that writing Rome is very, very important

I have been told that the Patriarch is very interested in the activities of the Byzantine Catholics. It does affect the Catholic / Orthodox ecumenical dialog. He will not take kindly to a feminist rewrite of the Divine Liturgy.

I think we should send a copy to those monks on mount Athos, who wrote the letter (in another thread) about the meeting of the Pope and the Patriarch.

I wonder what the monks of Athos would say, about our abbreviated, reorganized, modernized, up to date, feminized, and gender neutral Liturgy? Think of the time they could save, wasted on all those psalm verses and repetitive litanies!

Perhaps the monks of Athos would like to follow our couragious lead, and change the way they celebrate the Liturgy in order to conform to the latest insights and contemporary scholarship!

They might even like copies of the 'educational materials' being produced in Pittsburgh, to help them understand all the changes.

Nick

p.s. Following our lead, they will see the advantages that come from Union with Rome, and then maybe they won't be so suspicious.

I encourage everyone in our Church to write letters writing campaign to Rome. We are a small Church. A mere dozen letters from our clergy alone would be able to overturn the reformed liturgy in favor of the real liturgy. If we all write letters and each find only 2 more people to write letters we can succeed. I especially encourage our clergy to write since letters from clergy are not ignored by Rome.

Start by obtaining a good copy of the promulgation and cover letter from your pastor. The one on this website is not good enough.

Send copies to the following people (as a start):

His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI
The Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City, Europe

His Eminence Cardinal Ignace Moussa Daoud, Prefect
Congregation for the Oriental Churches
Palazzo del Bramante
Via della Conciliazione, 34
00193 Roma, Italia, Europe
Telephone: 011.39.06.69.88.42.82
Fax: 011.29.06.69.88.43.00

Send separate letters to the following at the same address:

His Excellency Antonio Maria Veglio, Secretary
Mons. Krzystof Nitkiewicz, Undersecretary

And to the following:

His Eminence Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect
Congregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina Sacramentorum
Palazzo delle Congregazioni
Piazza Pio XII, 10
00193 Roma, Italia, Europe
Telephone: 011.39.06.69.88.43.16; 011.39.06.69.88.43.18
Fax: 011.39.06.69.88.34.99

His Eminence Cardinal Walter Kasper
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
Via dell'Erba, 1
00193 Roma, Italia, Europe
Telephone: 011.39.06.69.88.30.72; 011.39.06.69.88.42.71
Fax: 011.39.06.69.88.53.65

When I have a chance I will post the mailing information for all the Greek Catholic patriarchs (especially the Ukrainian Patriarch Lubomyr and the Melkite Patriarch Gregorios III) and for our bishops in Europe.

Keep your letters polite and respectful. Make sure they contain no emotion all.

There is a lot of material on this web board to draw from. Write the letter in your own words and focus on the following points:

1. This Reformed Liturgy violates official books, the Ordo Celebrationis, and the Liturgical Instruction.

2. This Reformed Liturgy makes the Liturgy in our Ruthenian Church different than all other Byzantine / Greek Catholics and thus hurts unity within the Catholic Church.

3. This Reformed Liturgy makes the Liturgy in our Ruthenian Church different than all the other Orthodox Churches and thus hurts Catholic / Orthodox unity.

4. The embracement of inclusive language violates Liturgiam Authenticam.

Make sure your letter is no longer than 2 pages. Have someone not from our Church read it. If they don't understand what you are saying neither will the people in Rome.

Make sure you ask questions. Why did they approve a Byzantine Novus Ordo liturgy that is different than the official Ruthenian books? Why did they direct the use of inclusive language that violates Liturgiam Authenticam? Ask them why the official Ruthenian Divine Liturgy is being prohibited at the same time the Holy Father is considering making the Tridentine Mass an equal standard with the Novus Ordo.

Enclose a copy of Archbishop Basil's promulgation letter and the cover letter sent to your pastor so they know what you are talking about.

Do not threaten to leave or withhold your offerings. Take the position that you are a faithful Byzantine Catholic and that you want the official liturgy of our Church. Take the position that you are willing to do whatever it takes to obtain permission from the Vatican for your parish to continue celebrate the official Ruthenian Divine Liturgy.

Use full names and addresses. Make sure the signatures are clear. If you can sent either U.S. Global mail, UPS or FedEx. The special cardboard envelopes will attract attention.

If you think you can manage it petitions do work. Just make sure that every signature and name and address is captured and legible.

Don't sit back and think someone else will write and you can ignore this. YOU NEED TO WRITE YOUR OWN LETTER! YOU NEED TO WRITE YOUR LETTER TODAY!

Dostojno Jest

I encourage everyone in our Church to write letters

Is this really going to work? Do you think that Rome is that 'in the dark' about our Liturgy revision? The last time I checked the Catholic Church was not a democracy but rather a theocracy. If our revised Liturgy is canonically wrong and Rome has let it pass then are they the appropriate channel to go through? Maybe we should be writing letters to the Patriarch of Constantinople instead and asking what we need to do to enter the Orthodox fold.

Is this really going to work? Do you think that Rome is that 'in the dark' about our Liturgy revision? The last time I checked the Catholic Church was not a democracy but rather a theocracy. If our revised Liturgy is canonically wrong and Rome has let it pass then are they the appropriate channel to go through? Maybe we should be writing letters to the Patriarch of Constantinople instead and asking what we need to do to enter the Orthodox fold.

Could you, please, clarify for me what all the controversy is about? I only heard about the Revised Divine Liturgy a few weeks ago.

I am not Ruthenian; I am Ukrainian Greek-Catholic under Patriarch Lubomyr. But, I understand that there already exists significant Latinization in the Ruthenian eparchies. Although I have tried to find out what exactly is going on, I'm still a bit puzzled about the particulars:

Is this just a question of translation?

Are there rubrical changes involved?

All I can seem to come up with is that the liturgy has been retranslated and some minor rubrical changes have been suggested (for example, saying the Anaphora aloud).

Is there anything more going on here than just that?

Thanks.

True, he could influence your own church to not adopt it. I understand that as a major archbishop who is also a cardinal, he has no real jurisdiction outside of his own geographic area. However, I don't think he would have much influence on the Ruthenian bishops in the United States.

Make sure that we do not adopt it ?

I'm told that our Liturgy is by no means perfect [ ] but we do not have this nonsense of inclusive language yet

Just musing here...

Outside of central Europe in most countries the 'Ruthenians' (from Hungary, Slovakia, Transkarpathia, etc.) are shepherded by the Ukrainian church. The one major exception being the Pittsburgh Metropolia.

There is also a very small Slovak church in Canada, the Slovaks are a major constituent population of the Ruthenian Metropolia of Pittsburgh across the border on the USA side.

I think that there is (or has been) a major paranoia about being swallowed up by the Ukrainian church. And it seems to me that the Pope actually has the authority to make that happen. The bishop of Rome has the right to erect and dissolve eparchies as needed, and that may possibly be seen as a threatening fate for Pittsburgh.

Quite honestly I cannot understand how some of these eparchies can sustain themselves with steadily dropping membership totals. Perhaps it is time to actually look at consolidation of the churches. A good beginning would be adoption of common translation and rubrics.

But then, steering the Ruthenian Metropolia into a distinct set of practices could make it a hard thing for the Ukrainian church to absorb. This could be a way of distancing the two churches from each other.

In any case, I suppose Patriarch Lubomyr's input is not looked for, and would not be welcome by the hierarchs of the BCC. I would expect them to be on friendly personal terms, but unsolicited advice??

Michael

You mean the majority of Ruthenians in the US come from Slovakia?

Ungcsertezs

Actually, the Slovak parishes in Canada were under the jurisdiction of the local Ukrainian Catholic Bishop until the establishment of the Slovak Eparchy 20 or 25 years ago. For about 20 years Bishop Michael was simply the Apostolic Visitor...
I'm no prophet, and I could easily be wrong in this matter. But the community is simply not large enough either to warrant or to maintain a diocese.

Fr. Serge

Yes there is more. It's called "Feminized" inclusive language. Tampering with the Creed. "Who for us MEN" in the creed, is now "Who for US" without "MEN" included.

That change alone is causing an uproar. It will be an interesting situation once this is implemented in the next few months.

I'm glad I attend a church where the Creed is said in it's original form.

Why didn't they just translate the Greek as: "for us men and women"?

Why tamper with the Creed in the first place?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!! I slept fine with the original translation, (minus the filioque of course)!

Of course, ANTHROPOS does not mean "man, men" -- but, "humanity." (Yes, I know I'm not telling you something you don't already know.) But, I also know that "man" has traditionally had the connotation of all humanity in English usage.

Seems to me the safest course of action was to just add "and women" to the translation.

As to tampering with the Creed, I'm not sure I would call what they did "tampering."