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

I notice you didn't say "they love Orthodox". Were you afraid that I'd reply "For breakfast?"? (As if I would ever say such a thing! [Linked Image] )

Yes, it is permitted according to Canon 671.2 in the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches:

Although not a part of the canons, there is--at least here in the USA-- a reminder to non-Catholic Eastern Christians to respect their own disciplines when it comes to the reception of the Holy Eucharist. For the Byzantine Orthodox, that discipline says no receiving Holy Communion in a non-Orthodox Church at all.

Of course, there are pastoral situations when a non-Catholic Eastern Christian would regularly commune at a Catholic liturgy, such as if access to their own Church is very difficult or impossible.

My issue would be if there are Orthodox Christians who receive the Eucharist regularly at an Eastern or Roman Catholic parish when there is an Orthodox parish within range.

Indeed, something which bothers many of our fellow Catholics, in my experience. I like to remind them that even we Catholics are not usually permitted to request communion from any non-Catholic minister (particularly if we have access to a Catholic minister).

You're Melkite, right? To be fair, there is the inconsistency between Orthodox/Melkite practice in the homeland (intercommunion in Syria by immemorial custom) and in America (which follows the rules).

Has anyone read the article "The Myth of Schism" by a lay Orthodox theologian. The author maintains that in the Ottoman empire and in parts of the Near East, there was Latin-Orthodox intercommunion before the 18th Cent. Not only that, Latin clergy in some of those regions were even under Orthodox ordinaries.
I cannot imagine any sort of set up like that in Eastern Europe since the history of Catholic-Orthodx animosities is more acute.
One thing a previous ROCOR hierarch once mentioned was that at Orthodox places of pilgrimages in places like Pochaev, uneducated Greek Catholics were admitted to communion since they were ignorant of differences between the Orthodox Church and their own Greek Catholic Church...educated Greek Catholics were not admitted because they were aware of the differences (back then, you could tell by vesture and demeanour who was educated, I suppose).

Haven't read it. It may be true!

Yes I've been in at least one discussion about it. It is (like many other things) seized upon by some Catholics as a polemic to use against Orthodox "stubbornness".

At that time, because schools were few in number, Jesuits had been invited by the Greeks into the Ottoman Empire in order to help teach the Orthodox flock and to take on pastoral functions, even sometimes acting as confessors. The Jesuits, while in the Ottoman Empire, encouraged Orthodox Christians to make acts of submission to the Pope but without ever formally defecting from the Orthodox Church, even encouraging them to commune in Orthodox parishes and to keep their defection a secret. This laid down the groundwork for the schism in the Antiochian Patriarchate, and almost created a similar schism in the Alexandrian Patriarchate.

This in turn set the stage for the Oros of 1755 which commanded that all Latins were to be received by baptism, as the Ecumenical Patriarchate found itself to be waging all of a sudden a defensive war of sorts, against this type of ecclesiastical subterfuge (at least from the Orthodox perspective). Metropolitan Kallistos touches on this topic in his book Eustratios Argenti.

To be accurate, there was a period several decades back when the 'rules' were less strictly observed in the US - particularly in the Northeast.

Many years,

Neil

In forming our Knights of Columbus council, we had to deal with this. We have parishioners who still identify as Orthodox, but receive in our parish.

I think this worked its way all the way up to Supreme, and possibly our Supreme Chaplain (a bishop).

The decision was that an Orthodox receiving Communion in a Catholic church is in Communion with Rome and Catholic, without any formal rejection of Orthodoxy.

hawk

This is, in fact, what also occurs in the UGCC - and the same perspective obtains.

Alex

Timothy Ware, now Metr. Kallistos of Diokleia, published a monograph on this decades ago!