www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Why don't we pray for the Orthodox Patriarchs?

What would happen if we truly and fully behaved as "Orthodox in Communion with Rome?" E.g., What would happen if we included the Eastern Patriarchs in our prayers along with the Pope, and our hierarchs? Wouldn't that be more honest to our calling and wouldn't that be a way of advancing reunion?

CDL

If you mean commemorate them at Liturgy it would be dishonest. To commemorate a hierarch in the Litrugy is to proclaim one is in communion with him, and we are not in communion with the Orthodox. Further more some Orthodox would take that as means of tricking Orthodox into thinbking they were in an Orthodox Church.

Fr. Deacon Lance

I in no way see it as dishonest! Rather I am praying for them as the body of Christ and I frequently do commemorate them. especially on the feast of St Andrew.
Stephanos I

What Fr Deacon Lance said but I've heard the Russian Catholics in New York do it and it wasn't offensive.

Commemorate them anyway. It's about time we are who we are and stop letting others define us.

CDL

Unfortunately, one of the first things done prior to the great schism was reciprocal cessation of commemoration by the heads of the Sees of Rome and Constantinople.

nun Alexandra

We did not cause the schism and we should refuse to perpetuate it.

CDL

Does the Moscow Patriarch fit this description (from Oriental Canon Law)?


Here is Pospishil on the commemoration of Hierarchs during divine services of Oriental Rites:
From page 95 of Code of Oriental Canon Law - The Law on Persons, translated by Pospishil 1960.


So for example if a Greek Catholic priest commemorates the Moscow Patriarch in the Liturgy then an OCA visitor might think the MP has some jurisdiction over that parish. Also they might assume the priest does not believe in the universal jurisdiction of the Pope (since the MP does not).

If we can't be distinctly who were are why do we exist? Are we here to help bring the two together or do we exist to perpetuate the divide? Canon law is only so good as those who propose it. If the Orthodox canons deny the universal authority of the Bishop of Rome they are in error. But aren't Catholics who deny the authority of the rest of the Patriarchs? Aren't we participating in that error if we also deny their authority?

CDL

We pray for the president don't we? He is not Catholic or Orthodox. I can't see the harm, as long as the Patriarch is defined as "The Orthodox Patriarch of _X_."

Excellent point. Perhaps our superior intelligence and creative ideas will solve this thousand year old dilemma. wink, wink.

Maybe.

The standard Orthodox practice is to commemorate one's own hierarch and not to go above that. For example, we commemorate our bishop Antoun and our Metropolitan Philip. Metropolitan Philip then commemorates the Patriarch of Antioch. And the Patriarchs all commemorate one another. So even if there were reunion, local Orthodox parishes would not commemorate the Pope, but only their local hierarch. The commemoration of the pope would be at the patriarchal level.

Joe

I am neither an Orthodox nor an Eastern Catholic layman. But in the UGCC and the BCC that I attended; The Pope, The Patriarch, The Archbishop (The Latin), The Bishop (Both the Eastern and the Latin), The General Superior of the Religious Order, and The Local Regional Superior were all commemorated.

Who knows what would happen if the two stubborn offspring of the one true Church would do if they ever stopped snipping at each other.

CDL

Is canon 34 of the apostolic canons erroneous then?