Actually this happens only once a year, or twice because the place is not fit for serving in a proper ad orientem style. But they are serving ad orientem! Even if they face the people. But this is sort of an exception for pastoral reasons in the Orthodox Church...not a rule as in some greek-catholics.

and people wonder why i'm leaving the Greek-Catholic Church.

If I may ask: Where are you going?

apologies, that was an inappropriate comment at an inappropriate time! i didn't mean to announce it like that, but i suppose now that it's out... i'm speaking to the MP priest in Hong Kong in two weeks' time about being received.

If you look through the album of photos titled Junio, you will see that at least one Divine Liturgy has been celebrated facing east.

In another album of photos, unleavened bread (a.k.a. "hosts") is used as can be seen in this photo. (Don't get me started on the lack of modesty seen in the photo.)

Ay! Dios mio! Que tonteria. Que asqueroso. Que locura.

I'm not sure if every Byzantine Rite altar has the tabernacle in the middle of the altar, but having the tabernacle there makes it impossible to do the Divine Liturgy versus populum.

On the other hand, if you get 4 priests, the 4th one can face versus populum

I was visiting the Facebook page of Saint Gregory Armenian Catholic Church in Glendale, CA and saw the photos of the Holy Thursday liturgy. Didn't expect to see the following:

1) Liturgy facing the people.
2) Liturgy celebrated on a low "table".
3) The Holy Eucharist removed and placed in a side repository. (Similar to what takes places in the Holy Thursday Mass in the Roman-rite.)
4) Use of altar girls.

The published schedule gives only one hour for the celebration of the liturgy. Pretty short, if you ask me. I am even wondering if it was the Roman Mass that was celebrated.

I am disappointed to see this, especially to see that it is Bishop Mouradian who is the main celebrant.

After repeated calls for Eastern Catholics to recover their traditions, why does this "neo-latinization" continue???

May I humbly posit three answers?

1 - Even in the East, the cultural issues around "the Vatican II moment," - both radical aggiornamento and counter-revolutionary - won't shake out to sanity until there is no bishop left on earth born before 1990. Right now too many people have emotions and career interests tightly bound up in fighting old mid-century cultural battles.

2 - The nation-state; democratic republics; the public school system; and a success-oriented, "employer-employee economy;" whatever their other blessings, all tend to exaggerate the natural human desire to be like one's neighbors into a slavish cultural conformism.

Thus people join more "mainstream" churches for social standing and business connections.

Interestingly, someone told me in the original "Godfather" novel, Michael wanted to raise his kids Protestant so that they would be "more American," and was upset when his Protestant wife converted. Art reflects life.

Several years ago I had a conversation with a person of Spanish descent (literal Spain, I mean) with whom I do business. He told me about his local mega-church ... I told him about my Ukrainian Catholic Church, and he said that he was familiar with the UGCC - he'd been to Kyiv - but "it's not a very *American* way to worship." That statement and his glare was an eye-opening experience for me.

Not everyone is willing to make the jump right to low-church Protestantism, though, so they will either Latinize themselves to "fit in" with the larger Catholic community, or adopt outright Protestantizations, as happened in many Roman Rite parishes.

From my conversations with local Orthodox, they are not immune, and evidently there are Protestantizations in the Orthodox community as well. But this is outside by bailiwick.

3 - The modern individualist mindset dovetails nicely with an anti-formalism that is destructive of any tradition.

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The first of these issues should resolve naturally in the passing of generations. The third can be somewhat "cured" in individual persons through proper catechetical training, and prayer and fasting on the part of those who know better.

The second is a real sticky-wicket though, and I don't see any *human* solution. Probably this will not change until either the Democratic Era comes to a close (not the party, but the rule of nation-states and the mindset of bourgeois individualism), or there is severe persecution, or Our Lord graces us with a supernatural solution.

I am deeply convinced, based on certain theologies of history, that God desires the New Israel to have its "Twelve Tribes" thrive, and so that if we cooperate and pray and fast and evangelize, the "Tribes of Andrew and Thomas" (so to speak) will grow and thrive and retain their individuality.

Thanks for entertaining what turned out to be a really long post.

Christ is Risen!

I agree with most of this.

I think the leading cause of continued and new latinizations (of which the RDL is a prime example) is that our bishops and leading clergy are still seeking for the majority Latins to accept them as real Catholics. That will never happen and they should just forget it.

It should. It's part of the rubrics. And usually, it's just called an "artophorion" (bread box). Except during Lent, there's no guarantee that it will even have any reserved particles in it.

One of the things I like about the Melkites is they just don't care what the Latins think about them. After all, "it was in Antioch that they were first called Christians". They are secure in their own identity, comfortable in their own skin.

Latinized stuff like this is great fodder for the anti-ecumenical among the Orthodox when they ask us how can we really trust the Romans. For those who want to worship like that I have some solid advice - just join the RCC and allow the sui juris Churches the space and respect that they were supposed to receive following Vatican 2. Otherwise there will never be any reunion.

A priest turning his back to the Lord isn't a Latinisation. It's a Protestantisation.

You know that's not my point, it's the mimicry of whatever might be the fashion in the Roman Church. Those EC priests and Bishops certainly aren't consciously emulating Protestantism.