www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Why are the Ukrainians allowing altar girls?

With all due respect, the Russian Orthodox and Traditional Catholic Churches put me in mind of a turtle who, plodding along, encounters new terrain. Instead of using what it knows and trying to understand the new terrain, it goes into reverse and then crawls within its shell.

Additionally, the opening topic question:

"Why do the Ukrainians innovate and latinize so much?"

is a loaded one, containing an over- generalized conclusion. It is not a question as much as it is a charge demanding a defence. What if the question read:

" Why do the Russians stagnate and regress so much?"

As Christian's of the 21st century, I believe we must be a shining light to the rest of the world and other religions. We should dispense with unfair and outgrown notions that belong to the Dark Ages.

It is no surprise or shock that some eastern churches are more Latinized than others. Why that is so and what they think they are gaining from it is something only they can answer. It is getting to the point that one has to almost become Orthodox to escape the influences of the Latin church. Our Eastern Catholic church has lost several families to Orthodoxy because of it.

Christ is in our midst!!

Trying to escape the female altar server movement by moving to Orthodoxy may be a short-lived attempt. See the earlier link to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese which seems to be on the verge of allowing this same thing to be established. One might also follow some of the links that proceed from that link to find some very disturbing things going on around the person and policies of the Archbishop.

i know about the Greeks. The local ones are using organs in their liturgies and what they will do next, who knows? The OCA and Russian Orthodox parishes here are having none of it.

I love this question posed by Orthodox Catholic in a post some time ago: "My question is what is behind this paranoia against seeing women close to the altar? What unnerves men about that?"

The most blessed Mary,Theotokos, must have breast fed her infant Son. Another Mary anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair. The Myrrh-Bearing Women were on their way to anoint the body of that same Son; and you are scandalized by the presence of girls and women at the altar? Perhaps you are unnerved as were His disciples when they saw Jesus at the well with that Samaritan woman. We are in the 21st century, but I think we need to get back to the 1st when the Gospel had a little more force than the Canons.

Very well said Utroque. My feelings exactly........

Nothing unnerving or paranoid about it. It just goes against tradition which you either uphold or you don't. If you want religious practices based on your feelings, the Protestants built their case for that some time ago.

It's not a question of my feelings; it's a question of knowing that Our Lord, Jesus excoriated the Pharisees for upholding their traditions at the expense of the Tradition of God's transcendent Love which was revealed to them in Holy Writ centuries before. It should come as no surprise that members of the Church can become victims to that same fossilization that hardens the heart. As Pope St John Paul II, in quoting Jesus, was fond of saying: "Be not afraid!"

I don't have a position on females in the altar per se, I have a problem with non-ordained persons replacing ordained roles. If a female is ordained as a deaconess, she should have certain precedents over lay persons ordained to lesser degrees. However, what I see in many Eastern Catholic churches is simply imitation of modern RC practice and a race to see how fast it can be justified using some obscure Eastern practice. If some of these were genuine Eastern practices, why didn't we see any urgency to implement them before the RCs? Let's see how many hierarch support other restorations of Eastern practices now rare or lost like Chaldean, Maronite, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopian Catholics facing East and using leavened bread rather than a Latin imitation.

We live today, it seems, in the church of Oprah. I feel therefore I am. I like so it must be true. I would put my trust in the teachings and practices of the Desert Fathers over what anyone in the contemporary church is espousing. I agree with the above post on "imitation of modern RC practice." Some, far too many somes, can't seem to ape the Latins enough. I find them better when kept at a bit of distance. Given their size, they tend to be the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

No. We live today in the same Church as the Desert Fathers despite your misgivings about the authenticity of her Faith and praxis. Do I need to articulate how different the world is from those ancient times? Holy Mother the Church herself (odd that she is cast in female terms!) is spread throughout every continent on earth, unlike the relatively very small world of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. The vast majority of Catholics are of the Roman Church, numbering nearly 1 billion people; it should come as no surprise that small pockets of Eastern Catholics (and Orthodox) in the diaspora who thrive in the midst of this majority take on elements of their praxis. I always applaud efforts to uphold and restore authentic eastern liturgical practice, but I bristle when I perceive that the Latin Church is treated like a disease to be avoided. The United States is a nation of the western world, like it or not.

Christ is in our midst!!


This is not so odd. Our Holy Mother is cast as female because Christ is her Bridegroom. He has betrothed Himself to her. This intimate language is used to tell us how close Christ holds His Mystical Body, the Church, to Himself. Further, He holds each of us as parts of His Mystical Body to Himself in the same way through our Baptism and Chrismation. We are individually and collectively betrothed to Him by being part of the Church--we are part of Him and He is part of us, though language is feeble to describe this wonderful mystery of which we are a part.

Methinks Utroque was employing a bit of irony here.

Thank you, J Michael; I was, indeed. I think Theophan misconstrued my intent. In my parenthetical and feeble attempt at irony I was trying to illustrate the oddity of those who get so unnerved at the presence of women at the altar during liturgical services. I certainly understand the theological reason behind the Church's designation as Mother, so well and beautifully explicated by Theophan.

The Church has often aped societal norms in her practice. Fr. Alkiviadis Calivas explained to us many years ago in his liturgics class how the Church modeled, in a number of ways, her liturgical practice on the royal Byzantine court.

I'm all for retaining and maintaining "tradition" in liturgical practice, both Eastern and Western, but not to the point of ossifying the liturgy or solely doing something "because that's how we've always done it". Neither am I a supporter of changing things (especially without some kind of consent of the faithful) just "because we can" and or because it seems like a "good" idea.

Earlier in this thread I asked if there were any Church Canons (and by that I meant Eastern AND Western, Catholic and Orthodox) that regulate or forbid the participation of women as altar servers. Maybe I missed it (and if so, please forgive my oversight!), but I don't remember anyone citing them. If someone did, perhaps they could be so kind as to refer me back or to re-post?

I'm reminded of something someone said online in a review of a particular Catholic prayer book, that Catholics (and perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent, Orthodox) have a tendency to complicate (and over regulate--my addition) things and get lost in the weed garden. The subsequent advice, which I'm sure we're all familiar with, was a succinct "K.I.S.S.".