www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Byzan. Population Drops Significantly?

Can anyone explain why the Ruthenian Byzantine population has dropped from 268,161 in 1990 to 100,688 in 2003?

Pax vobiscum,
Scott

More accurate and honest reporting of numbers. From personal observation I would think that the true 90's numbers would be close to the current numbers.

I'm willing to bet that the loss is due to the fact the the childern and grandchildern of "craddle" Byzantine Catholics no longer attend their ancestral church and have joined RC churches. Because we have stressed that we are Catholic first, Byzantine second. How ironic that the Ruthenian Metropolia has just created a young adult ministry organization just a few months ago. We should have been doing this over thirty years ago while most of those young adults who no longer feel the need to attend a Byzantine Catholic church were small childern. It is though we have closed the gate after the horses have already gone!

Ung-Certez

Like Deacon Lance comment, +100,000 people didn't disappear in 13 years, thus the 1990's number must be true for today. Ung-Certez points out that they have been assimilated into the Roman Catholic churches. Why?

We have found that it is location of the parish. In Indianapolis for example, the county that has the most growth and Romans Catholics is Hamilton. Yet, our parish is to the South, 50 minutes away. Folks will go to the Roman church 15 minutes away.

What kind of direct marketing are we doing to find Eastern Catholics? How do we put the numbers in a positive direction? What are we doing to further Rome's apostolic letter of May 2, 1995 or in another words teach the West about the East?

Looking for some thoughts!

Scott

Actually, that kind of a drop in population may be closer to the truth than you think.

Look at the number of young people in N.E. PA. There are no jobs for the young so they leave and go elsewhere to find work. If there is no Byzantine parish where they happen to move, they join a Roman parish.

I know in parish, there are families who work consumer-oriented jobs, i.e. fire dept., nurses, etc which require them to work on Sundays. Since we do not have a Saturday evening (not our thing, or so I've heard mentioned countless times here) they go to the local Roman parish to fulfill their church attendance.

I don't think it's so much of a youht ministry as it is an economic necessity.....

JMHO....

mark

The population is shrinking where the Byzantines have Churches, and we have not been able (or willing) to follow the people to their new homes. It is less work to 'maintain' old Churches, than to establish new ones.

The 'catholic' emphasis ("we are catholics, we are catholics, we are catholics") was what they felt the Church needed. I suppose the leadership at the time sincerely felt that was our priority. In hindsight.... it speeded the assimilation of our young-people into the dominant Roman Rite Church.

If the emphasis was "Byzantine first, Catholic second" then those 100k+ people would've probably just joined the nearest Eastern Orthodox parish. Better that they joined Roman parishes with whom their original Church is in communion that an Eastern Orthodox parish.

Of course, the best thing would've been to keep the Byzantine Catholics in their own Churches.

Logos Teen

Does the sex scandal of the 1990's have anything to do with the decline?

Dan Lauffer

The numbers listed regarding membership in the church prior to 1995 were totally fictitious numbers which were puposely inflated for the purpose of establishing a Ruthenian Metropolia. Since the 1960's, the numbers reported to Rome were grossly inflated to show a need for more eparchies, etc. When Metropolitan Judson ascended the throne he chose to correct this inaccuracy by taking a census and reporting true numbers. He knew that it would look bad on paper to see such a dramatic loss in numbers but felt it more important to be honest about the actual statistics of the church.

Brother Dan: What sex scandal of the 90's? Anna

Perhaps some of those contributing to this discussion are overly optimistic. It is more likely that those who leave our churches do not begin attending other churches with any regularity. Incognitus

Enronitis knows no boundaries. It would be totally disheartening if this was truly the case.

Just another series of episcopal droppings left for others to clean up. Promotions and transfers, including bishops, still occur after the spiritual distruction was left in their wake. Oh, Israel! Why do you shame yourself so?

This sounds more accurate as I study the phenomenon more. What other church has an increase in the number of its bishops and eparchies that is inversely proportional to its population growth? Again, Enronitis knows no boundary. Fixing the numbers is OK if it means you get what you want, right? Wrong! Just don't buy their stock, folks. The PE ratio is 1,000 times earnings.

Byzantine Catholics cannot be good Catholics without first being good Byzantines. Logos Teen�s constant attacks against the Byzantine Tradition as if it were somehow being less than fully and authentically Catholic are getting real old.