Originally posted by daniel n:
Perhaps this sort of quibbling is what has kept us so self-absorbed? I am excited to see the emergence of a mission society within the Byzantine Church.
We may feel so outnumbered by the Latins that we forget that the reason for this is that the Latins have always exhibited great missionary zeal. I was reading only this morning that in the 19th century the average French missionary arrived in Africa at the age of 26 and died at an average age of 32. And the history of the Western Church is so full of this heroic zeal for souls that it was a commonplace.
I know that some will say that the relative absence of missionary zeal in the East arose from historical circumstances; the Eastern Europeans were not colonists, for example. But what of Ireland? She was an oppressed country and still sent out missionaries in droves. Does anyone have any insight into this phenomenon? My speculations are tentative, so please, no one should take offense.
Dear Daniel n,
I see alot of the same things you do, and there is no denying those missioners of the past had great zeal, I admire them for there selflesness. The Roman west certainly did put out a great crop of missioners that weren't concerned about things like jurisdiction, just the work at hand, which makes our problems pale by comparison.
To be fair I doubt the RC church is putting out many of that kind of missioner today. There are a few areas like Sudan and Pakistan where the situation could be comparable today, but
The harvest is ready and the workers are few.
But I do have a few comments about the domestic mission situation for us today. Quite a few people who post here give their lives to God's work and we are proud of them. But as a church (or group of churches) we could be our own worst nightmare. I can think of some reasons right away, and there may be more. These are going to sound like harsh generalities but it's only my opinion. I am not a scholar with a huge database of scientifically accumulated information.
EthnicitySorry to belabour the obvious but I do believe our problem has something to do with ethnicity, in the east there is a tendency to take care of the home front first. We still see this in our day, it is highly unlikely for us to put in a lot of volunteered time (ringing doorbells, passing flyers out at the mall etc.), donate money and hold raffles, prayer vigils and bingo events to support a new parish mission that we know will be turned over to another Eparchy once it's on it's feet and paying it's own way. Would Ukrainians do that for the Ruthenians or Slovaks? Would Ruthenians do that for Romanians or Ukrainians? Once the mortgage is paid up everyone can relax, and think about improving the off-street parking lot or maybe cut back on the weekly contribution.
It is really hard to drum up any enthusiasm for that kind of effort for ones own people, and for another overlapping Eparchy to get the fruit of ones labor might just be too much to bear.
Mission workWith a non-nationalist attitude mission work is less about us, and more about the people we need to reach. We shouldn't forget that the primary beneficiaries of the outreach effort should be the people we are trying to reach.
Look at the work in China as an example, RC missioners from many countries went to China to work among the many non-Christians there. We know that they coordinated their efforts by working in zones. The foreign missioners had areas designated to work in and it was organized so that no mission station was working too close to another. Everyone knew that the ultimate goal was to turn the church over to a native clergy and episcopate. Since the American/French/Irish church did not see itself as essentially unique there was no interest in making those missions an extension of the (insert country here) church.
So now what?In the U.S.A. the various Byzantine rite jurisdictions are completely overlapping, and we have the preposterous situation of small populations supporting Eparchs far away. These eparchies are very strained and their ability to serve their areas is limited to what we can contribute. This is a reality that will not change, if we wait nothing will be done.
I would say that we must accept the organizational liabilities as they are and not spend too much energy trying to change it, there will be far too much resistance and wasted time. If we must have overlapping eparchies I think we should find new ways to promote inter-eparchial cooperation.
For example, in my area the Ruthenian church is approximately 40 to 50 miles in one direction from the next Byzantine rite church, a Romanian parish. There is a huge void of area between the two with no proper service. I would guess that there are well over 1 million approachable people living in the great stretch of land. The Ruthenian parish and the Romanian parish should cooperate in a mission there, sharing expenses and effort.
Do you think it will ever happen? I don't! The Romanians would probably be afraid the church would turn out too Ruthenian or become a Ruthenian parish. And the Ruthenians would probably be concerned that the Romanians would try to dominate the project or demand a Romanian eparch.
In another direction there is a Ukrainian parish only six miles away. We don't do anything together, no events, nothing. They might as well be Protestants! We could be supporting each others efforts, evangelizing together, putting out Eastern Catholic literature with both churches names on it, sharing a choir...
It's a doggone shame
MichaEL
