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Slava Isusu Christu!

Brothers and Sisters,

I think it's one thing to encourage the use of Church Slavonic in the liturgy and another to not use English at all. And we wonder why our children bolt for Latin parishes where English is used? Indeed, most people, no matter their age, do not have a longing to use a language they don't understand, nor an aptitude to learn one that they'll only use once a week.

Now don't get me wrong. I am all for using Slavonic in the liturgy, but perhaps only for the "ordinary" parts: the Trisagion, the Cherubic Hymn, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, perhaps. Kind of where Vatican II said that Latin should be kept in the Roman Rite.

In Christ,
mikey.

I saw a write-up somewhere about the Illinois mission. It must have been when I was going through the OCA website.

Well, I certainly agree with the concept, and we see missions of this type are not concentrating on one ethnic group, but a class of sorts crossing nationalities. That's probably the only practical approach to serving immigrants these days, but how do you counsel and confess people that don't speak your language? For anyone to master more than three languages is a lot, in my opinion. Therefore I see compromises all the way around, there is always someone underserved.

I would like to see the BCC do something more along this line too. The mission to immigrants is every bit as important as the mission to Anglophones.

This is one of the reasons I admire the OCA so much, their approach to mission is something I can agree with and they have more resources with which to make the effort. Yet they serve their English speaking congregations well too.

Some ethnic groups are coming over in considerable numbers. Poles and Ukrainians are big in Chicago. There are many Polish masses at the Roman Catholic churches around me, and a Cistercian Priory of Polish immigrant monks that is very crowded on Sundays.

Similarly the Ukrainians are flooding into certain areas of Chicago and the Ukrainian Divine Liturgies are well attended, but other immigrant groups are hardly noticed around Chicago.

Pax
Michael

Is Eastern Christianity in a crisis mode here in the North American continent? The population of Eastern Catholic eparchies is rapidly falling a death spiral. What can be done? We experienced decades with ECF. Has it worked?

Joe

There have been an awful lot of generalities in this thread about shrinking parish populations, and churches that are on the verge of extinction. Where's the actual data? ("In God We Trust. All others bring data" comes to mind.) Not that I don't believe there are growth problems. I just think when you try to get your arms around a problem, you need to have an idea of its size before you begin.

Lemko, there is a small OCA parish in Hartshorne, Oklahoma (Sts. Cyril and Methodius) about two hours from Tulsa and a ROCOR parish near Tulsa (St. James/Owasso). Do you have any more info on the OCA parish? The ROCOR parish is fairly recent, otherwise there is an Antiochian (St. Antony) and Greek (Holy Trinity) parish there.

Sure Diak, here\'s [listserv.indiana.edu] where I read about it.

Thanks, Lemko. Wow, in my home town (sniff), an OCA parish. That hasn't even made it to the OCA webpage yet. Hats off to the OCA, Greek Catholics seem to have internal and external obstacles to starting new missions.