONLY exists inside the church. I know plenty of EC's who religiously follow baseball, football (the American kind) fly American flags on there homes or cars, love Elvis and have visited Branson. I think that fallen away Byzantines are no different at all from fallen way RC's. Plain and simple they no longer feel a need to come to church, except at Easter and Christmas perhaps.