www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West How would you handle anti-RCC Eastern Catholics?

Random Observations:
- I have had Latin rite Traditionalists visit my parish for Divine Liturgy, after which they remarked about how it reminded them of the "old" Mass. I grew up with the old mass - so different from the Byzantine. I wanted to be sarcastic and respond: "Yes, especially the vernacular language, the leavened eucharistic bread, the frequent incensation, the constant chanting, the Epiclesis, etc.."
I believe that what some have found in our churches that does bring back old memories is the Sense of the Sacred.
- I believe that most of the "Latinizations" were not forced upon our people or clergy, but were gladly accepted as a way of being accepted.
- Many RC's who become GC's tend to "overdo" it. They may literally become more Orthodox than the Orthodox. One rule of thumb that has served me well over the years is this: Whenever you hear "We ALWAYS do this...." or "We NEVER do this...", just smile and turn down the volume of your mind.
E.G. I have heard that Eastern Christians never have statues. Hagia Sophia had them and many Orthodox Churches in Russia have them, at least in the form of corpuses on crosses.
I have heard it said that Eastern Christians never kneel on Sunday. Most Greek O. churches I've been to have kneeling during the Great Entrance, and some during the anaphora. And in many Russian churches there's kneeling, prostrating, standing, etc. going on simultaneously.
To my ultra-purist and anti-RC friends, I occasionally suggest that they stop celebrating Christmas, since it is a feast that came to us from the WEST!
As for being scandalized by rosaries, lace albs, breast-striking, etc., EWTN had a show once whose title is appropros: "Get a life....in Christ."

Yes... with the result that when we're in Traddie Orthodox parishes, people look at us to try and figure out what they ought to be doing. A friend of mine, a Ukie Cat'lic, was in the ROCOR church in London for Vigil before one of the major feastdays. He had his prayer rope in his hand, Old Believer style, and did all the right prostrations and bows και τα λοιτα... and found several people sort of eyeing him as a sort of 'i'll follow what he's doing' thing. Oh, if only they'd known...

One is not acting in the tradition of the holy apostles when one is "anti" another community of Christians, particularly another community of apostolic Christians. We are not, as Scripture tells us the follower of Paul or some other apostle or teacher, we are the followers of Jesus Christ first and foremost. The communities are going to vary. That's the way it is.

Part of the problem, I think, is that Roman Catholicism is clearly the big boy on the block as far as a community. And Roman Catholics have not necessarily done enough to learn about their brothers and sisters who worship differently - something that happens when you are so very huge. JP2 really did a lot to change that. As a Slav, he knew about the "other" Catholics on a more personal level.

People worship differently within families, as they do within mine. My niece is a theology student and has studied Eastern churches. Eastern services definitely do not appeal to her as they do to me. She far prefers the modern Roman Catholic Mass. And she's a very mainstream Catholic - a conservative one, I'd say, really - but the Mass is the service that spiritually engages her.

By the way, as an aside: my friends and I grew up calling Pope John Paul II "JP2." It was a term of love, not of being disrespectful, because we related to him in a way we never thought we could relate to any Pope. Besides, he was Pope for nearly all of our lives, so our entire understanding the of the papacy was a pretty lofty and inspiring ideal. So I asked my niece if there was any endearing name for Pope Benedict XVI among the 20-something and under crowd. Indeed. They call him "Paparatzi."

The previous bishop for Ukrainian Catholics the late Bishbop Ivan Prasko seemed to think that the Latin decenters were sort of old ritualists. He did not appreciate that they are more of a coalition and have all sorts of problems and are attracted to all sorts of strange beliefs. Those who hung around were a nothing but trouble and really looked down their noses at the Ukrainians and the Byzantine Rite. They just moaned about the Mass and the Pope and everything. Thankfully they moved on and took their strange ways with them. I think these people need to be reminded that the Greek Catholics are in full communion with the Pope and the Latin Rite and we are not interested in what RCs get up to.

I personally object to old ritualist from the Latin rite trying to monopolise the term traditionalist or traditional. If ritual is all it is about with them then they might indicate they were Tredentine Rite. Where I live in Western Australia their are 2 groups those who use the 1964 Missal and have a chaplain provided by the Archdiocese of Perth and the separate group. The Archbishop has given over to the chaplain the old pro-cathedral near where he lives and now and again he says High Mass for them. So people can choose to be Catholic or non catholic.