www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Candidates for the Slovak Catholic Eparchy, Toronto

I am interested in knowing whether the Holy Father will appoint a North American or European candidate for the episcopacy ?

Any thoughts?

Most likely, but the question is who?

Most likely to North American or European?

Given their small size and the loss of their patron, I would not look for any replacement but for US Ruthenian bishops to continue to be named administrators if not the Eparchy being outright suppressed and the parishes added to Pittsburgh or Parma.

How many parishes and priests do they have?

5 parishes, 5 priests.

Could one of the Ruthenian priests be ordained to be a bishop and take charge?

ast82401:

What would be the point? From a purely practical point, five parishes probably are barely able to keep themselves going without trying to support a bishop and an eparchy. Deacon Lance mentions the loss of their patron. If memory serves, there was a thread mentioning the fact that a very wealthy gentleman who supported this eparchy financially has gone on to his reward. If that is true, the mere existence of this eparchy was/is not on a sound footing. In the past, five parishes like these would have been placed under the local Latin ordinary for their canonical support.

Bob

Google "Slovak Cathedral in Toronto" and follow the link "The Cathedral that time forgot" for some insight into this eparchy and the death of its patron. The eparchy's cathedral has been changed to another church and the massive cathedral that was for a short time its seat is still unfinished and in the control of the Roman family. It's a sad affair. The article is dated 2011.

A Ruthenian priest might not know the Slovak language. Difficulties may arise when tending to his flock without language.

It makes no sense whatsoever to form eparchies based upon the arbitrary boundary lines of European reality that has no place in North America. This eparchy should be properly placed within the Greek Catholic Metropolia of Winnipeg where it belongs.

Ukrainian Metropolia?

Would you be willing to place the Eparchy of Newton under the Metropolia of Pittsburgh?

No, because:

1. Unlike the Ruthenians and Ukrainians etc, liturgically Melkites do not follow the Slav Greek-Catholic recension of St Sabbas - we follow the Antiochian and Hellenic Greek-tradition of the Great Church.

2. Melkites belong to a patriarchal Church that has never been based upon national boundaries but upon the decrees of the fifth and sixth Great Councils of the Church establishing the apostolic patriarchates.

3. What divides Ukrainian, Slovak, and Carpatho-Rusyn Greek-Catholics are ethnic lines arbitrarily drawn on a map by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire etc. and a sad history of animosities that have little to do with faith. The sad history of Bishop SOTER [Ortynsky] in itself is the proof of this - World War I European boundary allegiances divided the Slav Greek-Catholic Church even in the United States, something from which it has never recovered.