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Melkite Convert,

Keep in mind that while many Greek Catholic parishes were subject to Latinization, whether imposed from outside or self-imposed, and many seem to be trying to turn the tide, that many Orthodox parishes self-Latinized (or westernized) once they established themselves in the West. I recently wrote about a Greek Orthodox parish here in Georgia that has huge stained-glass windows, pews with kneelers, and the back wall is a giant pipe organ.

So, this is not simply a Greek Catholic problem it is also an Orthodox problem.

Let's stop fooling ourselves about this issue.

Rybak,

I'm not denying that the Orthodox Church has issues of its own. The thing you mentioned is just one example of why there is so much contention between the many jurisdictions in the United States and Canada. For example, ROCOR continually criticizes the Greeks for such practices and, on many occasions, comes close to considering them and the Antiochians to be outside of Orthodoxy.

That being said, I fail to see how this impacts what I wrote. As Eastern Catholics, we are in a unique position. (As I like to say, we exist in somewhat of a "Neutral Zone", not being fully Catholic, in the way it is commonly understood, but not being fully Orthodox.) We constantly hear that our position is to show that one can be fully Orthodox and still be in union with Rome. If that is true, then we must live up to that calling. We cannot say, on the one hand, that we are fully Orthodox and are as Eastern as Easterns can be, and then, on the other hand, allow such things as altar girls. (The burden of proof, so to speak, is on us.) That does not make any sense to the Latins nor to the Orthodox. Whether the Orthodox choose to adopt certain Western practices shouldn't matter to us nor justify our adoption of them.

I think we have a great role to play in spreading the Gospel, especially among fallen away Catholics. However, I still believe strongly that until we, Eastern Catholics, fully embrace our Eastern patrimony, we will never be an effective voice in spreading the Gospel of Christ our Lord.

Peace and Blessings,
Scott

Well said, Melkite Convert.

I was a member of a BCC parish for several years but left in 2000 to follow the Latin trad movement. I would love to come back to the BCC parish but have serious reservations for the reasons you identify above. I was thinking of these same issues almost two years ago when I made this post:
https://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbt.../Returning%20Parish%20Members#Post309957

In that post I said that unless a new wave of immigrants from Eastern Europe shows up in the US, which is not going to happen, the BCC is going to have to get refugee (from the Novus Ordo) Latin rite Catholics or Protestants looking to become Catholic but who are repulsed by what they see in the in most Latin parishes. I don't want to come off sounding like I view the BCC is a refugee camp. There is certainly enough beauty in the east for somebody to want to run to it, rather than from something else. In any event, what newcomers want and need is stability grounded in tradition.

I attend a BCC parish on most weekends because it is only 5 miles from me. I am a member of, and send my weekly envelope to, a Tridentine parish which is 70 miles away. I thank God every day I have the BCC within 5 miles of me because I don't know what I would do if it wasn't there. At the same time, however, I have a lot of reservation about investing time, money and the emotional toll it would require to be a parishioner for all the reasons Melkite Convert identifies. To make matters worse, nobody knows who is going to be the next bishop and what he might do. Altar girls, Eucharistic ministers, revised liturgies with a political agenda and etc. Where is it going to end?

I often hear people in the BCC say they are in the process of de-Latinizing. Hey, I'm all for that! Respect the eastern traditions. Mirror the Liturgy on the Orthodox. Cut out the Saturday evening Liturgy, start doing Vespers and Orthos, promote the use of Chotki's and the Prayer of the Heart and etc. If the Orthodox parishes in the surrounding area were being used as a model I would feel a lot more comfortable about joining the parish. However, it seems to me that the Orthodox parishes are not being used as the model, the Latin parishes of the 1970's are. It seems like the BCC is lagging the west in trying many of the same liberal experiments the Latin’s tried 35 years ago - but they are expecting different results.

I'm really not trying to tic anybody off here. I'm simply agreeing with Melkite Convert. If the goal is to evangelize and bring in new members to the BCC, then there needs to be some stability grounded in tradition, not a state of liturgical terrorism.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not standing on the outside trying to tell others how to run their church. I’m just standing on the outside trying to figure out how safe it is in terms of making it a home. Posting a reply on an eastern Forum about “Altar Girls”, whether they are in the BCC or UGCC, doesn’t do a lot to build a comfort level.

Thanks, but no thanks. There is more to being a Byzantine Christian than having a "nice Mass". Either go native, or stay home. Refugees we don't need. Most do more harm than good.

Then show some Christian hospitality and teach them the authenticity and integrity of the Byzantine tradition, rather than just shutting them out to be spiritually starved.

Athanasius expressed my thoughts on the matter perfectly. I myself am one of your "refugees"; I came to the East because I could not even recognize anything that felt like Catholicism in the Novus Ordo; I soon came to love the beauty of this rite even more than that from which I came ("every man, tasting that which is sweet, is unwilling afterwards to taste that which is bitter," as the emissaries of St. Vladimir said). But I also recognize that the East is not the West, that it has its own integrity to it which is violated when we try to mix rites together, that its differences complement the Western tradition of the Church, and ONLY complement the Latin tradition - and therefore are only truly Orthodox - when we purge the rite of its modernizations (pews, altar servers, kneeling, iconostases that you can see through, abbreviated Liturgies, rosaries before Liturgy instead of Orthros - I saw that one at a UGCC church - spoken Liturgies, etc.).

(I call them "modernizations" rather than "Latinizations" because it is unfair and almost insulting to the Latin Rite to associate it with them. The "Novus Ordo", believe it or not, was intended partly to be closer to the Byzantine Rite, and the "Byzantinizations" there are frankly insulting to our rite. Some Dominicans once tried to tell me that the Novus Ordo was superior to the Tridentine because it was less Latin and more Eastern.)

Both the Latinized "Byzantine Liturgy" and the de-Latinized "Novus Ordo" are problems we need to correct; the two lungs of the Church are closest to each other in their authentic forms. I feel most at home in a Byzantine Liturgy that is truly Orthodox and at a Tridentine Mass that is truly Traditional - but not in the syncretic versions of each. The Latin traditionalists are the ones we ought to be most eager to teach our tradition to, because they are the ones we are closest to and our best allies against Satan.

You are speaking like a Latin (in one of bad tendencies that the Roman Rite can be prone to) when you say "there is more to being a Byzantine Christian than having a 'nice Mass'" - why are you separating the Liturgy from the rest of the Christian life? The Liturgy is its "source and summit", as Vatican II taught - it is the very heart of our spirituality. Just as it is a bad tendency to exclusively isolate the specific moment when "transubstantiation" occurs, rather than viewing the Sacrifice of the Liturgy in its totality, so we should not view the Liturgy as something that can be partitioned off from the rest of the Christian life. One fully experiences the Liturgy when he prays properly throughout his whole life, and vice versa. The "Latin refugees" come to us because of the Orthodoxy - "right glory" - of our Liturgy, and that is the only proper reason for doing so.

I am happy you found a home in an EC church that has a liturgy you identify with. I hope it has a good priest, an excellent cantor, a congregation that can chant the appropriate responses etc. I will presume you have adopted the Eastern theology to go with it.

That said, every time I read one of these "I couldn't stand the Novo Ordo" posts I have hold my nose. I grew up in a mission church in a rural area surrounded by rural German and Irish parishes. I was an alter boy from seven years old on. I can honestly say that I never ever attended a Tridentine mass in that time that was in any way liturgically or spiritually any better to the worst of the Novo Ordo masses I have attended for years. I guess the mumbling and grumbling in Latin inspired some people, if they had time to read the English translation in their missals, but it certainly was not the pinnacle of liturgy people make it out to be.

The Latin Traditionalists apparently do a really good job of it. But if you are trained as an actor you should act well. I have expressed my contempt for them in posts before not because of their liturgy but because of their narrow mindedness, lack of rational thought and distortion of history and theology.

Now I wonder if you have every really attended a Novo Ordo mass that is actually done well. In my parish, the entire liturgy except for the readings is sung by a priest who is trained to chant and has a beautiful voice. All of the antiphons and responses are chanted by a highly trained choir that leads the congregation. The cantor is also a trained musician.

By the way the priest is also a PhD theologian who gives excellent homilies.

I have been to Eastern Catholic liturgies where there was a volunteer cantor, a few participants straining to keep up and the priest who was in a hurry to get somewhere else. Enough about that.

In this parish the liturgy is held in the same respect and place as it is in any Eastern Church.

I am happy you have found a home. I would hardly consider you a refugee since every refugee I ever met wants to go home but can't. I would say you are an immigrant who thinks he has found a better land and wants to stay there. Stay there but stop distorting the picture of your homeland.

The Melbourne Eparchy will be introduing female Altar Servers soon. A notice just publised in the Western Australian parish newsletter announced the intention to recruit them for the parish. De-Latinisation died a few years ago here, if anything there has been some back sliding to tried and tested (no doubt safe) Austro-Hungarian ways.