www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Romania:greek-catholics and orthodox in a difficult dialogue

Americans love bumper stickers with slogans. Maybe we're so narcissistic that we think everyone else is just dying to know what we think.LOL
Anyway, one sometimes sees a sticker that quotes Pope Paul 6: "If you want peace, work for justice."
I have a Protestant friend who goes around saying he loves peace; that peace is so important...yet the poor man is radically in favor of abortion, and suffers from depression so much that he is often quasi-suicidal; and is an advocate of the death penalty and is all for assisted suicide and euthanasia. So y'all please say a prayer for him. Thanks.

If the orthodox really work for peace and love and justice why do they keep the goods of the greek-catholics, demolish the old greek-catholic churches ?

Letter to Mrs Clinton about the situation of the romanian Greek-Catholics:

[url=http://www.greco-catolica.org/a466-Scrisoare-adresata-doamnei-Hillary-Rodham-Clinton-Secretar-de-Stat-al-Departamentului-de-Stat-al-SUA-cu-privire-la-situatia-de-la-Sapanta-si-discriminarea-greco-catolicilor-in-Romania.aspx][/url]

I remember well a homily given by Bishop John Michael of Canton, in which he said, if the Church has two lungs, then Satan has two hands around the throat of the Church, trying to cut off its air. One of the lungs, he said, was the love of property, and the other was the willingness to use any means to hold it or to get it back. At the time he said this, violence between Orthodox and Greek Catholics over ecclesiastical properties in Romania was all too common. His prescription for the Greek Catholics was to let it go, to cease fighting over who took what from whom, or what should be returned to whom, and just move on--build new churches, find new places to worship, and, in effect, to turn the other cheek to those who have smote you.

I don't know whether His Grace still stands by these words, but they seem wise to me, because the problem is intractable. The Communists were clever and insidious as well as brutal. They abolished the Greek Catholic Churches and confiscated all of their property on the one hand, while simultaneously seizing much Orthodox property as well. The latter were demolished or desecrated, and the former were then turned over to the Orthodox so the Greek Catholics could never reclaim them, and enmity would be sown between the two Churches which, by all accounts, did not exist prior to the Communist takeover of Romania.

The best thing that the rest of us could do for the Greek Catholics in Romania would be providing the resources by which these new churches could be built.

So the Greek-Catholic Romanian Church should accept that 2000 churches should be officially let in the hands of the orthodox?This is justice?

Regarding the position of HE Mons. John Michael Botean:

[url=http://www.rogca.org/a1-Letter-of-Bishop-John-Michael-Botean-to-the-President-and-Prim-minister-of-Romania.aspx]http://www.rogca.org/a1-Letter-of-Bishop-John-Michael-Botean-to-the-President-and-Prim-minister-of-Romania.aspx[/url]

It's my understanding that the Austro-Hungarians used coertion so that the Orthodox could embrace union with Rome, that sometimes they used violent methods to crush rebellions of Orthodox priests but that violence was not "the rule". The Orthodox Church wasn't completely supressed, Marie Therese at the end accepted the appointment of an Orthodox bishop.

In 1948 full violence was used, the Greek Catholic Church was supressed legally and physically. Those priests and bishops who collaborated were then protected by the state. However, Greek Catholics weren't the only victims of such violence. Orthodox bishops and priests also became political prisoners. One Greek Catholic who accepted unification with the Orthodox was His Grace Teofil Herineanu (he became bishop of Roman and then of Cluj), by his writings you can see how these converts who supported the state's policy saw the union as something natural, the union with Orthodoxy presented as an act of Nationalism or "former Catholics" returning to their "Mother Church". It was a violent and sad situation, but nevertheless a chace to take advantage of the moment so that unity could be restored.

Many Orthodox of former Greek Catholic families claim it would be useless to come back to Greek Catholicism if they already find peace and stability as members of the Orthodox Church, membership shared with the vast majority of the people of their country.

I have great steem for the Greek Catholic Church as it's a symbol of resistance and anti-communism. Rome's attitude toward the BRU hasn't been correct, Rome didn't support these people who waited peacefully for a negociation and refrained from taking their temples by physical action. In Ukraine, Greek Catholics took their churches from the Orthodox as soon as they saw that the Communist establishment was about to die, they didn't follow Rome's "political negociations" and that's the reason why their Church became strong again and recovered most of their temples.

I insist on the liturgical situation. I have myself talked to Orthodox who say they wouldn't want to be part of the Greek Catholic Church because of the modern influences in the liturgy (Novus-Ordization). It's not about being poor. Maybe there are poor Churches where priests use old vestments, but you won't seem empty walls or ugly modernist iron structures, or mass celebrated versus populum, or non-liturgical hymns been sung. Law of prayer is the law of belief, the worse thing Eastern Catholics can do is to adopt the modernist practices of the Western Church.

The romanians returned to the communion with Rome at the end of the XVIIth century and nobody forced them to do so.

It is true very many descendants of greek-catholics haven't decided yet if they return to the faith of their ancestors or the "remain" orthodox.

The lyturgical issue has nothing to do with the whole story.

The Union of Alba Julia was in 1701. It can be considered a continuation of the movement begun with the Treaty of Brest roughly a century earlier. All three of the early Eastern European unions--Brest, Uzherod and Alba Julia--were indigenous movements. At various points in the process there were bishops who were in communion simultaneously with both Rome and either Moscow or Constantinople. Only gradually did it become clear communion with one precluded communion with the other. And it is not until the Melkite schism of 1724 that many scholars conclude barriers to communion became relatively impermeable.

On the liturgical issue, I saw quite a few deviations from the Typicon, not to say outright abuses, at several of the Romanian Orthodox churches I attended in that country. Nobody is really in a position to throw stones.

The romanians became christian in the first three centuries of the first millenium after Christ and their originary liturgical life was probably in Latin , they adopted the byzantine rite only in the IXth century under the influence of bulgarians.The broke of the fully communion with Rome was probably made after the XIth century but was reestablished shortly at the Council of Florence-Ferrara.What happened during the Metropolitans Teofil Seremi and Atanasie Anghel was just a return to the previous communion with Rome.

No parish church can implement the Typicon completely. Do you remember how Saint Vladimir's Seminary, in some sort of rivalry with Holy Trinity Seminary, once made the attempt to observe the Typikon fully. They discovered that it was impossible. It was too much to fit into a 24 hour period.

What they are doing doesn't look much like peace, love and justice to ME. But then, I'm a Greek Catholic.
The situation over there looks mighty complicated to me. Neither side seems to be completely right or completely wrong. All I can do is pray that it all work out well in the end. I'm sick of hostilities and spitefulness between Christians and the justification of them in the Name of Christ.

[quote=Fr.Coryolan] The romanians returned to the communion with Rome at the end of the XVIIth century and nobody forced them to do so.

It is true very many descendants of greek-catholics haven't decided yet if they return to the faith of their ancestors or the "remain" orthodox.
[/quote]

It is just these types of denials of history which make Orthodox determined that they will not be repeated.

Does the name Adolf Bukov mean anything to you?

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I know full well that the full Typicon is intended for monastic use, and that even most monasteries abbreviate some services. There is great latitude within the Byzantine rite to redact the liturgy for cathedral and parish use. When I speak of deviations from the Typicon, I do not mean such emendations, but rather distortions, insertions and displacements which may be hallowed by time and local usage, but which cannot be considered legitimate. And I have seen abuses of this type in both Orthodox and Greek Catholic parishes. As I said, nobody is immune.