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Your claim was that



The Eastern Catholic Churches are not products of the Crusading periods, when other "patriarchs" were set up with Latin bishops instead of Eastern ones. (Which was your claim, or at least that is what it seemed your were claiming was as quoted above)

The current Eastern Catholic Churches came about, as you know, after the Council of Florence with various reunion synods. (Each with its own complex history)

I am aware that the "sui juris" churches do not come out (at least not directly) from the Crusader patriarchates, but they are indeed products of it (including the effect of the Northern Crusades in the events at Brest).

Ever since they were established, we have had Latin running about the neighborhood, sowing dissention. For example:
http://www.cnewa.org/default.aspx?ID=3608&pagetypeID=4&sitecode=hq&pageno=4
The Franciscan presence dates from the Crusades: when the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and Antioch retreated with the rest of the Crusaders to Cyprus (where the Crusaders utterly suppressed the Apostolic Church of Cyprus) they did not leave Syria as they found it:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14399a.htm
i.e, submitted to the Latin Patriarchs. In that context the Franciscans province of Syria was formed, backed by the Crusader Kingdom of Cyprus, where the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem remained with the Seat of the Franciscan Provintial (while suppressing the Apostolic Archbishprick of New Justiana and All Cyprus), fused in the following century when their supreme pontiff vested both offices in 1342 when naming the Franciscans "Custodians of the Holy Land." On that beachhead the "Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith," "especially charged to promote the union with Rome of the Oriental Christians" as the old "Catholic Encyclopedia" puts it, launched the Jesuits, Capuchins and Carmelites who, as it has perhaps been put best (by Tony Emille Nasrallah), "Anglicized" the Orthodox-just with an Orthodox/Ultramontanist-Latin fissure in orientation rather than an Anglo-Cathoic High Church/Calvinist Low Church one-the "respective causes" menetioned above by CNEWA. The Jesuits, backed by France, took over when the fortunes of Venice and the rest of Italy-patrons of the Franciscans-waned. The rest is history, even if a disputed history.

Not a single "sui juris" church is the product of the council of Florence. Not one. It is just the mold that they have been recast in. That those who signed Florence, Cardinals Bessarion and Isidore, followed the deposed EP Gregory Mamas (who succeeded the suburbicarian Cardinal Francesco Condulmer of Porto and Venice, dean of the College of Cardinals) in the office of the Crusader created Latin Patriarch of New Rome-resident, of course, in Old Rome-is emblematic.

Why then can't the Anglicans promote their "respective cause" among the East? Why can the churches "subsisting" in the Eastern lands serve as the vehicle of of the "respective cause" of Anglican bridge-making as the Latin Patriarchates did in the "respective cause" of their Pontifex Maximus, i.e. chief bridge-builder?

Dear IAmistry,

How in Heaven's Name did the Union of Brest come about as a result of the "northern Crusades?"

I keep "a-Brest" of these issues and this is the first I've ever heard of this.

You must be an historian. Historians not only write history, they re-write it too.

Alex

That's very good question.

Forgive this late reply, but I was just thinking: I've many times heard you and other Orthodox complain about Pope Benedict removing "Patriarch of the West" from the Annuario Pontificio in 2006 ... but I'm still waiting to hear an Orthodox praise Pope Pius IX for inserting "Patriarch of the West" into the Annuario Pontificio in 1863. [Linked Image]

Dear Peter,

Don't hold your breath.

I've come to the conclusion that we are to love all Orthodox - from afar.

Alex

Riga-Dubysa-Krewo-Lublin-Brest. Connect the dots, it is a straight line, although crooked.

In contrast, only a trail of broken promises connects Brest to Florence (as can be seen in the text of Brest itself, in reference to the rights promised by the King of Poland to Met. Isidore, reaffirmed but never fulfilled. See Gudziak, "Crisis and Reform pp. 44-5, 314 n. 5)

The northern crusades had been over for two centuries by the time of the Union of Brest.

Oh? The Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order all just picked up and left and went back home by 1395?

Jogaila and Vytautas-or rather, Jacob and Alexander, to use the names their Orthodox baptism conferred-preceded the bishops in Brest in pursing a policy of appeasing powers put in place by papal bulls coming from Old Rome by submitting to their supreme pontiff. Whom did they fight against at Grunwald? In fact, the fact that they had to fight anyone at Grunwald should have served as a warning as to the guarantee of the promises in the Articles of Brest had to fulfillment. Two centuries later, in the Four Year Diet, when, after Russia forced the issue, the Metropolitan who adhered to Brest finally got his seat in the senate promised (but not the rest of his bishops) did he get anything approaching equality for himself and his flock to the Latin hierarchy of Poland. And even then, it was begrudging-the Latin bishop of Kiev demanded, and received, erect parishes all across Ukraine from the same diet.

^Oh, and btw, Jagailo and Vytautas had the support in the field of Grundwald of their former coreligionists, their still Orthodox brother Simon and his troops of Smolensk, the Moldavian Hospodar Alexander the Good, along with Orthodox Wallachians in addition to the Orthodox Ruthenians. Even those evil, naughty Tartars lent a hand in defeating Jagailo and Vytautas' new co-religionists. Where was their supreme pontiff, upon whose help the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania counted? II Kings 18:21.

Btw, our source of an eyewitness to the battle is entitled by him Cronica conflictus Wladislai regis Poloniae cum Cruciferis anno Christi 1410.

The Birth of a Movement: Society for Eastern Rite Anglicanism

Moraga, CA, September 17, 2013 -- For over 950 years Eastern and Western Christians have been divided not just along theological lines, but also in liturgical practice. The Roman Catholic Church, however, has come to accommodate those who prefer to worship according to the Eastern Rite, establishing a place for Eastern Rite Catholics within the church. Likewise, the Antiochian Orthodox Church in North America has reached out and established a Western Rite Vicariate to accommodate Orthodox Christians who prefer to worship according to the Western Rite. This month marks the birth of a new movement within the traditionally Western Rite Anglican Communion to work towards accommodating Eastern Rite Anglicans, marked by the founding of Society for Eastern Rite Anglicanism (SERA). SERA is a faith-based society committed to promoting and sustaining a movement towards an established Eastern Rite in the Anglican Communion.

As Fr. Justin Cannon, one of the cofounders of SERA, explains, “We Anglicans have prided ourselves on diversity and inclusion yet no accommodation has been made for Anglicans who are drawn to the Eastern Rite. In the Roman Catholic Church there are Eastern Catholics and in the Orthodox Church there is a Western Rite Vicariate. It’s time we lay the foundation for Eastern Rite Anglicanism.”

SERA offers an online forum; membership options for individuals, congregations, dioceses and communities; an online bookstore; and “Anglo-Orthodox” versions of the Daily Office. According to the website, SERA hopes to someday include “a publishing house for Eastern Rite Anglican resources, annual retreats for members, regular workshops and training opportunities, and more.” Additionally the Society is offering a fellowship called Fellowship of Saint Isaac the Syrian for Christians who are committed to interior prayer and deep intentionality in their daily lives as living witnesses to the Gospel, through constructing and following a daily rule of life under the guidance of SERA’s Director for Contemplative Life. More information can be found online at www.easternanglicanism.org

Does he know of the Marthoma Syrian Church of India? It's an offshoot of the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church and has the same background as the Syro-Malankara Catholics, but are in full communion with the Anglicans.

Oddly, they are liturgically middle, but theologically low church even compared to the Church of England - no icons, no prayers for the dead, no saints invoked, no Blessed Virgin Mary intercessions.

Yes - and what is anything "Eastern Rite" without the invocation of Saints, especially of the Most Holy Theotokos, icons etc.?

The SERA site seems to me, and I could be wrong, to be a way to adapt some Eastern Rite vestiges to existing Anglican faith and order.

IF that is so, then what SERA is about cannot be compared to the Eastern Catholic Churches nor to the Western Rite Orthodox.

The EC Churches are not about adapting Eastern Rite forms to existing Latin Rite liturgies and the same is true of the Western Rite Orthodox.

They are about establishing communion between Eastern and Western particular Churches and liturgical traditions, each independent of one another rather than somehow "mixed in" or integrated with the other.

A true "Eastern Rite" Anglican would be very much like a High Church Anglican in belief but using the fullness of Eastern Christian liturgy and the office.

What say you SERA? It shouldn't be a question of "Que SERA, SERA!"

Alex

Dear Alex,

The issue, I think, is that no one even from within can agree on what Anglican really is. There are many opinions, no consensus, and the hi-churchers you refer to are getting thinner and thinner.

For example, why/how would any real Eastern Church co-exist with the Sydney Anglicans, who's bishop sometimes prefers the non-liturgical necktie instead of vestments and have lay communion, also emphasizing the non-necessity of episcopal consecration?

Dear Michael Thoma,

And one reason they are getting thinner is because they are joining the Ordinariate!

So many Anglican acquaintances have done just that.

And you are more than correct - how does one define what an Anglican is by faith and liturgy?

This is not to say that Anglicanism doesn't generate great Christians.

Unless there are other Eastern groups that want to join the Anglicans, I don't see how having some Eastern practices blended in with the Book of Common Prayer makes any sense in an ecclesial way.

There are, of course, Anglicans who are very into the whole Eastern spirituality thing (both Christian and Buddhist/Hindu ).

Sorry, but the temptation to say that was quite literally overwhelming . . .

Alex