www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem steps down tomorrow

Collin,

It is true in some limited instances. In Eritrea, the (Latin) Vicariate Apostolic of Asmara was canonically suppressed in 1995, dividing all Catholics in Eritrea among the canonical jurisdictions of the Eparchies of Asmara, Barentu, and Keren of the Ethiopian (& Eritrean) Catholic Church sui iuris.

Many years,

Neil

I have read about that.

I dont see the point.
There is not a division of the world in areas of influence

Ad instance in November of 1991, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople founded the Holy Archdiocese of Italy (link [ortodossia.it]). And the North Italy, where the EC cathedral is, has never been byzantine, but always Latin. The greek Orthodox faithfulls in Italy are no more than 5000 and most of them are converted from the Latin Church. On the contrary the Latin faitfull in Palestinia are more than 75.000

So if the EC believes that Italy is not Latin, why the Latins shall believe that Palestina is Byzantine?

Anyway the play is not done only by Latin and Byzantine: we forget the Oriental Orthodox (who rappresents the original Church in Palestinia and Syria)
In Jerusalem there is, for exemple, a Syrian Orthodox Bishop and an very ancient Armenian Patriarch with his faithfulls (about 3000 people). Would you ask them to became byzantine?

The issue here is not whether they should be Byzantine or not... we're only recommending that if a Latin Catholic is in a patriarchal territory (or place that is under an Eastern Patriarch), the Latin Catholic is subject to the authority of the Eastern patriarch, irrespective of whether he is Oriental Catholic or Greek Catholic. By the way, this has nothing to do with the Orthodox.

But that all depends on how you group people. You are setting Orientals and Byzantines up in the same category ("Eastern") and juxtaposing that to the Latins. But the Orientals often group Latins and Byzantines together as "Western." The way you group these three depends upon your vantage point and is definitely not written in stone as if Byzantines and Orientals are somehow ontologically "Eastern," and the very same Eastern at that.

So should all the Westerns (Latin and Byzantine) be under Oriental patriarchs, or should Orientals, who've been there since the beginning, be subject to Western patriarchs, be they Latin or Byzantine?

Alexis

Logos-Alexis,

That is a good point. I find a lot of the discussion on the Latin Patriarch tends to envision the role in the same fashion as Byzantines and orientals do - when in fact the LPJ is part of an office that is more an honorific and not exactly correspondant to Byzantine or Oriental patriarchates.

[sarcasm] I think we should do this and in the same spirit abolish the Eastern Catholic hierarchies in the West and place the ECs under the local Latin ordinary. The Eastern Catholic hierarchs haven't been here that long. This entire West is part of the Western Patriarchate. There will never be reunion with our seperated Western brethren until this is done. Shouldn't the Ukrainian Metropolitan simply be a vicar apostolic? [/sarcasm]

Sound familiar?

Dividing the world along nice clean lines sounds nice in theory, but is not sound in practice. In the West (unless you happen to be Irish; feel free to ask about that caveat) we always distinguish between the ideal and reality.

Exactly, I recall about 1,000 years ago a particular Patriarch of a certain Imperial city whose disapproval and interference in the affiars of the Latin priests and their parishes with in his city were so great that it triggered a domino effect that in the end caused a schism.

I wouldn't actually object to having byzantine and oriental bishops in western europe subject as ritual auxillaries to the nearest latin archbishop if we could in exchange remove africa, eastern europe, and all of asia from the patriarch of rome's jurisdiction.



ah yes, the glorious west, responsible for dividing up the world along nice cleans lines in the last 200 years or so, and still doing so.

If you want the Latin dioceses in Asia and in Africa turned over to Eastern Catholic hierarchs, where are your bishops and priests in these areas? (Long-distance pastoring is out of the question!)

This negates all the missionary work of the Latin Church for more than 400 years!

That's about 250 million Latin Catholics to be shepherded!

Where are your missionaries to take up the cudgel for the continuing evangelization of the 2 continents?

Amado

Why all of Asia? Not all of Asia is part of the Patriarchate of the East. As mentioned in a previous post, the title "Patriarch of... & All the East" refers to the former Roman Di�cesis Orientis [en.wikipedia.org] (Διοίκησις Ανατολής), part of the former Pr�fectura Pr�torio Orientis [en.wikipedia.org] (ἔπαρχότητα/ὑπαρχία τῶν πραιτωρίων τῆς ἀνατολῆς), not all of Asia. Technically, everything east of Kerala Province in India and south of the former Russian Empire is part of the Western Patriarchate since the first people Christianized became part of the Latin Church. Therefore, living in Singapore, you would actually be under Latin jursdiction by your reasoning. LOL.

As well, several people claim to be Patriarch of the East. Who would actually get the jurisdiction over the Di�cesis Orientis?

'Technically, everything east of Kerala in India and south of the former Russian Empire is part of the Western Patriarchate since the first people Christianized became part of the Latin Church'.

Ah, not so!

The first missions to China and Japan were Assyrian. Korea was at the time under the political influence of China, so that makes East Asia canonically Eastern.

Indian Syrians were in the Malay Archipelago as early as the 8th Century - even before the Mahometans got here. Indeed, before the advent of the Mahometans to this part of the world, the dominant cultural influence was Indian.

There are also records of Armenian and Syrian clergy in Siam and the Indo-Chinese lands long before the Latins came about.

I'd rather be under a Syrian or Assyrian hierarch than a Latin one, but that's just me.

In response to a previous poster's words about the actions of a Patriarch of Constantinople causing a schism, he's right, of course - the Patriarch had no right to do that. On the other hand, what shall we say about the Latinisations and enforced conversion of the Italo-Greeks in Italy to the Roman rite through the centuries?

Actually, St. Thomas the Apostle went as far (as far as we know) as China, although the Church he began in China disappeared.

Why?


What do you think we should say? Latin influence, intermarriage, and parochial sensibilities being what they were in the days before the interwebs, airplanes, autors, trains and even printing presses...

Are you wanting us to feel bad or guilty in 2008 about that?

You're certainly welcome to do so - although it's somewhat perplexing that a Byzantine Catholic should so identity with the Latin Church that he feels compelled to assume its mantle of guilt. Rome effectively disenfranchised and/or subtly coerced ritual change among Italo-Byzantines, Italo-Greeks, and Italo-Albanians directly, indirectly through the political machinations of others, and by systematically appointing non-Byzantines to vacancies in Byzantine jurisdictions, among other measures.

You seem to think that Latin influence or the inherent awe with which one might be struck at the opportunity to become Latin was enough, coupled with some intermarriage, to cause wholesale changes of ritual heritage and culture that had been bred for centuries. Hardly.

But, again, I can only shake my head and marvel that you do not perceive how thoroughly your own thinking is latinized in your acceptance of such things as being in the ordinary course of business and as somehow marking those who would demur as to them as being hyper-Eastern or anti-Western or latinophobic, or however you would term us.

Many years,

Neil