www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Catholic or Eastern?

"Come on, Brendan. Obviously, OBVIOUSLY, this just isn't true. Eastern Catholics are part of the greater Catholic Church."

Sorry, but I have to disagree with that. There are no "parts" of the Church -- there is only the fulness of the Catholic Church present in the local churches that are in communion with each other. It's not like Eastern Catholics are in the "Byzantine quadrant" or something like that -- they are fully the Catholic Church, just as the Latin Church is. The other perspective, which you have mentioned here, puts the ecclesial abstraction of the "greater church" above the concrete reality of the local particular church, which is not the reality, in my opinion. Yes, there is a Catholic communion of churches and an Orthodox Communion of Churches, but these individual particular churches who are members of each communion are not a "part" of that communion, but the local manifestation of that communion in its fulness, in one particular place.

"Why is it that everytime I stop in here to ask a question it turns into an argument?"

Well, Rob, when you come here and ask a question like "Are you folks really Eastern or are you really Catholic, which is it?", and then you expect people to give you answers as if they were speaking about the weather, you obviously underestimate the undercurrents of that kind of question. And, in any case, people are not arguing, but sharing their perspectives on an obvious vision of the church that lurks two millimeters behind your phrase relating to the "greater Church" -- that is a phrasing that is guaranteed to trigger some responses, as it has here. Why not try to listen to what the Eastern Catholics here are saying instad of saying why didn't you give me a straight answer and why are you arguing with me?

Brendan

Brendan's answers here are good.

What I am trying to ascertain is this: when push comes to shove is a person's Eastern worship and ecclesial "lifestyle" more important to them than their Catholicity?

But Easternness is always a subset of Catholicity/universality, no matter which ecclesiology you believe in. Setting them up in opposition is false. The wording of the question — "Catholic or Eastern?' — puts me off for that reason.

So the big question is "what exactly is Catholicity?' Being "under the Pope' or being in communion with all the Orthodox bishops of the world? Do these have to be mutually exclusive?

Brendan made an excellent point that like the Roman Rite, which some falsely hold is the ONLY universal rite (make the others fit only for an Indian-reservation mentality about ethnics — I actually have heard things like this from rank-and-file Romans), the Byzantine Rite is also multicultural/multiethnic, from sunny Mediterranean Greece and the Arabian desert to the Russian and Finnish tundra.

The trouble with "Catholic is Catholic' is at least in practice it meant "universal means Roman'. So Eastern people off the reservation were expected to be Roman/act like "real' Catholics.

I used to think Catholics had a better sense of the universal Church and Orthodox had a stronger sense of particularity, perhaps at the expense of the universal vision, but now I understand it all depends on how you see universality. Соборность ( "communion ecclesiology' ) is universal ecclesiology. Romacentricity isn't.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]

Dear Robin,

Since I'm the one who flies off the handle more than anyone here, I know I deserved that and I apologise.

I have a bias, everyone does.

If you still wish to communicate with me, biased and narrow-minded as I undoubtedly can be, I wanted to raise a further point.

Ethnicity is part of everyone's religious commitment, whether that cultural commitment is mainstream American (as in Brendan's case, I believe) or other cultural.

One's Particular Rite is also a cultural expression, albeit a religious one exclusively. But that is also part of the thing.

What I could have said, albeit more diplomatically than I did, is that the faith differences between Catholicism and Orthodoxy are, to most Eastern Catholics anyway, rather small.

As a matter of fact, in most Eastern Catholic parishes the only REAL substantive difference is the Pope. And we all like him because he's Slavic and beatified a group of our Martyrs! Many Orthodox I know like the Pope, but remain Orthodox.

Our life in Christ is couched in the particular religious and ethnic cultural systems that live in harmonious and integrative unity.

We have many martyrs who suffered and died for their union with Rome, so many of us do take it seriously.

But even our union with Rome is lived within the ritual/cultural context of our Particular Byzantine Church.

Again, going back to what Kurt said, it is unthinkable to have one without the other.

Take away our Byzantine-Cultural Church, and you take away the Pope along with it.

My admiration for the Pope also has a lot to do with his pride in his Polish Catholic identity and Church.

He always underlines that and how he loves his Church and country more than any other.

Again, this has to do with our belonging to the Universal Church through our membership in the our Local Church, just as we belong to the Catholic Church through our membership in our local parish.

If your question is saying what Eastern Catholics hold more dear, the Papacy et al. and their Eastern traditions, that would depend on the individual.

But please remember that our forefathers who came into union with Rome placed the continued maintenance of our Christian culture as a condition of our union with Rome.

Rome approved that and I would like to think it knew what it was doing.

The question of which parish to attend if there was no Byzantine Catholic Parish around would also be answered variously.

But the Servant of God, Ukrainian CAtholic Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky recommended that his flock attend the Orthodox parishes whenever there was no Byzantine Catholic parishes.

He said this because there was a lot of poaching of members by RC priests in his time, in the first instance.

There was a time when people even changed their Baptismal Certificates to read "RC" rather than "GC" to even get a job.

For many, Roman Catholicism represents an historic colonial power bent on destroying their Churches, communities and identity.

Their reticence about having anything to do with Roman Catholicism, as Byzantine CAtholics in union with Rome themselves, and even today, is, I think, somewhat understandable.

Alex

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: Orthodox Catholic ]

Dear Robin,

Yes, and I have been lambasted here before, with good reason for most of the time . . .

Edwin, Brendan, Serge and others have all taken a chunk out of me. At the time when it happened, I thought they were being mean and unreasonable.

Later, I realized they were right.

I couldn't help but think that the question, as you posed it, was a bit inflammatory to begin with.

That's not necessarily your fault. I've stepped on Orthodox toes without knowing not to.

But you did seem to suggest, to me, at least, that we are more interested in maintaining cultural forms through our antiquated church ritual than in adhering to the true Faith etc.

The problem is, we get that sort of thing frequently.

And, yes, as a sociologist that issue speaks to another problem, that being that mainstream North Americans don't see the local (Particular if you will) cultural context of their own experience as Christians and Catholics. They see themselves as "Universal."

Again, where is there a "Universal" parish that one could belong to?

Is it one in which English only is spoken, the "universal" Latin Rite is celebrated, where turkey and stuffing rather than perogies and borscht are served at Christmas, and where everyone wears cosmopolitan looking clothing and otherwise eats bland food?

This is a cultural issue, for me, more than a religious one (as it is for Brendan, but I think he's a Cosmopolitan too - or am I wrong?).

Christ Himself told His Apostles to baptize all nations and Christianity, as universal as it ever got, certainly very rarely transcended its Western framework of cultural bias, at least so far as Asia and elsewhere were concerned.

Again, the Pope and my Particular Church go hand in hand.

I don't experience him or his teaching in any other context.

Without that context, Catholicism would be unintelligible to me.

Alex

Going back to the original question.
What is more important to you - being Catholic or being an Eastern Christian?
Or should it be;
Which organ of your body is most important to you; your heart, brain, liver or kidneys? Won't the body not be the complete body without them all? You should have them all in good condition if you are going to feel the best you can.

Well as for me, I see a problem with the question to begin with. I am neither a Catholic nor an Eastern Christian.

I am an Eastern Catholic.

Why even bring up this hypothetical issue?

All this can do is divide.

David

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: DavidB ]

Rob,

I am sorry if some reponses seem angry to you. What I am about to say is not an angry reponse. I think your question seems quite legitimate to most Latin Catholics and a light philosophical query. But for monoByzantines, this seems like a "Sophie's Choice" and, though without any malice on your part, is taken as a very painful question (I go back to my unanwsered what is more important, pro-life or the Eucharist?).

Dear Serge,

Excellent insight, O Wise Man of the East!

Certainly, Romacentricity could be construed to be a form "cultural narrowness" that we are sometimes accused of, although I am not making reference to Robin, but to other discussions we've had.

My point is that we cannot "transcend" our own prism of culturally-conditioned perception.

It is part and parcel of how we view things, just as culture is.

So, in a sense, to say which is more important to you, the Pope (or RCism) or Byzantine Catholicism, is to say, at the same time, "What is more important to you, to see Rome within the ("better") perspective of Western Rite universalism or to see it within the (worse) perspective of "narrow ethno-cultural and ritual" particularity?

We are then being asked to exchange one over cultural prism for another, more subtle one that pretends it is "general" or universal, whereas the former is not.

Does that make any sense?

Alex

Дорогой друг, Саша!

So, in a sense, to say which is more important to you, the Pope (or RCism) or Byzantine Catholicism, is to say, at the same time, "What is more important to you, to see Rome within the ("better") perspective of Western Rite universalism or to see it within the (worse) perspective of "narrow ethno-cultural and ritual" particularity?

Точно! �Exactamente!

http://oldworldrus.com

Dear Serge,

To have you agree with me is great for my sense of self-validation . . .

My relatives from Ukraine also call me "Sasha."

Sasha is life . . .

Alex

If one is concerned about the salvation of one's soul and one's (hopefully) evolving relationship with God, then one has to go to where one can pray the best.

There is no real "answer" about where a church-less Eastern Catholic would go. It would depend on what is available and which community could best support his/her ongoing prayer and sacrament life. Some Roman parishes have great liturgy and a wonderful sense of community. So, too, do some Orthodox communities. So, go where your soul is best nourished and where the community will welcome you in. [I am not including the "High Voltage of Anointing Christ Apostolic Church" - - and its parallel denominations.]

Blessings!

Dear Dr. John,

Agreed.

But did you not say, on more than one occasion, that our Byzantine heritage is also present among the Orthodox (to make an obvious point) and that our spirituality would find its best expression there, rather than elsewhere?

In that case, would there not be a "hierarchy" at best in terms of where we would turn in case our own Church were not available, with "Orthodox" heading the list where no other Eastern Catholic Church were around?

Alex

But did you not say, on more than one occasion, that our Byzantine heritage is also present among the Orthodox ... ?

Really? No fooling? Wow. When did those... how you say? Ahhh, yesssss... "Orthodox'... get their Byzantine heritage from the Byzantine Catholics?

"Also present among the Orthodox'? Huh. That's like saying the great sound of '60s popular music exemplified by the Monkees could also be heard from other groups such as the Beatles... (Whooooah!)

I'm not slagging you, Alex, or Dr J... I just thought that turn of phrase was inadvertently funny.

Once when I explained to a Roman Catholic that the Byzantine Catholics worship like the Orthodox, an ultramontane convert said, "The Orthodox worship like us!' Took me a while to realize Catholicism doesn't really think like that.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]

Dear Serge,

You are right, but I was just thought Dr. John's comment "seemingly" went against, if ever so slightly, what he has been known for saying on this subject before.

As for my sounding condescending, that is not really true . . .

You know as well as I that we Byzantine Catholics were first, that you Orthodox got everything you have from us and that we are the True Church who give you our gracious permission to even converse with us here on the grounds that you promise to behave in vassal-like fashion.

Now that we've cleared up any misconceptions in that regard, have a great evening.

(It's a good thing you have a sense of humour. I think a sense of humour is always an important ingredient in any spirituality, don't you?).

Your humble slave,

Alex

Blessings All,

While all of us came into the body of Christ through a particular local church, I have always thought of that church as catholic/universal. This perhaps maybe because in my formative years the primary way I experienced/worshiped God was through the liturgy.
The Latin service stood apart from/separated itself from the culture[U.S.A.] and for myself atleast defined my Catholicity. By this I mean that when I participate in mass, it is the one time that I am joined to all the believers in the body of Christ. I never thought of myself as worshiping with just those present in the church (local) but with the angels,saints of the past,with those physically present with me with all the Catholic's in the world,with the Orthodox,with protestants and those living that will be joined to the body of Christ.

I guess I get this from 1 Cor 6:17 he who cleaves to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.

Brendan :The other perspective, which you have mentioned here, puts the ecclesial abstraction of the "greater church" above the concrete reality of the local particular church, which is not the reality, in my opinion. Yes, there is a Catholic communion of churches and an Orthodox Communion of Churches, but these individual particular churches who are members of each communion are not a "part" of that communion, but the local manifestation of that communion in its fulness, in one particular place.

Tom: Brendan, I found this response of yours interesting. It would appear to be compatible with the following quote, but I don't think that you would intend it that way. Could you inform me where you see the parallels and the divergents with your view?

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in his book - Called to communion(understanding the church today) pg 44-45

The church embraces the many languages,that is, the many cultures, that in faith understand and fecundate one another...Luke expresses{Book of Acts} with this image the fact that at the moment of her birth, the Church was already catholic already a world church. Luke thus rules out a conception in which a local Church first arose in Jerusalem and then became the base for the gradual establishment of other local Chruches that eventually grew into a federation. Luke tells us that the reverse is true:what first exists is the one Church, the Church that speaks in all tongues-the ecclesia universalis; she then generates Church in the most diverse locales, which nonetheless are all always embodiments of the one and only Chruch. The temporal and ontological priority lies with the universal Church;a Church that was not catholic would not even have ecclesial reality...

In order to express the catholicity of the Church created by the Holy Spirit he has made use of an old, presumably Hellenistic, scheme of 12 peoples. This scheme is closely related to the lists of nations complied in the states that succeeded the empire of Alexander. Luke enumerates these twelve peoples and their languages as receivers of the apostolic word,yet at the end he breaks out of the scheme by adding a thirteenth people: the Romans.

Tom: It is difficult in the book to determine where the Cardinal leaves of and where he starts references one [G. Schneider,253FF;R.Pesch,105F. Die Apostelgeschichte,vol.1(1980) & vol2 (1986)it appears the last para. is a quote from these individuals and not a statement of the Cardinals.

Comments?

Blessings

Tom