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Doulos,

Captive Nations Week was a presidential proclamtion to remember the sufferings of the people behind the Iron Curtain, which, of course, included 80% of all Byzantine Catholics (Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Armenia, etc.). Many of our churches held prayer services and oither commemorations prayer for their deliverance and of the Church. It would appear the prayers were answered.

I remember a beatiful service in which we had a Living Rosary, with children in folk dress of each Captive Nation, reciting the Hail Mary in their respective national tongue. (The Rosary, by the way, is just a formalization of the EASTERN custom of prayer beads. It is a Hellenization that infected and was adapted by the West as much as anything else. )

On many occassions, the Eastern Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox joined with us in joint Captive Nations services.

A word on the Rosary:

While it is a venerable personal devotion suitable for the spiritual benefit of anyone, its proper place as a public devotion is in the Roman Church. The Akathistos is the proper public devotion for the Byzantine Church, and it needs to be fosterd.

Also, the rosary is the product of historical devotional development, not a gift dropped out of heaven by Our Lady. It started in the eleventh century. The peasant laity who could not read the breviary or attend the Hours at church were instructed to substitute Our Fathers for the saying of the psalms. Hence, 150 Our Fathers replaced the 150 psalms and they used beads to count them. They were divided into three sets of fifty just as the Psalter.

Later as Marian devotion increased, the Angelic Salutation from Luke's Gospel was joined to Elizabeths acclamation (forming the Hail Mary) and was substitued for some of the Our Fathers. In the sixteenth century it assumed its present form with mediations on biblical scenes. It was the Dominicans who popularized and spread devotion to the rosary and it is here that the legend of Our Lady giving the rosary to St. Dominic originated.

The current feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on Oct 7 does not celebrate this pious myth, but the victory of the Christain forces over the Turks at the battle of Lepanto. Pope Pius V (a Dominican) attributed this unlikely victory to Our Lady's intercession due to devotion to her rosary.

Lance Weakland

Glory to Jesus Christ ! Thank you for your post, Dr. John. An Italian choir member at my parish used to belong to that parish. Perhaps I can get him on to the Byzatine Forum someday and you both can tell us even more about Fr. Floridi. and this Russian parish in Boston.

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 10-28-1999).]

Glory to Jesus Christ ! The Blue Army does own one Byzantine chapel at its Center in Fatima, Portugal. I do not know the age of the chapel. The army sells ikons and small prayer cards of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The iconographer is Terrance J. Nelson. The image is modeled on the classic early Ukrainian ikon of the Theotokos of the Sign. Christ is replaced by a burning heart surrounded by a ring of thorns. The Virgin's hands are upraised in the orans manner. She is clothed in white and is standing on a cloud. Her eyes seem to follow you. The ikon is entitled " The Apparition of the Mother of God at Fatima." The BA offers another ikon and print of the Virgin in a Carmelite habit floating between the two Carmelite saints: St . John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. The Theotokos is in the Pokrova pose holding a brown veil. Silouan, Fr. Walter Ciszek was involved in the founding of that Carmelite nunnery. They are planning on opening a house in the Ukraine in the Eparchy of Uzhorod. I have learned of a number saintly Byzantine Catholics prayed a prayer rope to the Theotokos: Theodore Romzha of Uzhorod, Bishop-Martyr; Nicholas Charnetsky, CSSR, Bishop-Confessor; and Walter (Vladimir) Ciszek, SJ, Priest-Confessor. Their causes are pending. Fr. Karl Patzelt, SJ of Our Lady of Fatima Parish led the congregation in communal prayer of the Chotki of the Theotokos. I suspect that these others prayed the same and not the Roman Catholic Rosary. Both of the bishops were very Orthodox and promoted Orthopraxis among their flocks.

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 10-28-1999).]

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 10-28-1999).]

Glory to Jesus Christ ! Dr. John, I spoke with my fellow parishoner, Bill, about his days in the Russian Catholic parish in Boston. He joined in the late 60's. He applied to change his rite, from Roman to Byzantine. His ancestors were apparently Italo-Greeks from Calabria ! He was actually already Byzantine. Fr. Alexei Floridi later married Bill and his wife Martha in this little parish. He confirmed most of your observations about Fatima in the parish. He did tell me that your church had an ikon of the Theotokos of Fatima. I would guess that it was probably the patronal iknon of Our Lady of Fatima Russian parish.

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 10-31-1999).]

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 11-01-1999).]

Dr. John,
I thought you'd might like to know that the town of Fatima was not named after the daughter of Mohammed. I too was under that impression until I came across two published sources that stated otherwise. Unfortunately, I do not remember the titles of these books to refer them to you.
The town of Fatima was named after a woman of the Islamic faith who lived in that region of Portugal. She met and married a Christian soldier and converted to Christianity. When she passed away, a town was named after her in her honor. I believe there are other details to this story, but I cannot recall them at this time.
I thought you'd might like to know.:-)

Glory to Jesus Christ ! Thanks for your responses. This has been very helpful to me. I will continue to research some of these questions on my own. Please continue to kep me informed should you come upon new information. I will keep you informed as to how I integrate my devotion to the Theotokos of Fatima into my Byzantine spirituality. O Immaculate Heart of the Theotokos, save us.

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 11-04-1999).]

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Interestingly enough, Doulos, the major "shrine" in our Boston parish was on the left side of the Church, and which was to Our Lady of Kazan (the patroness of the parish). The shrine contained a cross/Golgotha and veils with candles. It was used to commemorate the martyrs of the Communist regime as well as the members of the royal families. (As a Greek, I was always uncomfortable with this liturgical acceptance of political figures. Also, as a democratic non-monarchist and a trade unionist, I have a serious problem with 'divine right' rulers. Hey, they may have been nice people, but I've got a real politcal problem with them. Even the Greeks, the most political of people, have never attempted to 'canonize' the political rulers.)

Although there were lots of wonderful peole affiliated with "Our Lady of Kazan" parish, it was in essence a liturgical and sociological museum. I learned a lot from it, but it had little to do with real Byzantine people. For the few Russians who came, it was an outpost of the Russian faith. For the rest, it was an exercise in understanding the realities of Russian Byzantine Chrisitians. All in all, it was good, but it wasn't a spearhead for Russian Orthodoxy in the US. (By the by, there was/is an OCA parish in Boston. The members there were also a vast mixture of people, both Russians, Byzantine Catholics, and converts. It's continuing, but it isn't growing. It's just too damn Russian to attract converts.)

Glory to Jesus Christ ! Thank you for your post, Dr. John. You raise a very interesting point about the parish not being "a spearhead for Russian Orthodoxy." How does one go about creating and fostering an Orthodox atomosphere ? I would certainly agree that much more is involved than strictly observing the Typikon. I recall a similar comment regarding another Russian Catholic parish. I imagine one needs to be well acquainted with Orthodoxy. This takes time, even years, as Moose keeps saying.

Here is the link to the Blue Army Byzantine Chapel at Fatima, Portugal. It has a high and solid templon. There are no pews ! It appears to be mostly Russian in style. As you can see it is very Orthodox. www.virtual-net.pt/DomusPacis/english/p3e.htm [virtual-net.pt]

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 11-07-1999).]

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 11-07-1999).]

Dear Doulos, thank you for the post. Like a lot of cradle-Byzantines, there is a dichotomy for us in our understanding of our faith and our membership in a faith community.

I spend a great deal of time reading and studying and participating in spirituality that is derived from the East. At the same time, I recognize that I am a member of a community that observes the same spiritual pathway and practices that I do. While many of the ancillary practices come from the ethnicity of the community, i.e., fasting practices, saints' days observed, music, etc., there should be a harmony among all the folks who follow the Byzantine tradition.

Thus, as a Greek-American, I can worship in a Carpatho-Ruthenian parish without doing major violence to myself. (When I go to the Greek Orthodox Church, I can participate, but since so much is in Greek, I'm kind of an 'outsider' since my Greek, really stinks.)

Unfortunately, some of the older ideas about being "Byzantine" gave equal time to both the liturgico-theologico-spiritual aspects and the sociological-cultural aspects. This meant that folks "pushed" being Russian or Greek or whatever, and in a number of cases, the Gospel seemed to have gotten lost. I think that this also happened among the "Russian" missionaries of the Catholic Church. They felt that by preserving the ethnic traditions without altering a thing, they would have captured the essence of the "Eastern" church.

I remembe as a Jesuit seminarian being questioned/castigated by a "Russian" (rite) Jesuit priest as to "what right do you have to wear the riason?" I told him that my great-uncle had been a monk on the Holy Mountain, my cousin was a police superintendent in Athens, another cousin served on the Greek Supreme Court and that my family's baptismal records in the village dated back to the early 1400s. I then asked this Anglo, "By what right do YOU wear the riason?". His jaw dropped. I was rescued by Fr. Walter Csizek, S.J., who clapped his arm over my shoulder and suggested that we go have a glass of wine.

Here's the problem: the 'natives' (or 'aboriginals' if you will!) don't play the ethnic/native card overtly. We KNOW who are own are; we don't need the externals. The neophytes initially get caught up in the externals-- and they frequently do them very well-- but they miss out on the fact that we see ourselves as a community of like minded individuals, a 'family' if you will.

When the non-Russians were recruited to become priest servants of the exiled Russians (Catholic or Orthodox) they were turned into late 19th century Muscovites; while this might serve external aspects of the faith community, they were not really the true 'ethnics', and the people recognized this. Let's face it: our Byzantine peoples (of whatever ethnicity) have been in America for more than a hundred years, and we are truly hyphenated-Americans. In fact, we are Americans first (Budweiser, Marlboros and 4x4s/SUVs) with an ethnic flavor. When someone tries to recreate 1850 Kiev in suburban Washington/NewYork/Atlanta, the people are going to find it 'interesting', but little else. (I've seen Greek guys bring their dates to Paschal Matins for the candle ceremonies and procession at midnight, and then 30 minutes later, blow out their candles and head to their Camaros to hit the nightclubs to finish out the night before last call. Obviously, it is the spirituality that is bringing them to Church!!!)

My point is: the spirituality of the Byzantine Church is extremely important to those who have taken the time to think about their existence on this earth. For those who haven't a clue about spirituality, the theater of liturgy has somewhat of a hold. For others, it is purely an ethnic eccentricity that they can use as an ornament to their personalities or as a way to impress others.

For us who are committed to the Byzantine pathway to salvation, we have to find a way to deepen our understanding of the pathway, incorporate the pathway into our lives, and yet make accommodations in our communities for those whose spiritual life is extremely shallow--and perhaps even non-existent-- and based solely upon ethnic stuff only. And we have to do this in the overall context of contemporary American life. YIKES! What a challenge.

So when I see men running aroundthe streets in full ecclesiastical high-drag, speaking with quasi-accents, condemning 'modernism' (i.e., electric lights), and anathematizing anyone who doesn't put up with their crap, I think of my grandparents (God rest them) and what they would have thought about all this. As the folks who brought Orthodoxy (Constantinopolitan Christianity) to these shores, they knew where to draw the line, and where changes needed to be made. And they didn't hold on to EVERYTHING because it was necessary for salvation.

Although some folks might find this exasperating: You have to have a life before you can save it. As Americans, we have our American lives. We use the Byzantine pathway to sanctify OUR lives as Americans. Salvation doesn't come from mimicking the old days. Just ask your priest.

Glory to Jesus Christ ! Thank you for your post, Dr. John. You have quite a unique and penetrating perspective on those Russian parishes. This is something one does not get from reading parish histories and old issues of Eastern Churches Quarterly. One does not usually consider how problematic was the whole notion of recruiting foreigners, non-Russians, to serve as priests for Russians. I don't think by any means that Popes Pius XI and saintly Pius XII were wrong to do this. I have every confidence that the Jesuit priests Walter (Vladimir) Ciszek , Wendelin Javorka, Pietro Leoni, Karl Patzelt along with some of the others will be canonized. I would imagine that the survivng Russian parishes bear little resemblance to the ones founded by priests trained at the Russicum. In order to survive they have adapted to their very American surroundings. It might be fun for you to visit one during your next sojourn to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or even the Byelorussian parish in Chicago. You are always welcome to visit our parish in Los Angeles (El Segundo.)

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 11-10-1999).]

Glory to Jesus Christ ! Our Byzantine Seminary Press sells beautiful crystal and pearl Byzantine Rosaries or prayer ropes. The press also sells a little book with instuctions on how to pray the Byzantine Rosary in the Carpatho-Rusyn manner. To order a catalog see the site http://www.byzantines.net/press/

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 11-10-1999).]

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 11-10-1999).]

The vision at Fatima was a purly demonic one. Remember, that the devil comes as an angel of light!

I would be very careful in giving credit to satan those things which may come from God.

Joe Prokopchak
archsinner