www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West How do you respond to this.....

I'm in a bit of discussion with what appear to be some very Traddie Latins. I just asked a question or two and now I am getting hopped all over by them. I have answered their charges, but just wonder how you in the East would answer the following:


To which my thought is -- really? They had flat paten and golden chalices in the first century?

Isn't St. John of Kronstat an incorruptible?

You actually witnessed a traditionalist ask "where in the scriptures does it say"? How do you get so lucky?

This isn't a very traddie latin. This is an idiot. How you respond is "I can't help you. You're a moron.".

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....a lack of charity got me banned for a week just recently. I'm working on the charity thing right now!

I wonder if she is a sedevacantist. I always wonder how sedevacantaists can appeal to "the Church of Rome" when it apparently has no true bishop (according to them, anyway). Oh well.

Blessings

Irish_Ruthenian:

Christ is in our midst!!

So much ignorance . . . so little time . . .


Anyone who could write something like this is no Catholic. The Catholic Church has said that the Orthodox Church is a sister Church with a full sacramental life. That said, we do not refer to the Holy Body and Precious Blood of Christ in the manner this person did. Where do I begin? Poor catechesis? All it takes is ignorance to post on the Internet? (FWIW, it's Byzantine, not Byzantium; the Church refered to is the Catholic Church that uses a liturgy developed in the East: she has the same claim to that title since the Nicene Creed was developed in the Christian East.)


Did no one ever tell this person that the Paul V Liturgy was an attempt to codify the many abuses that developed during the Middle Ages when everyone cut whatever he wanted so as to be able to celebrate as many as he could in a day--when wealthy people hired priests to celebrate Masses for their departed loved ones day in and day out? This "Mass of the Saints" things is usually one thrown about by people who know little of what liturgy was like pre-V2. Beyond that, which "Roman Catholic Mass" does she refer to--Paul V or Paul VI? Both can lay claim to that title. Which reference is this person making--"Roman Catholic" or "Traditional Roman Catholic"?


This only makes sense if one is completely ignorant of the history and life of the Eastern Churches since the schism of 1054. There are plenty of incorruptible saints in the Orthdoox Church.

As an aside, I have been gifted with a book that tells the tale and shows pictures of many Catholic incorruptibles. I will tell you, however, that as a funeral director, an incorruptible body is one that looks like the person has just left it--skin texture the same, etc. Incorruptible does not include mummified remains; it does not include remains that have begun to show dehydration (dark brown patches--leather-like on exposed skin); and it does not include shrunken fingers--among other signs of decomposition). If I want to see a truly incorruptible remains, I'd want to see soemthing like the description of St. Seraphim Rose of Platina whose description was that he was unembalmed in extreme summer heat and showed absolutely no sign of decomp, smelled slightly of roses, and whose body retained the look of him sleeping. That's incorruptible. I've seen the entire spectrum of exhumed remains, from barely decayed to completely decayed so I have a point of reference.

My question to you, my brother, is why would you even interact with such a person? I, for my part, have no time for gross ignorance of this type. We are supposed to be far past this type of ignorance of our brethren in Christ.

Bob

"The Church of St. Thomas also has the latin Mass.. you forgot to mention that."

Glad you did because, had you, I'd have been forced to ask what you were talking about If this individual is speaking of our Indian brethren, the St Thomas Christians, the Latin Church in India is not counted among the Churches whose faithful are so termed.

Other than that, I've nothing to offer beyond what my brothers have already said. The individual is blatantly ignorant, purposefully or not, I can't say.

Many years,

Neil

It sound like no answer will be good enough for that Latin.
That said, I find it interesting that there are typicons going back to the fourth century in the East upon which the ones in use are now based, but is there any such thing in the Latin rite? I am half Carpatho Rusian, but I was raised Latin rite and I used to hang out with heavy hitter converts. I know liturgy was not their forte, but the origins of Western liturgy seem more intangible to me, even though that is the part of the workd that is supposed to have all the terrific scholarship.
You interlocutor may need to become aware that perhaps many aspects of the Latin liturgy are the result of centuries of inculturation, first the Romans, then the Franks, influences from and reactions to various reflowerings, reformations, revolutions, etc.

I think that these people are like certain Presbyterians I remember reading who insisted that the first eclessial rubrics were Calvinist by nature. I have a strong sense that this lady would insist that after Jesus ascended, the Apostles celebrated the TLM.

Evelyn's words -- though sounding a bit naive, crude -- can't be fairly critiqued not knowing the context. To what exact previous statement(s) was Evelyn responding here?

Irish,

My first piece of advice would be to be selective about whom you get into discussions with. There are lots of people out there who can throw out objections like these faster than you can answer them, and this lady seems like one of them. Trying to reason with such people is an exercise in futility.

FWIW, though, I ran a quick Google search and it led me to a Wikipedia article [en.wikipedia.org] listing 17 incorrupt Orthodox saints. They are:

• Anthony, John, and Eustathios
• Saint Alexander of Svir — the incorrupt relics of the saint were removed from the Svir Monastery by the Bolsheviks on December 20, 1918, after several unsuccessful attempts to confiscate them. Finally, the holy relics were sent to Petrograd's Military Medical Academy. There they remained for nearly eighty years. A second uncovering of St Alexander's relics took place in December 1997, before their return to the Svir Monastery.[5]
• Saint Dmitry of Rostov
• Saint Job of Pochayiv
• Saint John the Russian
• Saint Ioasaph of Belgorod — In 1918 the Bolsheviks removed Saint Ioasaph's relics from his shrine in the cathedral of the Holy Trinity at Belgorod, and for some seventy years, their whereabouts remained unknown. In 1927, the cathedral itself was demolished. In the late 1980s, the relics were discovered in Leningrad's Museum of Religion and Atheism, and on 16 September 1991, they were solemnly returned to the new Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Lord in Belgorod, in the presence of Patriarch Alexy II.[6]
• Saint Nectarios of Aegina
• Saint Parascheva of the Balkans
• Saint Seraphim of Sarov
• Saint Spyridon
• Dionysios of Zakynthos
• Gerasimus of Kefalonia
• Saint Zosima
• Saint Elizabeth
• Saint John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco

Peace,
Deacon Richard

In the Latin rite, the only thing close are the various ancient Sacramentaries, though the Latin rite doesn't have anything quite like the Typicon. The "traditional" Mass is quite similar to the liturgy preserved in the Sacramentaries, at least in the Ordinary and the temporal cycle.

For the sake of accuracy, this is incorrect. The CDF issued a clarification that particular or local churches can be regarded as "sister churches", but it is incorrect to say that the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches as a whole are "sister churches". The Catholic Church is mother to all particular churches: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...aith_doc_20000630_chiese-sorelle_en.html

Thank you for saying that, griego catolico. Indeed, the Roman Communion (not "Roman Church", although some Catholics can't seem to understand that) is made up of many churches, as is the Orthodox Communion.

Sorry I missed this thread.

The person in question is engaging in the kind of East-West one upsmanship that went on for centuries.

One example is that when St Bernadette was shown various images and icons of Our Lady to try and identify how the Mother of God appeared to her at Lourdes, she actually lighted on an icon Our Lady of Graces similar to the icon of Our Lady of Naples.

For some reason, the local RC authorities insisted that a statue (more Western) be used at Lourdes instead - something that St Bernadette opposed.

As for the incorruptibility of Saints' relics, Easterners could easily reply to say that such incorruptibility is a sine qua non of sanctity in the Byzantine Churches especially - it is more often assumed that a true Saint would be incorruptible than not. This means that incorruptibility isn't so scrupulously catalogued in the East since it is taken as a matter of fact of a Saint's holiness/deification.

There are more than 150 incorrupt relics of the Kyivan Caves Saints and many more who have yet to be glorified in the attached Sketes of the Caves Lavra (such as the Holosiyivsky and Kytayevo Sketes).

Not to mention all the incorruptible Saints relics on Mount Athos, in the mountains of Romania, the various other Orthodox monasteries.

Incorruptibility of relics is a "given" in the East and is not a "surprise" as it is in the West which does not see this miracle as a necessary beginning to the Canonization/Glorification process.

As for her ridiculous statement about Christ "spoon feeding" at the Mystical Supper . . .

Has she never heard of the Church Fathers? If she feels that the Eucharist should be celebrated the way Christ actually celebrated It at the Last Supper . . . then the Roman Catholic Church would have to bring in loungers into Church for people to lie on for starters.

The way the Latin Rite NO Liturgy is celebrated in some of the parishes I've attended - such an innovation wouldn't be out of place at all.

There is a whole list of issues that prove her to be not only completely wrong - but more importantly and tragically, completely ignorant of the development of the Liturgy in both East and West.

Did our Lord use the maniple? etc. etc.

God save us from Latin Trads like that!

Alex