www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Divisions in the Orthodox Church are holding up ecumenical dialog

I don't think anything would happen to them other than that they would be in communion with a church with whom they have been out of communion for a very long time. As far as Rome's liturgy is concerned; it is loved and esteemed by millions throughout the world who find the diversity of its expression around a unified core, refreshing. That it offends you who find it in a "shambles" is unfortunate. I know a number of people, eastern and western, who find the liturgies of the east long, tedious, repetitious and somewhat incomprehensible. I find that equally unfortunate. If we can't humble ourselves and accept diversity in liturgical and theological expression then I fear we are all doomed to remain in our unorthodox, uncatholic and unchristian isolation.

I think that they would be infected with a similar liturgical contagion. It would be better to wait for Rome to clean up its own liturgical house before entering into communion with that organization. Things are bad in the Roman Church, and I have even begun to see it effect the Byzantine liturgy in some places.

You make it sound like the Mystical Body of Christ is diseased or on life support. I find your cynical attitude the contagion. Perhaps you just need to move east!

Looking at the liturgical dance recently performed in a Pennsylvania Byzantine parish, the SF Bay Area poster has a point.

But Utroque makes a valid point about our UnChristian isolation due to cosmetic liturgical disagreements. Look at how the Western Rite of ROCOR has been treated. God help us blow past these differences and find true unity.

You are proving my point (at least to me you are) that settled differences among some Orthodox jurisdictions do not exist in others.

Political issues are PART of the reason why this is so.

Alex

Perhaps communion with Rome would also help heal issues affecting the Orthodox Church - such as discussed by the Russian priest who was recently killed.

The issues include everything from the way national/cultural chauvinism exists in some of the larger Orthodox Churches, ritual insularity that sees EVERYTHING that is Western with a hyper-critical eye (and the way the Western Rite of ROCOR was treated is a symptom of that), and a number of others I really don't care to discuss right now.

Todd, you seem to be 100% Orthodox, which is fine, but why the pretense that you are still somehow connected with Rome?

Wouldn't it be better for you (and I'm speaking as someone who is sympathetic toward you as I hope you know), to establish yourself in true canonical (or whatever you call it) membership in that very same communion of Orthodox Churches you mention?

What do you say?

Alex

Utroque,

First of all, it is true that there are Roman Catholics who find the Eastern liturgies to be dull, repetitive and boring.

My RC chaplain at university said of these Latin Catholics, when I raised it with him after we had an Eastern Divine Liturgy, "They have no idea about liturgical beauty so ignore them."

And there are RC's who find the glorious Tridentine Rite to have been wrongfully put down in the first place. There are RC bishops who simply oppose the "Extraordinary Rite" and this is why so few Latin Catholics today are not privy to its beauties.

I think Todd speaks for many of us when he says the RC liturgy is in a shambles.

I've been to many of your NO Masses and I find them appalling in every which way, for the most part.

The last straw came when I was at one Mass where people went to Communion, took the Body of Christ into their hands and slipped it into their mouths as if IT were cookie, then turned around and walked out the door without bothering to stay to the end - everyone in the Communion line did this.

I'm sure there are proper Masses being celebrated, but please - the RC Church has a real problem on their hands in that department.

As for repetitiveness - you say this as someone whose tradition emphasizes the Rosary and Litanies? You don't find them repetitive but you find the various intentions outlined in the Eastern Liturgies repretitive and dull?

Please give me a break!

Alex

I see no real benefit to the Orthodox Churches by the restoration of communion with Rome at the present time. The Roman Church's liturgy is experiencing a general collapse and I think that would harm Orthodoxy with no real benefit to be gained. The papal mass in Rio was horrendous, and I admit it was hard to sit through the whole Youtube video of that event.

Let's be honest here, national chauvinism exists in the Roman Church too, and has for centuries. But on top of that problem the Roman Church has a bureaucratic mentality that is destructive of the Christian life. The idea that a single bishop could, with the swipe of a pen, alter the entire liturgical tradition of Orthodoxy would never be accepted as it has been - to the detriment of the West - since the "reforms" or better "destruction" of the Roman Rite at the end of the 1960s by Pope Paul VI.

As a Melkite Catholic I am Orthodox, and I will always be Orthodox.

I have not ruled out conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy, but as long as I truly believe that the Melkite Catholic Church is an Orthodox Church I doubt that I will leave it. Could I at some point come to the conclusion that the Melkite Church is not for me? I cannot rule that possibility out. In the end I will have to follow my conscience wherever it leads me.

Just look at the liturgy at some of these Roman Catholic parishes:

If their communion ended (in this hypothetical) it would be because another church chose to end it. Instances of informal sharing of the Eucharist are already well documented with no "destruction" of communion.

To answer your question - nothing. They could swap notes on organ maintenance with the Greeks, I suppose.

Again, why would some of the self-governing Orthodox Churches, all of which share a common faith and liturgical life within the Orthodox Communion, want to break up their existing communion in order to enter into communion with the Roman Church with all its problems, liturgical and otherwise?

As far as the organ is concerned, what decade are you living in? I have not heard the organ used in any one of the parishes that I have attended in the diocese of Oakland since I converted to Catholicism in 1988. Perhaps the Greek Orthodox and the Antiochians want to adopt the modern Roman Church practices of liturgical dance, the use of guitars and pianos, altar girls on roller skates, circus music used in Church, etc., but I do not see how any of those practices will enhance the spiritual life and growth of their members.

I always found the following Ukrainian Catholic catechetical packet interesting. It would even be funny if it weren't for the fact that it really does present an accurate picture of the differences between the modern Roman liturgy and the Byzantine liturgy:







By the way, some people have seen this Ukrainian Catholic packet as a polemical attack upon the Roman Church, but that is not its intention, as the phrase at the bottom of the first page makes clear:

"Is one tradition better than the other? No! Both traditions are good, and both are Catholic!"

The Extraordinary Form Mass is growing in the Roman Catholic Church. I don't believe it will supplant the Ordinary Form Mass, but many seminarians are interested in celebrating the EF Mass when they are ordained. I agree there are problems in many OF Masses. I go to the EF Mass and if I can't make it to the EF, there are reverent OF Masses in my diocese. Not all have abuses. It usually depends on the priest.

I am one who doesn't find Eastern Liturgies dull. Sometimes I go to a Ukrainian Catholic Divine Liturgy when I miss the EF Mass or even a Syro-Malankara Catholic Qurbono which is a bit of a trek (40 minutes), but worth it when I get the chance. That is why I love the Catholic Church. You can go to any of these Churches and receive Holy Communion.

This was the video that really got to me.

The entrance hymn to the World Youth Day papal mass:

I find this a little more edifying than some of the sour attitudes expressed in this thread. A little liturgical dance might do you all good. Dominus Vobiscum!