After posting ‘A Tale of Two Churches’ I felt the need to offer some kind of ideas as to how we can begin to move in a positive direction and turn the tide of decline that we as a church are experiencing.

I agree with Ukrainian Catholic who wrote that ‘A return to Traditional Orthodoxy’

I would call it ‘Orthodox Fundamentalism’ (Father David calls it Liturgical Fundamentalism in this post).
http://www.byzcath.org/bboard/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=003710;p=4#000052

Before people rehash arguments over the New Liturgy, let me clear. I in no way believe that by only becoming more traditional in our Liturgy, standing instead of kneeling and/or sitting, removing pews, installing a curtain, etc. that we would all of a sudden have converts beating down the doors of our churches. If Holy Ghost (see a Tale of Two Churches) installed a curtain and ripped out the pews, the following Sunday they would still have the same 7-20 people there. But it would be a great starting place and would let future converts know that we have stability and believe in reverence and tradition. Our Liturgy is our foundation and from this foundation we can build success. However much building on this foundation would need to take place.

Now regarding those future converts.

Orthodox Fundamentalism must be in conjunction with

An aggressive evangelization program. What this evangelization program would include is better left to another thread. But a good starting place would be the parishes mentioned in this post:
http://www.byzcath.org/bboard/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=003839;p=1#000005 by Diak. What are they doing to get converts in? What kind of evangelization program do they run?

Also:

A mandatory 10% of all money collected from every church to be used for the purpose of supporting mission churches. Missions are where we are going to continue to grow and convert more and more. Missions are the way that we will bring the Word of Jesus Christ to the masses in a traditional way.

And also use a portion of the 10% collected:

To be used to support building K-12 Byzantine Catholic schools. I have a friend in the Cleveland area who I grew up with who goes to a Byzantine Church in Ohio. They want their son to go to a private school. Since there is not a Byzantine school within 40 minutes of their home they are going to enroll their son in the nearby Roman Catholic School this fall and start attending mass there. There is a Byzantine Church 5 minutes from their home but they get a discount in tuition and they want to be involved where their son goes to school. So there goes another young family out our door and into someone else’s door. And the kids will be raised in an RC church and school. I really believe that we need to do this in order to have some kind of chance of keeping our youth. It’s no wonder it’s all people with grey hair in many of our churches.

Furthermore if our kids grow up in a Byzantine Catholic environment with Byzantine priests around, dare I say one of the boys may look up to the priest and may want to become a priest. How does anyone expect our boys to become something they never see? Schools would be a way to educate our youth in our Byzantine Faith that they would never get in RC schools.

Finally,

A consolidation of resources like Father Loya recommends would also be needed. Father Loya mentions ‘razing to the ground and rebuilding’. Clearly we have parishes that are not in strategic areas and are dead wood. I’m not even going to touch where those might be, and furthermore I don’t know the whole Archeparchy well enough to comment anyway. Informed leadership is needed especially in this particular decision. Let us pray that this would happen.

The ideas that I propose are in no way the ‘complete’ solution, but rather a starting point to be built upon, refined, and hopefully one day implemented to right this ship. Hopefully this occurs before it’s too late.

I welcome others constructive thoughts.


Monomakh

Yo, Mon

Instead of using funds to subsidize BC schools (as worthy a cause as that may be) the dedication of funds to a school only serves a single geographic area. I would personally rather see funds go towards mission work, evangelization and communication projects, etc etc on a national level. Perhaps the creation of a Byzantine Catholic homeschool curriculum would help create a national reach for Byz Cath education.

Also, the term "fundamentalism" certainly has a negative conotation. Sticking to the fundamentals are great - and you've outlined a few of those. But "fundamentalism" bespeaks a more reactionary posture. We want to be be traditional AND evangelical.

Gordo

At this point schools are a bonus, not a completely necessary part. We have to get new missions and parishes going, revitalize older ones, support and build the domestic churches. The decay and decline has to stop. And in my case, as likely some others, we would probably homeschool anyway.

The Byz homeschool curricula - another good project underway I hope to finish someday.
FDD

Diak,

Perhaps one of the apostolates of the village?

Gordo

Here are a few examples of successful Maronite schools:

http://maronitesvictoria.org/

http://www.stephremacademy.org/index.htm

Yes their school in Melbourne is very successful. Shame the Maronites are so RC. They seem happy with it all.

ICXC
NIKA

Well... it could be said that it's a shame the Antiochians are so Byzantinised...

touché!

Father Deacon Diak,

I don't know if I would go as far as to say that schools are a 'bonus', but I agree with you that stopping the decay and decline is bigger priority. The RCs are still to this day taking our people because they offer lower tution and sometimes it is even mandatory to attend a RC church and be a member to have your child attend the school. Having schools would be piece but not the whole solution to keeping our youth and young families.

Monomakh

ps I hope you come up with a byz homeschool curricula, as you know homeschooling has incredible benefits for children.

For anyone interested in Home Schooling, there is a school in Florida that is one of the largest in the nation. Every home is considered a classroom extension of that school. In theory, your child is enrolled in a private school. The curriculum is quite good, and challenging. The school handles the transfer of the records from public school to their school.

I do not know the particulars for each state, but here in Florida, they are wonderful.

Here is their link:

http://www.acces-inc.com/cca/

Michael

Christ is Risen!

Evangelizers,

I am being encouraged by the creative, visionary thinking that I see happening more and more on the forums. I am beginning to see what I believe is the language and ideas that need to be put forth if the Eastern Churches want to enter into a new Springtime of evangelization. For many people creative and visionary ideas can at first be frightening or threatening but they are actually positive and life-giving.

My "motto" of "razing to the ground and rebuilding
" is all about spiritual renewal which is (in typical Eastern Christian style) manifested even in the physical. Renewal must be comprehensive. You are correct in saying that taking out a few pews and putting up a curtain is not going to bring people into a dying church. However, doing these things in a dynamic way with catechesis and as part of a very, very comprehensive, integrated plan of renewal born out of a vision and clear sense of mission of the church is guaranteed to fill our churches--absolutely guaranteed!

Let's go with our greatest strength as Eastern Christian Churches--Liturgy. This "razing to the ground and rebuilding" is all about establishing a "liturgical culture," an ethos, a world view.
We teach in our Liturgical theology that "life is liturgy and liturgy is life." We have to "raze" our current worldview which is not really "liturgical." It is more "American" (Protestant) and secular than it is liturgical when we really look honestly at ourselves.

I am talking about a very deep interior reconfiguration of our selves spiritually which then manifests itself even through the tiniest physical details of our lives. We have to renew our entire spirituality of curch, stewardship, labor, prayer, play, family, sexuality, celibacy, etc. You name it! Rethink it all with a liturgical ethos. A simple format:

What is the Mission of the Church? It is the Mystical Body of Christ on earth. What does that look like? Name the characteristics. Then compare our eparchies, parishes, etc. with that model of the Mystical Body of Christ. Whatever is consistent with the Mission stays. Whatever is not, goes--simple at that. Then establish a vision: How do we want an eparchy to look now and in 20, 30 years, etc? Once we establish that, we never take our eyes off of the vision. We do not look back and we do not doubt ourselves. Instead we develop a plan to realize the vision.

Example: We ask ourselves is having a parish in this or that region strategic to the vision and mission of an eparchy? Is having a monastery here or there strategic to the mission? Where would the greatest yield come from with the investment of the precious resources of clergy, money and people? What about media, schools, ministries, inner city outreach, etc. Whatever the idea simply put it out there for consideration of the vision. The answer to these questions determines the plan. We simply pursue the vision by means of a strategic plan. But,everything AND everyPERSON must defer to the vision and the plan for this to work.

The erroneous tendency that we are currently laboring under is to automatically think in terms of how we can 'save' what is already the existing structure. We are wasting resources trying to keep old wineskines patched up. We have to ask oursevles what this is actually yielding for the investment?

The spirituality of stewardship requires that money be invested in the way that yields the most. I believe that we need to "honor" the monies that we are asking of our congregations by investing their gifts in such a way that their yield is maximized. I believe that there is a moral question involved in asking the Faithful to continue supporting a structure that is not yielding and thriving. In essence much of the Eastern Catholic world is in a state of what is known in the construction industry as a "money pit." We keep pouring resources into things that need to be changed, renewed or discarded altogether. Now, please, do not go thinking that I am "insulting" the Eastern Catholic Churches. It is simply the natural course of many things in life that after a while they have outlived their time and need to be reconfigured or just simply die away. Remember, although we have to ask tough questions and roll up our sleeves and pursue tough options it is still a positive and life-giving endeavor. There is nothing negative about this. Yes, there will be some sentiments and emotions but this inevitable pain will be forgotten by the "joy over the child that is born."

--Fr. Thomas J. Loya, STB., MA.

BEMA:
Byzantine Evangelization Mission Association:
(This is a movement in the arena of ideas which seeks to assist our Church and its hierarchy with strictly positive ideas and which has the encouragement of Bishop John Kudrick of the Eparchy of Parma.

Christ is Risen!

Evangelizers,

'Sorry: I accidentally hit the "post" key before I could get this point in on my last post:
I just want to be clear that when I said that Bishop Kudrick is encouraging to BEMA that this referred strictly to BEMA not to any of my personal postings on this forum.

--Fr. Thomas J. Loya, STB., MA
BEMA

There are fewer more expensive endeavors a parish can undertake than a school. With few numbers and resources, that would quickly eat up what is left. The Romans have consolidated and re-consolidated over the years to create these mega-parishes and super-schools. I don't think that is really any model to emulate.

Monomakh, we have to have the courage to be ourselves, and to forge out with new vigor to start new foundations, new roots, new beacons out in the desert.

Look what Archpriest Roman Galadza has done with St. Elias www.saintelias.com It started with a Fr. Roman and a few families borrowing space in the gym of an RC school. Then they moved into an abandoned prison chapel for several years, then bought the land and built the Church. More than building the church they are building a community.

And look where they are only 25 years later. This was from scratch, and not a reorganization/ reshuffling of existing parishes that already have a resource and parishoner base that are being consolidated. In his case there are a ton of parishes already present in the Toronto area. And he was still able to do it.

Fr. David Anderson is doing something from scratch up in northern California - heck they have Vespers or some other service nearly every day. What is the commonality of these parishes -strong community united in purpose and Christ, and a vivacious, authentic and traditional liturgical life.

Get people together to pray according to our beatiful tradition, let them live the Truth, be surrounded with heavenly Beauty even if only with Reader's Services at first in someone's home.
FDD