www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Old-Ritualists Forum Is there a present, or a future, for Old Rite Catholicism?

Hi,

I'm not really a forum person or a conversationalist but for some life in the old ritualist forum and to learn some more

Personally the extent of my understanding of old believers is limited to english online resources. It simply occured to me to make a thread where anyone might wish to share an analysis of the present.

Having skimmed some of the threads it is possible to see some of the history, and names associated with this history.

One thing that is interesting is that the colloquial comparison in the US is often to the Amish. If a sizeable old rite catholic community ever was established (or exists), some "old order" characteristics would be a component of the life? There seems to be an aspect of not just liturgically living in the 17th century, but to some discerned degree of actually living in the 17th century.

Or have perhaps attempts at old rite catholicism been proven to be destined for the same absorption and disappearance into the ugcc as the celtic church into rome, or to return to Orthodoxy?

Perhaps more thoughts later on

Sadly, the prospects are very dim due to a number of reasons. The main ones I can think of being:
1. The Russian Greek Catholic Church, which includes the Old Rite, is purposely left in a gray area by the Vatican due to a demarche with the Russian Orthodox Church. There are Apostolic Exarchates without Exarchs but there is an Eastern-Rite Ordinary (Joseph Werth) officially without an Eastern-Rite Ordinariate. Meanwhile, the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church now has an Apostolic Administration while the Albanian Greek Catholic Church was removed from the Annuario Pontificio, indicating its suppression.
2. Old Believers are even more averse towards Catholicism than your standard Russian Orthodox. I've seen and read polemics about how the Nikonian Reforms was a surrender to the "heretical" Greek Orthodox who joined the Catholic union of Florence-Ferrera. In modern practice, the Russian Orthodox Church (except ROCOR) accepts Catholic baptisms while Old Believer denominations rebaptizes Catholic converts.

Nonetheless, here is a Russian website listing historical and present communities: http://www.hierarchy.religare.ru/h-uniate-starover.html

My understanding is the Old Rite is the primary issue concerning Old Believers rather than jurisdiction. There have been Old Rite churches in the ROC, ROCOR, and in union with Rome. I'm not sure the present status of each.