www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News New Greek Catholic Exarchate in Russia

Not meaning to be difficult, but I get suspicious when I hear phrases like "corporate reunion" as though there's a pre-existing agreement about which Church would give-in to the other.

"Corporate reunion" sounds like a picnic for retirees.

There is a Wikipedia article in English on Fr. Sergei Golovanov: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Golovanov

Dear Serge,

Corporate reunion, the kind you are talking about, is really a Catholic pipe-dream.

Rome has been on that since the Union of Brest.

Alex

It would be good if Rome, or better still, the EC Churches, glorified their own martyrs,in the Russian Orthodox-Catholic case, the New Russian EC martyrs.

FYI, the Russian Catholics have always called themselves "Russian Orthodox-Catholic" and nothing else ("Russkaya Pravoslavno-Kafolichnaya Tserkva").

Good for them!

Alex

Absolutely right, Alex!

And Deacon Lance is correct in that an exarch need not be a bishop, although most are.

I strongly suspect, however, that Rome's aversion is less to Father Sergei than it was to the entire notion of anyone holding the title of exarch - which would mean that the exarchate was being reinstituted.

As I noted above, Vladyka Joseph is the Ordinary - but there is no canonically erected Ordinariate - no physical jurisdiction. That was Rome's intent as a measure to 'keep the peace', 'maintain the status quo', however one cares to put it.

Many years,

Neil

Question. How does this relate to the type of role Father Gabriel Martyak played during the years between the Bishops Ortynsky and Takach in the early American Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church? He was "apostolic administrator", is that similar? Thanks!

It sure does.

It probably won't happen but it's still part of our calling. Orthodoxy is anti-Western (most born Orthodox not consciously, hatefully so) but Catholicism is not anti-Eastern.

Absolutely. Their story under Communism is heroic.

Русская Православная Католическая (Кафолическая?) Церковь? Nice. Fits their calling to be just like the Russian Orthodox. Interestingly almost the same name the old Russian dioceses in America, now the OCA, and ACROD had. (For a number of reasons. The official one is it's their expression of the one-true-church claim. The practical legal one is keeping the words Greek Catholic in their name, as in the original Catholic parish charters, meant they wouldn't lose ex-Catholic churches in lawsuits. It was a way of telling Americans they weren't Protestant. And maybe they missed us. I miss them.)

Anybody here know which form of the word for "Catholic" they or the Slavic Orthodox in America used? The version with the f (a theta in Slavonic and pre-1918 Russian) is theological; the Orthodox sometimes use it. The version with the t means "under the Pope." (A Catholic is a католик.)

\\Catholicism is not anti-Eastern.\\

Is that why certain Eastern Catholic churches were encouraged--or required--to Latinize their liturgies and spiritual praxis?

Nine times out of 10 the Eastern Catholics disobeyed Rome in order to latinize themselves. The exception is in Western countries they're not allowed to ordain married men, which needlessly caused schisms. Eastern Catholics argue among themselves on whether that rule is still in force.

If my late father were here or if the late Michael Roman of the GCU were as well, I think that they would take issue with your assertion about just where the pressure to latinize arose.

Some latinization arose from "osmosis" by union with Rome, some through the Synod of Zamosc in the 18th Cent. and some because Greek Catholic bishops felt that to latinize was to put them more on par with their Latin brethren as quasi nobles or to advance their own status in Latin rite dominated states. With 20/20 hindsight, this was disobedience to Rome, but if we look with "then" colored eyeglasses, imitation of the Latin rite was perhaps seen as not only the highest from of flattery but as a mark of fidelity.
Bear in mind, there was a westernization as well, but in a slightly different key, in Russia at the time, i.e. polyphony, three dimensional icons, Western Catholic and Protestant scholastic concepts, Erastianism, etc.

This is true and if you are looking for a directive from the Congregation for the Eastern Churches directing Latinizing you are not going to find any such thing. BUT...neither will you find a rebuttal to westerning activity which was ongoing. Plausible deniability, perhaps?

There is no doubt though that the Maronite Model was preferred by some in Rome, including by some, or at least one, of Bishop Takach's successors. That post war period represented a frenzy of removing icon screens, installing altar rails, compressing the liturgy etc... to the extent that by the time the easternizing reforms of Vatican 2 came into full effect, many of the Byzantine Catholic faithful in America resisted the return to more authentic praxis. I know from growing up in ACROD in the aftermath of the split in the 1950's that our parishes had become Orthodox in name without shedding many of the more unfortunate alterations to eastern praxis which had accumulated in North America during the early 20th century.

Moderate latinizations pre-Vatican II are a living tradition. ACROD practice was fine with me. Bishop Elko, of whom you write, went much too far. I'm fine with latinizations when they're pre-Vatican II and when they don't take over the rite. Bishop Elko's changes did the latter. Don't introduce latinizations (that means we're not trying to make the Greeks and Russians do them) - that is the official position of the Catholic Church - but don't suppress them either.

De-latinization good and bad. [modestinus.wordpress.com]

I eagerly await a response from an Eastern Catholic point of view.

I am perplexed as the rubrics and liturgics at the local Eastern Catholic parish bears closer similarity to the OCA than to ACROD practice.