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The Russian Orthodox church is building 2 churches in Ireland.In places where there have never been ROC churches.At the same time back in Russia.It blocks the return of Catholic churches stolen b the Communists and the building of any new Catholic churches.

Dear JohnyJ,

I guess it's because there's so much less of a chance that Irish Catholics will migrate to the Russian Orthodox Church.

For one thing, they'd have to drink up copious amounts of Irish whiskey before they could understand Church Slavonic!

Alex

In Ireland, the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs.
.....Sir John Pentland Mahaffy


Leprechauns, castles, good luck and laughter. Lullabies, dreams and love ever after. Poems and songs with pipes and drums. A thousand welcomes when anyone comes... That's the Irish for you!

Dear Brad,

I've heard Irish converts to Orthodoxy make the case that Celtic Christianity was much closer in spirit to Eastern Orthodoxy than to Roman Catholicism!

This was the influence of St John Cassian and Coptic monasticism i.e. the Celts did prostrations and prayed the Psalter the way the Copts did in 12 psalm groupings etc.

Fr. Geoffrey O'Riada has a website on Celtic Orthodoxy somewhere . . .

Alex

Well, Celtic Orthodoxy is Roman Catholicism right now, no matter how it may have been practices in centuries past.

Anyway I think everyone is conveniently ignoring the constant double-standard of the ROC. It's so unbelievably appalling because the Catholic Church says nothing about it, and it's going on worldwide right in front of our faces!

For the record, I don't have a problem with proselytizing. But it seems that the CC and the ROC both do, but the ROC only has a problem with it when it's against them - and even when it's not proselytism!

Logos Teen

Brother Alex, as a convert to Orthodoxy and a person of Irish ancestry, I can see alot of what you have heard about the ancient Celtic Church, I can attest my patron St. Aidan is a powerful intercessor, he has been there for me on so many occasions he wont let me go. As for the Orthodox churches in Ireland, we Antiochians have a missionary Priest there now. I dont think the war of words between the ROC and the Catholic church is anything new, I just pray that it is solved sometime soon
Go mbeanna� Dia duit!!!
Michael Aidan

THe Celtic Church was its own animal just like the Maranoite church or the the Italo-Albanian Church but that doesn't mean they were Orthodox they were not they were a catholic church with its own unique tradions and customs whose point of contact of primacy was with Rome not Constantinople.
It had some customs closer to what Orthodoxy may be found today but it had some views that were very western for instance original sin and the Immaculate Conception of Mary are something affired very early in the Celtic Church. For every thing that favors an Orthodox view remeber there are eastern churchs within catholcim today just because they have baptism by immersion does not mean they are Orthodox they are eastern rite catholic. And looking at a map the Celtic church was not eastern. That does not mean it is without eastern infulence because it certainly seems to have had some but on the other hand it had western influence as well it was its own church with a hybrid of infulences unique to the islands that of course had to wiih the cultural customs and preferences of the locals without any influence of east and west but purely gallic and celtic.

I have read where some protestants have proposed the early church in Ireland was presbysterian or evangelical etc and the same with the eastern othrodox but the fact that so many sects have romantisizced about this rite and found commonalites within the church points to uniqueness that none of these church has a direct link with.
It was not a Roman catholic church but a Celtic Catholic Church and those that claim otherwise are reading to much into their own traditions to claim a historical prize that is not their to claim.

Interestingly the Gallican Rite still exist today in Lyons France and has a form of the Gallican Liturgy mixed with Celtic customs. This rite has a direct connection with the early Irish Church the Coptics or Russian churches that like to claim a link with the Irish church cannot say that but point to commonalites that many catholic churches have with the eastern orthdox churchs. Just because the church differed from the roman church in customs does not make it non-catholic.
There are other western rites that differed from Rome in custom and tradition ie the Ambrosian and Mozarabid and the are every bit as western and catholic as the latin rite church even though in places they mirror the traditions of eastern churchs as well. Thus the Celtic Rite was unique expression of catholicism that was both very western and very eastern but most of all Celtic and of course Irish.
The Gallican Rite (still in use and a related rite to the Celtic Rite)
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06357a.htm
The Celtic Rite (the anglican rite took over eventually on all of Great Britain, until the anglican rite formed its own church now Ireland uses the Roman or Latin rite, so this is the third different rite the isle has adopted for its expression of catholcism)
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03493a.htm

To my knowledge patriarchal parishes do not seek converts, though they will accept them. They are geared towards serving Russians in the diaspora.

Metropolitan Kirill visited Ireland in 2001 for the opening of the first parish there. You can read the article in the Irish Times [ireland.com] . He met with several people, including the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin/Primate of Ireland. The article states the parish is there to serve the immigrant community in Ireland. Many have been drawn there because of the economy that was booming in the 90's.

Whatever parishes are being formed now I would assume are due to the same factors. Hopefully when we make it back some day we'll be able to visit one.

Andrew

Andrew,

Yes, I can buy that. I know I didn't make myself quite clear. It seems to us that even when Catholics attempt to do the same in Russia (namely, care for the own flock) we are accused of proselytism. This is what I think is hypocritical.

How much easier it would be if we could all just agree to proselytize...and let the best evangelists win! :p

Logos Teen

TIL, that sounds to me like a zero sum game.

Andrew

Dear Tobit,

The Celtic Church was indeed "Western" with Eastern (mostly Coptic influences).

But what does "Western" really mean in this context?

The Roman Church that came into Britain felt the need to reform the Celtic Christians and did so at the Synod of Whitby, as we know.

And there were Celtic Saints who refused to acknowledge those reforms.

Celtic Christianity was truly unique in its expression.

The Roman Church, however, found it unacceptable that the Celts used a different tonsure, a different Paschal date and a number of other differences.

Abbots in Celtic monasticism held more administrative power than bishops - something that really drove the early Roman Christians in Britain "bananas."

Celtic monks, in addition to priests, could also be married.

The ascetical exercises of the Celi De monastics were taken wholly from Coptic monasticism (to see a living witness to this, we could visit the Isle of St Honoratus at Lerins in the south of France where St Patrick was trained - it is entirely based on the monastic traditions of the Thebaid).

So despite the Celtic Church's communion with Rome, that communion was not really expressed in any tangible, administrative way. Rome, in fact, felt offended at the traditions of the Celtic church and was actually in competition with it via St Augustine of Canterbury et al.

St Bede the Venerable's writings show that spirit of tension - although Bede disagreed with the position of the Celtic saints with respect to the putting down of their Celtic traditions, he admired their TREMENDOUS piety.

Some of the ancient Celtic practices involved the "Cross Vigil" where Psalm 118/119 was recited and a prostration to the ground was made every two verses until 100 prostrations were made.

There was the Shrine of Piety where the Celtic Christians would pray to the four directions reciting three Our Father's each time (similar to how Byzantine hierarchs begin their Pontifical Liturgies).

The recitation of the full Psalter was mandatory for the Celi De, day and night etc.

The Gallican and Ambrosian Rites are also more similar to the Byzantine tradition than to the early Roman liturgical tradition.

Interestingly, the Ambrosian Rite commemorates the "Pope" - liturgists have discovered that this title actually refers not to the Pope of Rome but to . . . the Archbishop of Milan . . .

Roman Catholicism as such negated much of the Celtic heritage, even though the Celts in Britain brought much of it back through the traditions of the common folk - Alexander Carmichael collected many poems, hymns and prayers that persisted throughout the Hebrides as witnesses to the ancient Celtic spirituality.

It is a myth that Rome was ever a friend to Ireland.

The Harp of Ireland, I forget the actual title of it, that appears on the British and Canadian royal arms, was actually given to the English King Henry VIII by . . . a Pope.

There is no reason why the Celtic peoples today could not return to as much of their ancient Celtic liturgical heritage as possible.

Alex

An 'off subject' question,

What is the traditional Orthodox viewpoint towards the individuals who are members of a church that is no longer in Communion with the Orthodox world?

If the majority of the Irish people did not follow the leadership of the church after the Synod of Whitby (664), I assume they would have been viewed as heretical. But by submitting to Rome, they ulitimately were viewed as heretical. 'If you had the luck of the Irish' ...

Is there technically a period of time in which the people of the church get to sort themselves out (say a generation?) or can you just wake up one day and be viewed as a heretic?

Kevin

Dear Kevin (or "Coemgen" Gaelic for "the gentleman!")

To back up a bit, although there were Celtic saints who refused to submit to the decisions of Whitby - that did not mean they were excommunicated.

They moved northward into the Hebrides and lived out their lives with their old traditions there. Rome acknowledges them as saints and St Bede the Venerable praises them as such.

Also, I don't know if the Celts and others saw their relationship to Rome as one of "submission."

I believe it was much more hieratic in nature rather than the later monarchistic "submission" idea.

And before 1054, the Church was united and in communion with Rome (the Eastern patriarchs hardly saw themselves as being in jurisdictional submission to Rome) - except for the Assyrian and Miaphysite Churches that was in separation from the Western church (Roman and Byzantine, as they viewed it) some centuries earlier.

And even the schism of 1054 wasn't something that everyone recognized immediately.

We have witnesses later that said the "Latins are our brothers" and the like.

It was really only in 1204, with the Sack of Constantinople, that the separation of the Latin and Greek Churches became an accepted fact, acknowledged by everyone.

Today, if one is not in communion with Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy doesn't really comment on it - it says it knows only that the church or person is "outside the Church."

Alex

Dear Alex,
"Kevin" in Irish is "Caoimhin" - pronounced Kwee - veen, with the stress on the first syllable.

Incognitus

Dear Alex and Incognitus,

Thanks ...

(Keeping it simple - middle name only)

Joe