www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Orthodox - in union with Rome?

Dear Friends,

How's about we let the Western Rite Orthodox call themselves what THEY wish, eh?

We don't like it when others concoct names for us e.g. Roman Catholics of the Byzantine Rite or "Uniate."

Alex

JPOrthodox,
I wouldn't boast of that too loudly the Bulgars are widely known for their sexual diviant behavior.
Stephanos I

If you really believe in that famous maxim of Prosper of Aquitane lex orandi, lex credendi, then we are Orthodox in communion with Rome. We use Orthodox prayers, liturgies and Divine Praises. We commemorate the Pope of Rome in our litanies.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Orthodox Catholic:
[Those who are "Orthodox in union with Rome" would omit the Filioque and say the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, following St John Damscene and St Peter Mohyla.

This is not so. The Byzantine Catholic Service books I have seen include the Filioque in the creed.

In Christ,
Mark, monk and sinner

Bless me a sinner, Father Mark,

How can I leave here when there are posts such as yours?

You make it very difficult . . .

Yes, Byzantine Catholic service books often have the Filioque.

When I used the expression, "Orthodox in union with Rome" I am referring to a particular group of Eastern Catholics who are highly developed in terms of their Eastern spirituality so as NOT to include the Filioque and who follow through with other aspects of Easternized tradition and spirituality.

Many Byzantine Catholics I know would resist being called "Orthodox in union with Rome" as they consider the Orthodox to be in schism etc.

Kissing your right monastic hand, I again implore your blessing,

Alex

It is true that there are some Byzantine Catholic parishes that still use the filioque. In the United States the Conference of Eastern Catholic Bishops agreed some 15 years ago to remove it and restore the Symbol of Faith to its original form. Among Byzantine-Ruthenian Catholics its use is banned in the Eparchies of Passaic, Parma and Van Nuys. In the Metropolitan Archeparchy of Pittsburgh the use of the filioque is not used at archeparchial liturgical celebrations but Metropolitan +Jusdon (of blessed memory) did not issue a decree banning it (he seemed to want the parishes to remove it on their own rather than to issue a decree). None of the Byzantine-Melkite parishes I have visited have used the filioque. I cannot speak to its use in the Byzantine-Ukrainian and Byzantine-Romanian parishes.

Oddly, the filioque was used in many Johnstown Orthodox (Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church) parishes right up until the 1970's. It was only when the English language texts were published that the filioque disappeared.

Hopefully, within the next few years the filioque will not be used in any Byzantine Catholic parish anywhere in the world.

I heard that the Roman Catholic church in Greece does not use the Filioque in respect for the Greeks. Now, does this make The Roman Catholic Church in Greece Orthodox?
I'm Ukrainian Greek Catholic, but I consider myself very much Orthodox and I love and respect very much my Orthodox brothers and sisters who are not in communion with Rome.
I wonder what the late Patriarch Josef Slipey would say about this issue.
May God bless all,
Lauro

Moose, can you do a little better to back up this claim? (Perhaps you could name somebody from such a parish who could verify it? Especially a cantor or altar boy who would have led the singing of the creed back then?) I have several prayerbooks that were published and in use in that Diocese "up until the 1970s" and none of them includes "i Syna" (or "and the Son", for that matter) in the Symbol of Faith.

Now, I realize that there were many of the Grigassy prayerbooks in the possession of the faithful of the ACROGC Diocese, where "i Syna" was certainly to be found. (Go into any one of their churches, look in the pews or choir loft and you are sure to find some.) But I doubt very much that the Diocese's historians would corroborate this claim. In fact, I think you are the only one I've ever seen or heard make such a claim.

It might interest people here to know that there is a raging debate over on the "Indiana list" which started because a frequent poster (who also posts here) quoted a Byzantine Catholic at the recent Orientale Lumen conference who claimed that Metropolitan Nicholas of the ACROGC Diocese acknowledges that many Greek Catholics are members of Diocesan parishes and that they freely receive Holy Communion there. I wonder what this claim about "filioque" in that Diocese would bring about?

LR,

I would suggest you contact Metropolitan Nicholas in Johnstown and ask him. He is a wonderful man, will probably chuckle at the question and settle down for a long chat. I do know that when this group was accepted by the EP the EP did not ask them to make any changes to the liturgy (with the implicit expectation that they would de-latinize over many generations). I not only heard the filioque used in a Slavonic liturgy (they sung it from the Blue Sokol just like us) I also have had conversations with several priests who remember singing it. The Carpatho-Russian people were and remain very independent and it took a long time for any type of change to take place - even changes directed by the hierarchy. I know of one parish in that diocese only this year dropped the very latinized custom of reserving the Eucharist over the tomb on Holy Friday.

Beware of diocesan historians. They usually write history with a spin as they wish it were rather than as it was. There are some in the Johnstown Diocese who will tell you that they broke with the Greek Catholic Church (Pittsburgh) because they had a desire to return to Orthodoxy. While there were undoubtedly some who had this view the vast majority simply wanted to be "Independent Greek Catholics" where they could maintain their Greek Catholic liturgy and practices.

I cannot speak to what Metropolitan Nicholas did or did not say. I do know from my own experience that many people do indeed float between parishes and jurisdictions. My own Byzantine Catholic parish had a number of Orthodox with Easter Baskets on Pascha (they simply didn't want to wait five more weeks) and many of our parishes have numerous Orthodox families. It is not at all surprising that Greek Catholics also float to Johnstown and other Orthodox parishes. I suggest that the people on the Indiana list also like to present life within Orthodoxy as they wish it to be and not as it really is. It is a very human quality.

Moose

At Lenten dinners in our parish, there is oftentimes a substantial number of OCA parish folks present. I'm sure a part of their presence is due to the food, but I also think that a goodly number are there because it's a "Carpatho-thing", and their sense of identity with other Carpathos is really important, regardless of jurisdiction. (Same goes with the parish picnic/festival.)

What intrigues me is the fact that (apparently) none of the traditionalist RC pilgrims in our parish attend either of these events. I'm wondering if its the 'ethnicity' thing that makes them uncomfortable or whether their strictness in their religious life makes it uncomfortable for them to be outside a non-liturgical and 'disciplined' environment? (Lord knows, our dinners and festivals are quasi-organized chaos! But incredibly fun!!)

Is a puzzlement. (To quote the 'King and I')

Blessings!

Okay. A thought comes to me. Suppose that by the end of the year, the Lord pulls off what seems completely impossible to us and reunites the Church as it was prior to 1054. No schism, somehow everyone is on the same page and we can all inter-commune because we are in blessed unity.

What will that make us Orthodox Catholics? (Byzantine Catholics, Greek Catholics, etc. damn, what a nuisance it is to select the proper tag!!)

Will we suddenly go from being the "goats" of Orthodoxy to "heroes" who were correct all along? Will we suddenly be seen as noble?

Oh, and will we even continue to exist or will we be entered into union with the ethnic parishes of our Orthodox brothers?

I still have this sense that there are elements of worship, theological understanding, and mysticism which are incomplete in both East and West and that the most rounded way to understand Christianity would be a unity of both understandings into one distinct spirituality. I am not talking about Liturgy here, I am talking about a personal spirituality which can understand the Faith like one sees a fine diamond -- from all sides and all facets. It would be the ability to both experience (Eastern)and explain (Western).

One of the criticizms I heard of Orthodoxy when I was considering leaving Protestantism was that Orthodoxy hasn't developed theologically for the last 1000 years. (Remember, I came from a tradition which was, as most Western forms, BIG on the explanitive living out of the Christian life). I was warned that there was a dearth of theological books out by Orthodox writers, as opposed to a cornicopia of books by Latin Catholics.

This statement was partially true. There is a wealth of books on mysticism and personal piety from Orthodoxy, and a wealth of writings of a more explanatory nature from the Western writers. If Orthodox and Catholics are ever going to be evangelical in the most effective sense to Protestants, we better be ready to explain the Faith from both sides of the aisle, both the mystical theology of "theosis" and the practical theology of Biblical explanation such as Scott Hahn's beautiful explanation of covenantal relationship within the kingdom family. I find in his explanation as a Roman Catholic a perfect understanding of that unity which is theosis. He's Western, he doesn't call it that, but it is there if one is looking for it.

Orthodox thought, books and writings challenge me to EXPERIENCE the Christian life through experiencing Christ. Catholic thought, books, and writings give me more of doctrinal EXPLANATION of the Faith to those who have not experienced it yet and wonder why I "jumped ship".

I think I have the best of both worlds.

Just some thoughts. Ramblin' a bit when I probably should be in bed catchin' zzzzzzzzzzz's

Brother Ed

PS. As a convert, I see so much which is similar in the two Faiths, even in the convoluted "Novus ordo" of post Vatican II, that I keep thinking that this is a tempest in a teapot which has been kept boiling far too long. Of course, I oversimplify, for there are things I am not aware of as a convert and cannot really understand from an Orthodox or Catholic position as do those who have been born to their respective understandings. But to Protestant eyes, which I am only slowly getting rid of, this separation is hard to understand.

In regards to the previous post, what's convoluted about an accepted liturgical rite of the Catholic Church? I'm having real trouble with that one...it's not the Mass that's the problem, it's the diocesan liturgical conferences that set the rules...true enough, there have been some serious liturgical abuses with the NO. On a positive note, check with the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska if you want to see the NO celebrated well and with dignity...

Ipreima, getting to your point about Patriarch Josyp...he certainly celebrated liturgies without the Filoque in Rome, especially with the Studites and at St. Sophia's. And it was Metropolitan Konstantin Bohachevsky that directed it be put in parenthesis to reduce its usage back in the 1950s...I have an old My Divine Friend Redemptorist prayer book from 1958 with the blessing of Metropolitan Bohachevsky with the Filioque in parenthesis in both Slavonic and English. It was therefore optional and not officially required for recitation of the Creed even at that time in the Ukrainian Catholic eparchies in the U.S.

I don't know why "Orthodox in communion with Rome" is such a difficult concept for many...our bishops in Brest in 1596, Metropolitan Isidore at Florence, and others certainly understood the concept of dual communion. Orthodox in worship, Catholic in spirit.

I once worshipped at a NO Mass in Gaming, Austria at the TU there and had tears in my eyes, it was so beautiful.

It is not the NO which is the problem. the American Catholic Church in California has much to learn about how to worship, at least in SAC

SLAVA ISUSU CHRISTU!
SLAVA NA VIKI BOHU!

Dr. John wrote:"...What intrigues me is the fact that (apparently) none of the traditionalist RC pilgrims in our parish attend either of these events..."

In my parish, our TRC's didn't attend Divine Liturgy on Paska because one of the local RC parishes had a Tridentine Easter Liturgy.

I find it amazing....

the least servant of the servants
mark