www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Do Most EC Converts Eventually Join The Orthodox Church ?

Before the Ukrainian Liturgy, of the 4 or 5 of us saying the rosary, I'm the only non-Ukrainian. And I wasen't the one who started it either. Chances are, if you enter a UGCC church and see people saying the rosary, more than likely they're Ukrainians and not Latin refugees.

In regards to Latin refugees to Eastern Catholic churches, I've heard some negative comments on this site.

However when I asked our congregation's president about it, he spoke very positively about them. He said at his old church, after V2 they picked up about 5 RC families, who they were very glad to have due to declining numbers. When I asked if they attempted to Latinize the parish in anyway, he said they didn't, and instead tried to conduct themselves in the same manner as everyone else.

But eventually I came to believe that the papal claims to universal jurisdiction and infallibility were erroneous as well as the western teaching on the filioque and other doctrines.

I think there are usually 3 reasons for the change. 1) Liturgics: One of the justifiably big complaints against many EC parishes is their shoddy liturgical life, and perhaps this occasions some to leave for Orthodoxy. But I must say that in my experience I've been a part of 3 different UGCC parishes and chapels where a full observation of all the services, according to traditional usage, has been the norm; and I've celebrated services regularly in 3 different Orthodox parishes in 2 different countries (OCA, Antiochian, ACROD), and none have been nearly as good as the UGCC parishes. In my experience, I have yet to find in either Canada or the US an Orthodox parish of any tradition that is as rich (in terms of both community and liturgics) as St. Elias UGCC parish in Brampton. So when you've got that, why would you leave for something of demonstrably lesser quality?

I know I'm asking a controversial question here, but I've noticed a pattern on more than one site where several converts have in a few years gone from RC-Protestant or Other to EC to Orthodox. The impression I've gotten is, that they find there particular EC Church to be not quite what they envisioned, and after a couple years join the Orthodox Church.

Dear Friends,

The "why" EC converts join Orthodoxy is a fascinating issue.

One could discuss why cradle EC's become Orthodox and that would potentially be quite the separate issue.

Fr. David is quite right and the reason for EC converts becoming Orthodox has alot to do with why they became Eastern Catholic in the first place.

The primary reason would indeed be that they fell in love with "all things Eastern" and then came to see in Orthodoxy a more authentic Eastern liturgical practice - although not in all cases. Those EC's in my experience who became Orthodox tended to join ROCOR or Patriarchal Parishes for precisely this reason. The same people tended to disparage some other Orthodox jurisdictions as "not meeting the standard." This is also why there are Orthodox Christians who join ROCOR coming, as they do, from other jurisdictions.

I don't know how many ECs might become Orthodox, but it's always seemed to me a classic instance of (fatuously) thinking the grass greener on the other side of the fence--a conclusion to which only one suffering from severe myopia could come.

I think there are usually 3 reasons for the change. 1) Liturgics: One of the justifiably big complaints against many EC parishes is their shoddy liturgical life, and perhaps this occasions some to leave for Orthodoxy. But I must say that in my experience I've been a part of 3 different UGCC parishes and chapels where a full observation of all the services, according to traditional usage, has been the norm; and I've celebrated services regularly in 3 different Orthodox parishes in 2 different countries (OCA, Antiochian, ACROD), and none have been nearly as good as the UGCC parishes. In my experience, I have yet to find in either Canada or the US an Orthodox parish of any tradition that is as rich (in terms of both community and liturgics) as St. Elias UGCC parish in Brampton. So when you've got that, why would you leave for something of demonstrably lesser quality?

2) Better quality/different style leadership (cf. the example of Rod Dreher): I've written a doctoral dissertation on ecclesial polity in both Orthodoxy and Catholicism, and I have no hesitation in declaring that neither has a monopoly on strengths or weaknesses, and sane commentators on both sides will readily admit this. Both have had monsters and saints for bishops, patriarchs, popes. The idea that Orthodoxy lacks centralized, quasi-papal authority is just as much nonsense (cf. the statutes of the Russian Church, esp. in their 1945 version, much of which is retained in the most recent edition) as the idea that Catholicism lacks any expressions of synodality (cf. the relevant canons on synods in the 1990 CIC to comparable Orthodox statutes).

3) Theology. This is perhaps the most serious reason, but I think those who imagine that there are huge differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, when both are fully and properly (ie., non-tendentiously) understood, is a fantastical fabrication used to justify on-going division (as David Bentley Hart has recently and rightly put it). In other words, the theological differences are virtually non-existent, or simply unserious. One can be Orthodox in communion with Rome--I see no reason why one must be Orthodox out of communion with Rome. Have we resolved all major theological issues? No. There is only one--the papacy, and it's being worked on. (See my forthcoming book on Orthodoxy and the papacy!) The rest--unleavened bread? clerical celibacy? filioque?--and all those other tiresome textbook issues trotted out by fanatics on both sides have now been revealed as issues over which we no longer need to be divided--if we ever seriously were. (For a longer elaboration of all this, one simply MUST read DB Hart's essay "The Myth of Schism" in *Ecumenism Today*, edited by Francesca Aran Murphy and Christopher Asprey (Ashgate, 2008, pp. 95-106).

Among Orthodox converts (myself once included) Easterness can be portrayed as a panacea that will fix all the problems found in Western Christianity. Books like Peter Quilquists, "Becoming Orthodox" and other books written by Orthodox Converts like Frederica Matthews Green, Clark Carlton, really can push this theme.

Of course it doesn't help that Catholics post Vatican II have been changing the Liturgies in directions that are less aesthetically pleasing and away from established Apostolic Tradition.

3) Theology. This is perhaps the most serious reason, but I think those who imagine that there are huge differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, when both are fully and properly (ie., non-tendentiously) understood, is a fantastical fabrication used to justify on-going division (as David Bentley Hart has recently and rightly put it). In other words, the theological differences are virtually non-existent, or simply unserious. One can be Orthodox in communion with Rome--I see no reason why one must be Orthodox out of communion with Rome. Have we resolved all major theological issues? No. There is only one--the papacy, and it's being worked on. (See my forthcoming book on Orthodoxy and the papacy!) The rest--unleavened bread? clerical celibacy? filioque?--and all those other tiresome textbook issues trotted out by fanatics on both sides have now been revealed as issues over which we no longer need to be divided--if we ever seriously were. (For a longer elaboration of all this, one simply MUST read DB Hart's essay "The Myth of Schism" in *Ecumenism Today*, edited by Francesca Aran Murphy and Christopher Asprey (Ashgate, 2008, pp. 95-106).

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I think the issue is not is there an Eastern or Western version of the faith (or that one makes up for the shorcomings of the other), or where the liturgy may be done best, or whether one side or another has good leaders. The issue is where is fullness of faith found, and everything should flow from that. I believe it is in Orthodoxy, and that is why I am Orthodox. Perhaps I am a fanatic for thinking there are some important differences between the two sides, but it is my belief.

If you are referring to celibacy, the UGCC has several current married candidates in multiple seminaries in North America preparing for the priesthood for American eparchies; this is not a hindrance again if the candidate is accepted by the bishop in question. All of the current American hierarchy within the UGCC have ordained married men to the priesthood.

I think that this statement from the Russian Orthodox Church accurately teaches what I have been taught as an Orthodox Christian. What the document makes clear is that the division between Churches and communities is, in fact, a division regarding the teachings of the faith and that the doctrinal disagreements are real and serious. Any attempt to minimize them would lead only to a false and temporary union.

http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/7/5/1.aspx