www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Father Keleher and St Mark of Ephesus

Dear Peter,

Alice is not talking about the "here and now" but the Saints in heaven.

St Mark of Ephesus would not have cared who the RC Church venerated - in any event, that was not part of the talks at Florence and it has always been understood that each Church in any reunion can keep its own saints - and will.

It was only within the framework of "uniatism" or when parts of Eastern Churches came under Rome (the "erring child coming back to the Mother Church) that the issue was recast into one where any Orthodox saint who was, in life, against Rome, would be expunged from the calendar. (In the Ethiopian case, this also extended to the cultus of St Pontius Pilate - done in ignorance by Roman bureaucrats who had no idea about the ancient origins of that cultus in Alexandrian Christianity).

One UGCC priest, who had two doctorates from Roman universities, told me that such saints could, in fact, remain in the calendar, but could not be liturgically venerated.

At the Union of Brest, however, all those saints who were canonized by the Orthodox Church (i.e. outside of union with Rome) were expunged. The only two saints of the Ruthenian Church in union with Rome that could continue to have a liturgical cultus were . . . Sts Boris and Hlib, sons of St Vladimir. Even St Vladimir and St Olha could not be venerated at the beginning. Their cultus was slowly brought back, as was that of Sts Anthony and Theodoius of the Kyiv Caves.

In the latter half of the 19th century, Austria-Hungary's suspicions about Orthodoxy as a political agent of Russia led to the formal banning of many Eastern Saints that had hitherto been venerated by the UGCC. Also, a number of miraculous icons of the Theotokos were also dropped from the EC calendar for the same reason (most notably the Pochaiv icon). All this was considered "too Orthodox" and it gave fuel to local Orthodox revivals throughout Eastern Europe. (This was also the time when the term "Greek Catholic" was coined by Austria-Hungary to put pay to any reference to "Orthodox" by the EC's).

Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky and his successor, Patriarch Josef Cardinal Slypyj, returned those Saints and icons to the UGCC calendar. Notably, Sheptytsky put a halt to the ongoing legal proceedings of the UGCC against the Pochaiv monastery which had been handed to the Orthodox. The Orthodox were faced with a bit of a quandry when they got the monastery back since the Ukrainian Catholic third Order Basilian, Myron Pototsky, had spent many millions of his personal fortune decorating the interior of the monastery with Baroque-style ornaments and even statues. He was considered a great benefactor of the Lavra (and also of the anti-Unia Manjavsky Skete to whom he bequeathed a healthy some of his wealth).

When the Orthodox monks at the Lavra complained about the "Latin ornamentation" to the Holy Synod in Russia (dominated, in fact, by ethnic Ukrainians at that time), they were told bluntly to leave everything as they had found it, no further questions asked. the akathist service to the Icon of Pochaiv, to this day, makes an allusion to Myron Pototsky. The Orthodox akathist to St Maximus the Greek refers to the Dominican Jerome Savonarola as "blessed Jerome" since Maximus was, at one time, his disciple. I like going off on tangents, don't you?

The article you cite commits a number of blunders with respect to the East, but none so telling as the author's reference to the lack of a central authority within Orthodoxy.

In fact, had he any inkling of the first thousand years of Christianity, he would have known about the role of the Ecumenical Council and how only such a Council, not any one patriarch, could effect a reunion. That is the age-old dispute between Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Catholicism - authority in the Church.

That author is living proof about how much the conservative RC's are behind in their estimation and understanding of the Orthodox Catholic Church of the East.

Quite appalling!

Cheers,

Alex

Then this will be your big chance to get away from it all.

(Always nice to meet another Wrath of Khan fan. )

I see what you mean; but at the same time, church experience shows that a church doesn't Have to be large to do alright -- e.g. EC Churches in Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia.

Hahaha. I see you are a Trekker.

Dear Peter,

If you mean the EC Churches in those countries - they are small indeed and regarded with deep suspicion and distrust by their fellow countrymen.

I don't think that was Rome's intention when it still followed the "uniate" model of church union.

If anything, it would be better for such unions not to have started up in the first place - but who knew what the outcome would have been? (Or, at that time, who would have cared on Rome's side?).

The UGCC is a strong church in Ukraine especially and it has gained much from its coming to the service of the people especially throughout the last turbulent months there.

Our Patriarch Svyatoslav, when he was here in Toronto, related this story:

"A young man with only one eye, during the Maydan demonstrationgs, was pinned in a building by the snipers/police. He jumped out of the window, hurting his leg, but managed to limp away toward the .... UGCC Cathedral of the Resurrection. He couldn't have gone to any hospital as all physicians were under orders from Yanukovych that such were to be handed over to the militia immediately. He came to our Cathedral where we had our own doctors who took care of him, our own social service workers who looked after him. Our cathedral became a safe haven for those who had been wounded in the streets by sniper fire . . . "

It is under THOSE conditions that the UGCC has earned its right to be a Church of the people. And it will survive as such, there as well as in the Diaspora.

A small parish of ours here raised over $15,000 dollars in aid for Ukraine as well. I'm not interested in what the wealthier parishes have raised.

Alex

"Trust but verify."


That seems to be a leitmotif in this forum.

I think at least in practice this forum throws unlatinized Byzantine Catholics under the bus. It encourages them to 'dox rather than follow the magisterium, which makes Catholics suspect innocent ones of being unfaithful.

I haven't seen Alex thrown under the bus, yet. I never felt the same, either. I do get thrown under the bus, by other Eastern Catholics who are highly latinized.

Here we go again. "Poor unlatinized - those stupid Latins and latinized making you miserable. (You know, Vatican II says Orthodoxy's the true church too...)"

A great thing about the church is it doesn't force you to hate the West in favor of the East or vice versa. You can be unlatinized (Orthodox style), Roman, or a mix. Rite is for good order in church; liturgical. But just as the Roman Rite has its Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms, the unlatinized and latinized Greek Rite should co-exist.

It sometimes seems the real religion on this nonsectarian board (but why's it on an unofficial site with the name of a Catholic jurisdiction?) is a misreading of Vatican II in Byzantine drag instead of potato-sack vestments, guitars, and big puppets for liturgical theater. High-church liberalism is still liberalism.

You're reading too much into my statement, that is all.

Peter,

The Albanian Greek-Catholic Church is of eparchial status, but is sine episcopi (without hierarchy). It is organized under the Apostolic Administration for Southern Albania (Albania Meridionale), a Byzantine canonical jurisdiction which exercises ordinary authority over and pastoral responsibility for Latin Catholics resident within its geographic bounds. The Apostolic Administrator himself is a Byzantine hierarch, but not an Albanian Byzantine.

Currently, the Church has only its cathedral and a single parish - and that parish is, and has been for several years, without a presbyter. All of the other parishes ascribed to the Apostolic Administration, together with their clergy and faithful, are of the Latin Rite.

Sadly, it appears that this particular Church sui iuris, like the Georgian Byzantine Catholic Church of blessed memory, will soon be a footnoted remembrance.

Many years,

Neil

Right. If you meant it as "I always get thrown under the bus by latinized Eastern Catholics, without exception" then I would object, but I doubt you did.

Dear Brother Neil,

And no one in Rome will shed any crocodile tears when that happens.

When St John Paul II visited Canada during World Youth Day, I was privileged to participate in a formal government luncheon for a number of archbishops/Vatican staff who accompanied the Pontiff (at Ste Marie among the Hurons in Midland).

I sat with the chief Vatican communications director and others and was able to discuss with them, among other things, the canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha and also the EC Churches.

They kept talking about Orthodoxy, the "sins of the past" with respect to the Unias and how the whole project has backfired on Rome . . .

Between you and I, and given that intellectual climate, our brother Serge probably won't be getting an appointment to any Vatican Catholic-Orthodox commission any time soon . . .

Alex

Dear Serge,

You make a very interesting point about the co-existence of the latinized and non-latinized forms of the Byzantine Rite.

I don't believe the situation is, in any way, comparable to the coexistence of the Extraordinary and Novus Ordo forms of the Latin Mass.

The reason being is that both forms of the Latin Mass are just that - part and parcel of the Latin Catholic tradition. And RC's will and do argue over the "validity" of one form over the other, there are local bishops who opposed the introduction of the Extraordinary forum and the like. But in either case, the tradition is clearly Latin, period.

In the case of the latinized EC's, it is clear that Latinization runs counter to what Rome, previous Popes (your favourite "nec plus, nec minus, nec aliter") and Vatican II have constantly reiterated.

Now, I'm NOT talking about private or even parish-based Latin devotions. One could even notice a movement to understand such devotions as the Rosary as an ancient Orthodox private practice (which it certainly is, although others would find it debatable). This is done, of course, to make fond devotions more palatable to the "ultra-Easterns."

As a case in point, the Rosary/Rule of the Theotokos is outlined in chapter six of the book, "Staretz Zechariach: An Early Soviet Saint." (Easily verifiable!)

I met a "very Eastern, Orthodox in communion with Rome" type UGCC priest who was very much against the Rosary as a Latin practice. When I referenced the above book, he told me he had read it too, but didn't remember ANYTHING written there about any recitation of 150 Hail Mary's.

He didn't trust me, so I told him to go and verify it for himself.

I later got an email from him apologising profusely and he is now a very great promoter of the "Orthodox Rule of the Most Holy Theotokos" which, I heard him once say, the Latins took from the East . . .

And of course they did!

As for what exactly constitutes "non-latinized" is anyone's guess.

Today, I can find Byzantine texts, even Orthodox ones for the Stations of the Cross (as part of the Passia services) and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. There are Byzantine icons of Our Lady with the Scapular (including the Orthodox icons of the Letichivska Mother of God and that of Horodyschensk) seen within the context of the Holy Protection, to name but a few such devotions.

Anything can be given a Byzantine liturgical framework - and as EC's we should indeed be doing that.

And our friend, Stuart Koehl, once argued that there is nothing in the Byzantine tradition preventing us from using statues - he gave a number of examples in that department. I certainly have statues (Fr. Keleher once told me that as long as such statues are "well done" there is nothing wrong).

So I guess what I'm getting at is that the moniker "Latinized" can be used as a kind of accusatory term, a broad stick for beating others over the head, by those who are, plain and simple, against ECism and "creeping Uniatism" as things that ultimately lead to absorption by the RC Church (i.e. the ultimate destruction of the Byzantine/EC/EO heritage).

In the case of the Orthodox Church of Kyiv, Latinization was its way of meeting the great intellectual challenge of the then Jesuit-led West and its influential universities. Orthodox Saints like St Dmitry of Rostov, as you know, were HEAVILY Latinized in their devotions and St Peter Mohyla himself introduced many Latin borrowings into his Metropolia within a Byzantine framework - which others would, nevertheless, see as being Latinizations. Mohyla even translated the Imitation of Christ and his "Catechism of the Orthodox Catholic Church" was read by Eastern Catholics and I recently saw a link to it on a UGCC website.

Orthodox theologians today decry the Latinization of Orthodox theology. But, truth be told, many Orthodox theologians in the past admired St Thomas Aquinas, and even adopted his moral theology (e.g. St Gennadios Scholarios). Fr. Meyendorff even quoted, at one point, a private prayer to "Blessed Thomas" by an Orthodox theologian (this is all verifiable, I just don't remember the exact texts).

St Nicodemos the Hagiorite translated the "Spiritual Exercises" of St Ignatius Loyola - which got him into some trouble in Greece. "Unseen Warfare" is a much re-edited version of a book by an Italian priest and so on.

It gets to the point that what is "Latinized" or not is up to the person looking for a stone to throw at you. I've even found an icon at www.pravicon.com [pravicon.com] that is an exact copy of the picture of St Louis de Montfort kneeling before Our Lady, Queen of all hearts! Or the beautiful painting of Our Lady of the Grapes by Mignard which is venerated as a local miraculous Orthodox icon at a nunnery in Moscow and it is known as the "Domedovskaya" icon.

I've gotten into trouble here in the past, most of it my fault, but also because I've gone after Orthodox posters for what I call their "disingenuousness" with respect to certain issues. One Orthodox priest, to show how much he disdained the Immaculate Conception dogma, compared the conception of the Theotokos to that of the Dalai Lama.

If you think I wasn't going to go after him for that - well, forget about it!

It is like those Orthodox who, when the Assumption of the BVM was proclaimed by Pius XII, then came out to try and distance Orthodoxy's celebration of the Dormition from that . . .

In the public liturgical sphere, EC's do have an obligation, ordered by Rome, to grow in a deeper appreciation and practice of their Eastern liturgical traditions.

There is an alarming trend that I have noticed in the UGCC to have a traditional parish and then a liberal parish in one area - to suit people's "moral taste." I know this to be a fact in one city where a friend of mine is the parish priest of the traditional church.

Liberalism, I agree, is the great enemy. And UGCC parishes that tend to shorten services and otherwise downplay the Byzantine traditions fall prey to that.

In the eparchy of Eastern Canada, we really don't have any Latinized parishes (any longer) and I've never seen the rosary recited in church before the Divine Liturgy in my life.

Alex

Agreed. I would suggest changing the URL to www.byzchristian.org [byzchristian.org] or another URL along those lines.

If you choose the truly nonsectarian route, that would be perfect. AOL had a Byzantine Christians forum 18 years ago; same idea.

If you choose to remain identified as Catholic, officially or unofficially, be orthodoxchristianity.net [orthodoxchristianity.net] (originally a "schism" from here!) in reverse. Defend the magisterium and invite all to post anywhere in the forum, but limit the posts preaching Orthodoxy against Catholicism, and preaching other dissent, to one or two clearly marked folders. That would mean peace on the board and no scandal for Catholics.