www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Can One Really be East & West in Spirituality

I found this statement by Thomas Merton a few months ago...and was wondering if anyone else has had this idea or has read it before and came to a conclusion...

"I can unite in myself, in my own spiritual life, the thought of the East and the West, of the Greek and Latin Fathers, I will create in myself a reunion of the divided Church and from that unity in myself can come the exterior and visible unity of the Church. For if we want to bring together East and West we cannot do it by imposing one upon the other. We must contain both in ourselves, and transcend both in Christ".

I've been doing this for some time now and I'm amazed that it existed outside of my semi-senior mind...

james

C. I. X.

Reading between the lines the Basilian Timkovic brothers in Slovakia has nudged this wasp nest.

http://www.rusynacademy.sk/english/how_will.htm

It appears there was much Roman Catholic and Greco Catholic/Orthodox crossover. Ceremonies as the blessing of Pascha (Easter foods) is a counterreformation development. The Greco Catholic Church in Hungary was former Hungarian Protestants. When the old Roman Rite was suppressed so was the Greco Rite for a post Vatican II hybrid Slovak Latin Church melting pot. Does anyone believe Poland�s Christianity started with a wedding conducted by a Latin monk disregarding the indigenous Greco Catholics expelled during Akcija Wisla in 1947?

Historically this is what the Greek (as in Greek) Church perceived the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius was all about, creating a Slavonic Church where both were amalgamated. Not a Byzantine, not a Roman but a Slavonic Church. Most of their monasteries at the turn of the second millennium were bi-ritual and most were headed by a Basilian. This is why the Greeks do NOT refer to Cyril and Methodius as saints. How can Orthodoxy reject uniatism when it accepts Western Orthodoxy?

For this reason the Kyivan Church cannot justly overlook the commemoration of Saints Pope Clement, Pope Martin, Adalbert Bishop of Magdeburg, Adalbert Bishop of Prague, Boniface/Bruno of Quertuet patron of Ruthenia all who were missionaries of Ukraine. Nor can it forget its own granddaughter Blessed Edigna of Puch Germany.

The wedding icon of Saints Volodymir and Anna of Kyiv known as the Theotokos of Beltz was re-crafted into the Chestahova Madonna. The Kyivan immovable wall�s Oranta was copied in 1506 for the Venetian Cathedral�s Orans in the Prophet�s Cupola of Saint Mark�s. The Kieff Madonna alabaster statue who parted the Dnepro River at Kyiv like the Red Sea for Saint Hyacinth is enshrined in Krakow to this day. This Kieff Madonna reappeared in an apparition to a Basilian monk and Ukrainian shepherd at Pochayiv (the original Lords / Fatima) and in 1773 Pope Clement XIV crowned the Pochayiv Theotokos icon with an elaborate starburst frame. The Russian Church has a devotion to the Fatima Madonna with a chapel there.

Slavic Greco Catholic Church calendars should include Saints John Cassian the Scythian, Vaciav/Wenceslaus, Mechislav, Geza, Vajk/Stephen, Balesias. Nor should any Roman Catholic history study forget Saint Jerome�s Vulgate Bible was first translated into his native tongue of Slavic origin then Latin. The Ostrotsky Ukrainian Slavonic and King James Bibles share the same origin. All calendars should honor the misunderstood martyr for bi-ritual mysticism Father Jan Hus.

Remember the warm Saint Nicholas feast when the Venetian pirates stole his relics to Bare Italy in 1087. Though after the so called split the calendars of Orthodoxy celebrate it. We should stop overlooking the Saint Nicholas miracle at the Darr mine in Pennsylvania on December 19, 1907. We all must unite in the glorification of L�viv Metropolitin (Archbiship) Andryj (Sheptytskyj). How can anyone overlook the Father of U S Orthodoxy Bishop John Ireland of Saint Paul, Minnesota?

Do not forget the other half of the miracle --- December 6, 1907 in Monongah, West Virginia, when the Roman Catholic (Hungarian) miners attended mass on St. Nicholas Day, rather than go to the mine. Saint Nicholas is indeed a Wonder Worker, for all of us.



Agreed. I have long thought that the crypt of St. George's in Lviv is the center of the Church. How far your soul is from that crypt --- is how far you need to travel.



Very easily. Bishop Ireland probably did more damage to the Church than any other individual in American history. To remember him is kind of like remembering Stalin -- after all, Stalin did spread the Greek Catholic Church (and the Latin Catholic Church, as well) across Siberia. This does not justify or minimize the evil that he did.

C. I. X.

Where can I find historical documentation and statistics on the December 6 1007 St. Nicholas miracle? RC's celebrated St Nicholas day like we do, or did? I am ignorant of this event.

"Very easily. Bishop Ireland probably did more damage to the Church than any other individual in American history. To remember him is kind of like remembering Stalin -- after all, Stalin did spread the Greek Catholic Church (and the Latin Catholic Church, as well) across Siberia. This does not justify or minimize the evil that he did." quote

Exactly, yet some are glorified for doing so because of their association while others ignored because of a guilt by association. How could proselytizing from Greco Catholicism to Orthodoxy, or Greco Catholic/Orthodoxy to RC be a genuine faith conversion when it was done for ethnic/political chauvinism or economics?

I like to think of myself as a hybrid, other might think half breed. Depends on your view.
Stephanos I

Sounds like you are breathing with both lungs!!!

This article has the story of both disasters:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/dailycourier/news/s_543562.html

At the time of the anniversary, last December, there was a thread on the Forum:


https://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/279951/fpart/1

Thanks

Oh, yes. Like Fr Lev (Gillet) and other holy people I believe this wholly and entirely, but like that 'Monk of the Eastern Church' and others I don't think it means being/becoming a hybrid. Fr Mary Louis (Thomas Merton) was traditional Roman Rite... you can't live completely in two or more rites.

In church you have to be committed to one rite. At home you're freer to borrow but one rite should dominate.

Merton meant something interior.

Thanks Serge, I forgot Fr Gillet, I probably developed my idea from him.

I agree one needs to choose one to dominate, which is difficult for me.

Now to find those books among the piles of ... stuff in my den.

pax

There is nothing wrong in conversion to Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy and other christian denominations are not the same faith.

C. I. X.

Outside of communion with Rome (though there is the first millennium) what is the fundamental differences between real Orthodoxy and contemporary Greco Catholicism to constitute a "conversion�? Besides which bishops one prays for and pays to that is.

Is rubrics not the real issue here? Or is it not the reason behind these "conversions". Power of influence, politics and money I doubt is a pleasing motive unto the Lord.

You can not be in communion with non - orthodox pretending to be orthodox. You may have all dogmas right, but you are not orthodox.

C. I. X.

Is Orthodoxy a political party (Matt 7:21-23, Matt 5:17)? What constitutes Orthodoxy (Matt 24:5)? Bowing to the social historical �dogmas� of bullies (Matt 12:29) while turning your back to the social justice lacking in our current societies (Act 10:38, 1 Peter 2:10)?

Christ is inclusive (John 17:11, Acts 10:28). If being exclusive (Luke 6:22) is being orthodox I�ll join the Oriental Orthodox (Mark 16:17).

I guess before one can be an Orthodox Catholic one has to wait for the Catholics and the Orthodox to clean up their act, so we can join them not them joining us. Forgive me. The Reformation reached the East and the New World so we should have learn its lessons of tolerance, without being defensive behind one of Byzantium�s fatal flaws, arrogance.

Amen!

"John answered him, saying: Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, who followeth not us, and we forbade him. But Jesus said: Do not forbid him. For there is no man that doth a miracle in my name, and can soon speak ill of me. For he that is not against you, is for you. For whosoever shall give you to drink a cup of water in my name, because you belong to Christ: amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward." - Mark 9.37-40.