www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Bi-ritual Priests

How does one become biritual? Does he go through "training" (not sure if that is the correct word) while he is at the seminary or does he get ordaned to one church and then get traing at a later time?

A man would attend seminary in his own Church and after ordination petition for permission from his bishop and the bishop he is seeking ritual faculties from. He then would attend the other Church's seminary for a month or two.

Fr. Deacon Lance

In my experience, it's not usually something that happens immediately after completion of one's own seminary training (which your post suggests would be the case). Most priests who obtain such faculties do so after some years - the most notable exceptions being in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and India, where most priests of the Ethiopian/Eritrean Church and those of the Syro-Malabar Church receive bi-ritual Latin faculties.

In his response, Deacon Lance describes the ideal situation. Historically (and still, in many instances) it's a mix of personal study and one-on-one training provided by a priest of the Church for which the faculties will be accorded.

Many years,

Neil

But, if, if it does happen in the future, an RC religious (not diocesan) priest in a country wants to become biritual (Roman+Byzantine), where there are no Byzantine church within 100 miles radius, and with no byzantine Bishop having claim for the particular area, what should the priest do then, especially because there is a demand on the part of the faithful?

There would need to be a Byzantine people to serve before anything could happen. There has to be a genuine need. There ahs to be a people to serve. It would be highly unlikey that intodays works that any group of Byzantines would not be taken care of already by some arrangement with their mother church and this would be approved of by Rome. Australia and New Zealand are 2 such places (among others) that are outside any Patriarchate and the need is taken care of By Bishops appointed in some cases, or Latin Bishops ensuring that the faithful of that Church (if they are small groups) are served by priests of their particular Rite.

I am talking on the context of Indonesia. We are a small group, currently, scattered in a few cities, but mostly in Jakarta. We have contacted both Australian eparchies, which apparently seems to be dragging things. Things are a bit more complicated here, because there is a rule explicitly forbidding foreigners from leading any religious entity in the country.

It is canonically very complicated to be very honest. As Pavel states, you need to have a Byzantine people for any Eparch to think seriously about Indonesia. They can help, they can visit, and they can give talks or presentations, or at best, celebrate Liturgy, but not to the extent of doing missions there.

They will need the Holy See to come in if they were to do so. And that might be a challenge. Furthermore, I know that South-East Asian bishops are very suspicious of the the traditional Roman Rite, what more the Eastern Churches? Thought to consider there.

So, if there is a priest from Indonesia who is learning things from the Orthodox and makes himself known to the Eastern Eparchs, maybe. But unfortunately, the Latin bishop still has a lot of say in this.