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the Melkites have been ordaining married men in the U.S. for close to two decades (we've got one), while the Ukrainians are not far behind. I believe Bishop John Michael also ordains married men for the Romanian Exarchate.

Is there some sort of impediment for the eastern-rite churches to ordain married men in the US? I read that, at least for some time, latin-rite bishops didn't want the eastern-rite churches to ordain married men. Why was that? does that issue continue? is there still some "resistence" from the roman bishops to the idea of watching the eastern rite churches ordaining married men?

John,

While the Ruthenians have certainly lost faithful in the last 2 decades, the numbers are not ss drastic as those you cite (which are, as memory serves, from the Annuario Pontificio). The Metropolia did not have 290,000 faithful in 1990 - the number is a typical overinflation of church membership reporting. The Ruthenians are no more guilty in this regard than anyone else - look at the numbers across all of the Churches.

The short answer, which I think was posited by Fr Serge, is that there are statistics, there are damn statistics, and there are church statistics (to which I'd add that the 2 latter may be one entity). Almost all church statistics, regardless of the Church involved, are - at the very least - suspect.

Annuario Pontificio (AP) stats derive from annual reports submitted to Rome by dioceses/eparchies. Presumably, diocesan level data is a compilation of that provided by its parishes and missions. The answers as to what the numbers represent and who is counted are always open to interpretation. I don't know what instructions accompany the requests for census data, but I suspect that they are ill-defined for many of the reported categories.

Of course, there are specific numbers sought - baptisms/chrismations - infant and adult, marriages, deaths, etc. Those numbers exist, although they don't happen to appear in the excerpted data that Father Roberson posts at CNEWA. We did discuss them at some length last year when Fr Roberson posted the most current AP data.

However, when it comes down to cumulative data, accuracy is in the mind of the reporter. Unless one is the pastor of a very small mission or a parish in a Carpathian village where everyone knows one another, I steadfastly refuse to believe that most local parish priests - Catholic or Orthodox - can provide accurate counts of their flock.

Why? Whom should they count? The 'registered', the attendees (Sundays only or the Nativity/Pascha crowds also), the extended families which are the history of our Churches - ('you always belong here, even though you married that Latin girl, moved 750 miles to East Slobbovia, and only know icons as things to click on your desktop').

I think the numbers tend to be inflated and the rate of inflation is higher the further back in time that one goes. If you look at any of the EC or OC Churches in that spreadsheet, you'll generally find the same situation repeating itself. It's more understandable in the Churches that were just emerging from the Iron Curtain around that time (the Ukrainian jurisdictions in the Old Country, for instance) because no one really knew how many were left. In more recent times, I think that there has been a greater emphasis - at least in the US - on getting accurate numbers, or numbers at least as accurate as can be obtained.

Take a look here - Catholic-Hierarchy.org data on the Metropolia [catholic-hierarchy.org]. Dave Cheney, its webmaster, has a broader array of the same data. He shows selected years from 1949 through present. (His data will be a bit off from Fr Roberson's because he indicates the year reported and shows the publication year at the far right; Father Roberson indicates the publication year - which is generally a year later than the data being listed. For instance Dave's 1999 data is what Fr Roberson shows as 2000 data.)

Many years,

Neil

About the time I left, the Ruthenian parish to which I belonged had 900 people on its rolls. Of those, I would estimate that only about 400 or so showed up at least once a year (peak attendance at Nativity and Pascha). Average attendance on Sunday was about 150. Where are all the people?

Well, some of them moved away, in many cases years earlier, and were never removed from the parish rolls; many probably enrolled in another parish elsewhere, and thus are being double (or even triple) counted. Yet others have become de facto members of Latin parishes, and might only be seen if a member of their family is being baptized, married or buried. A few may have gone over to the Orthodox Church. I would guess the remainder have just dropped out.

It takes an act of will to be an Eastern Christian in the United States, and by the third or fourth generation, the ethnic ties will no longer bind people to a way of life that is so counter-cultural. As Metropolitan Kallistos likes to say, "The day is coming when no one will be an Orthodox Christian who does not consciously decide to be one". That applies to the Orthodox in communion with Rome, too. And even to those who want to be something "in between".

It is, however, disingenuous to say that the Ruthenians may do so without recourse to approval from Rome. They apparently inserted that provision in their own Particular Law and it's not at all definite how Rome would react to such an act.

Another question: while it seems that most Orthodox priests get married while in seminary, or shortly after graduating.

It seems to be much more common with the eastern Catholics that a man is married first, then later on goes to seminary. Is that a fair description?

SOmebody informed me that certainly prior to Melkites ordaining married men in the US, but I don't know about now, that men who flew to the patriarchal territories to get ordained by the Melkite patriarch were not given faculties to operate in the US. Is this correct?

Yes, it's described in detail in this article [orthocath.files.wordpress.com] written back in 1986 by Fr. Philip Khairallah, a Melkite priest.

The file at the link above may take a bit to download, so be patient.