www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Proper Way to Address a Bishop and Some Encouragement

Good Morning,
Christ is Risen!
I hope I'm posting this in the right forum. I recently went on vacation with my family and attended the DL at a Ruthenian church. After Liturgy was over, I spoke to the Deacon for a little while and, without going into detail, left the church discouraged and insulted. I am RC but am considering transferring rites and am discerning a vocation to the Deaconate so needless to say this conversation was disturbing. When I got back home I spoke to the priest in my Ruthenian parish and he said I should write the Bishop (Passaic) a short email and let him know my experience. So, my question is: do you have any suggestions of how I should address the email, format, etc? I would also appreciate some encouragement as I love the Eastern Rite but I'm worried that I'm living in a "orthodox" bubble in my home parish. The DL was much shorter and lacked a lot of the prayers I'm used to. Thank You!

Carlos,

It sounds as though your home parish is one of the few parishes of the Pittsburgh Metropolia that do not use the so-called "Revised Divine Liturgy." You then attended a parish that did, and experienced a severe case of "culture shock."

Two suggestions: first, take some time to look over at least a few of the numerous threads here on the RDL; that will give you a better idea of how the bishops are viewing the whole situation and enable you to write a more educated letter. Second, use the more formal method of "snail" mail when writing to a bishop, especially if he doesn't already know you; e-mails from unknown senders are often ignored.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

On the other hand, as a Passaic chancery drone once said, "The bishop does not talk to ordinary people". Maybe things have changed since then.

One correctly and formally addresses a bishop in this manner:

The Most Reverend John (Smith),
Bishop of Oxbridge
[street address]

Your Grace:


One correctly and formally concludes a letter to one's own bishop in this manner:

Asking the archpastoral and paternal blessing, I remain, as ever,

obediently yours in Christ,


John Doe


One correctly and formally concludes a letter to a bishop not of one's own diocese in this manner:

Asking a blessing, I remain, as ever,

devotedly yours in Christ,


John Doe

so that bishop only spoke to EXTRAordinary people? where'd he find such folks? he must not have had many conversations...

tomorrow those 2 new auxiliary bishops for the RC diocese of Dallas are being ordained & installed: +Mark Seitz & +J. Douglas Deshotel. i hope they won't turn out to be a---s. So far they haven't been.

Carlos,

Christ is risen!

Regardless of the details of your concerns, I would suggest that you do write to your bishop. There is (and has always been) a very wide divergence in practice; a lot depends on whether the abbreviations you experienced were common practice elsewhere with which you were unfamiliar, or if there really was something out of the ordinary going on.

There are those here who make a practice of excoriating bishops publicly; I suspect that that sometimes leads to episcopal reluctance to respond. If you bring up your concerns with candor and willingness to listen (as it sounds like you did with your parish priest), you are much more likely to get both a hearing and an answer.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

Christ is Risen!!

C'mon, sielos. Let's be charitable. It can be lonely at the top and both these men need our prayers. Sometimes a bishop can be a lightening rod: he can draw the charged ire of people from every angle.

Bob

Our capacity for charity knows no bounds: one can and must always become yet more charitable. A friend has in her house a plaque that says, "Be kinder than you must be, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

However, your quote was incomplete.I also said the 2 bishop-elects had not so far behaved like a---s. Knowing them both as well as i do; and also knowing some of the bishop role models they've seen in action, I suspect they are very concerned lest they devolve into self-satisfied, egotistical, pompous jerks.I bet they'd be grateful for our prayers.

The biggest problem leading to pedophile and autority abuse scandals in the Churches is not mandatory celibacy or latent homosexuality. I think it's clericalism.

I'm with you on this one.

Ryan

Then we should be careful not to overreact by veering into the mirror opposite of clericalism, which is congregationalism. The Church is neither clericalist nor congregationalist, but a communion in which each order has a distinct and vital role, without which the Church is incomplete.

Christ is Risen!
I thank you all for the input. My letter to the Bishop will actually involve a conversation with the Deacon in which he pretty much insulted my parish and my Priest when I mentioned where I attended. I don't know if Father Deacon was just tactless (I don't mean this disrespectfully), or his dislike for my parish Priest was just too intense.

My worry as I get closer to the East is that I will make the change and find that much of what I love about the church I attend has been removed. I don't know much about the Revised DL. But one thing I did notice is that we still say "lover of mankind" as opposed to "lover of us all" (which I heard at the new parish). Is that just for the Ruthenian church or all eastern churches? Thanks again for the input!

Carlos,

Just a quick comment to echo something that was said earlier (before the topic went awry) by Deacon Richard, I believe, ... do not e-mail the bishop, do write instead. Passaic explicitly states on its webpage that the eparchy does not conduct business by e-mail. That's also true, albeit unstated, of most other eparchies.

Many years,

Neil

E-mail is forever, while snail mail can be "lost", "misplaced" or "accidentally discarded".

sielos:

Christ is Risen!!

I suspect there is a very real danger at moving on up to the top. As Metropolitan Jonah of the OCA remarked about putting a man in the middle of the church, dressing him like a Byzantine autocrat, and praying that he live forever, it can drain away anyone's humility. My thought was that we ought to pray for these two men. People change when they have been in authority for awhile. You get everyone addressing you as "Your Excellency" and kissing your ring and soon you think you're far removed from what Leona Helmsley called "the little people."

Bob

Carlos,
Do not be discouraged and insulted this Deacon surley has some inner issues the Ruthenian Church is a good choice I love the church and her people do not let one discourage you.
May Our Lord only Bless you and the Holy Spirit guide you.You will be welcomed by all.
+. Gods Blessings

IN DEED HE HAS RISEN!