The Byzantine Forum
Newest Members
Galumph, Leon_C, Rocco, Hvizsgyak, P.W.
5,984 Registered Users
Who's Online Now
0 members (), 238 guests, and 46 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Latest Photos
St. Sharbel Maronite Mission El Paso
St. Sharbel Maronite Mission El Paso
by orthodoxsinner2, September 30
Holy Saturday from Kirkland Lake
Holy Saturday from Kirkland Lake
by Veronica.H, April 24
Byzantine Catholic Outreach of Iowa
Exterior of Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Parish
Church of St Cyril of Turau & All Patron Saints of Belarus
Forum Statistics
Forums26
Topics35,389
Posts416,722
Members5,984
Most Online3,380
Dec 29th, 2019
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 1 of 2 1 2
Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
S
Member
OP Offline
Member
S
Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
Pope Francis declared the martyrdom of seven Greek-Catholic bishops killed by the communist regime in Romania in the mid-20th century.

Bishops Valeriu Traian Frentiu, Vasile Aftenie, Ioan Suciu, Tito Livio Chinezu, Ioan Balan, Alexandru Rusu, and Iuliu Hossu were declared to have been killed “in hatred of the faith” between 1950 and 1970, during the Soviet occupation of Romania and the rule of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Each of the bishops was arrested and held in prisons and camps until he died, often from isolation, cold, hunger, disease, or hard manual labor. Most were never tried or convicted and were buried in unmarked graves, without religious services.

A year before his death, Bishop Iuliu Hossu was named a cardinal “in pectore.” After spending years in isolation, he died in a hospital in Bucharest in 1970. His last words were: “My struggle is over, yours continues.”

In addition to imprisonment and isolation, Bishop Vasile Aftenie was tortured at the Interior Ministry, later dying from his wounds May 10, 1950.

After meeting March 19 with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Pope Francis gave his approval for the publication of the decrees of martyrdom of the seven bishops, and of another seven people on the path to sainthood.

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/seven-20th-century-romanian-bishops-declared-martyrs-32538

Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
S
Member
OP Offline
Member
S
Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
The way was never easy for the Greek-Catholic Church of Romania, as her suffering shows. She was asked to bear a painful and demanding witness of fidelity to the evangelical requirement of unity. Thus she became in a special way the Church of the witnesses to unity, truth and love.

Despite the many difficulties encountered, the Greek-Catholic Church of Romania increasingly appeared to the whole Christian world as an extraordinary witness to the indispensable value of ecclesial unity. But it was especially in the second half of the 20th century, in the age of communist totalitarianism, that your Church had to suffer a very harsh trial, rightly earning for herself the title: "Church of confessors and martyrs". It was then that the struggle between the mysterium iniquitatis (2 Thes 2: 7) and the mysterium pietatis (1 Tm 3: 16) at work in the world became even more apparent. It is also since that time that the glory of martyrdom has shone with greater brightness on the face of your Church, like a light reflected in Christian consciences throughout the world, prompting admiration and gratitude.

https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-...ii_apl_20000720_unione-romania-roma.html

On 4 August 1948 a new law of cults was promulgates by the law-decree no. 177/1948 which stipulated inter alia the reduction of the number of Greek-Catholic dioceses from 5 to 2 (Article 22), the hierarchical submission of the clergy to the state (Articles 21, 25 and 27) and the transfer of the faithful and of the properties of the Church to the patrimony of the Orthodox Church (Articles 36 and 37).

At the end of September 1948, the local authorities spread the false rumor that on the 1st October 1948 an assembly will take place in Cluj presided by the Greek-Catholic Bishop of Cluj-Gherla, Iuliu Hossu, and that the communities should designate their priests to represent them and to sign the “return” to the Orthodox Church. Facing the refusal of the hierarchs and of the priests, the authorities managed to obtain by blackmail and torture 450 signatures. On 1 October 1948 took place the assembly of the “38 delegates” who signed the “return” to Orthodoxy, on 3 October being received by the Patriarch. Between 23 and 29 October 1948 all the Greek Catholic Bishops together with the clergy, the monks, the nuns and some of the faithful were arrested. Their churches, parish houses, lands and other possessions where taken by force. On 1 December 1948, by the law-decree no. 358/1948 on the establishment of the legal situation of the former Greek-Catholic cult, this Church was considered dissolved and its possessions transferred in the state’s patrimony, except the properties of the parishes which were transferred in the patrimony of the Orthodox Church.

https://eclj.org/religious-autonomy...efore-the-european-court-of-human-rights

Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 26,391
Likes: 30
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 26,391
Likes: 30
Dear Santiago,

Thank you for bringing this to the attention of the Forum! My mother was a Romanian Greco-Catholic (she was on the Julian calendar, BTW) and I too love my Romanian heritage, especially in the upcoming beatification of these seven holy Great-Martyrs (One of the holy bishop-martyrs was too tall for the coffin the communists were going to place his body in so they cut off his legs at the knees and threw them on his chest . . .)>

Ad Multos Annos to His Holiness Pope Francis! Viva il Papa! (And happy feast day of the Annunciation today - Gregorian calendar - and of St Oscar Romero whose feast was martyrdom occurred on March 24th).

Alex

Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
S
Member
OP Offline
Member
S
Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
Originally Posted by Orthodox Catholic
Dear Santiago,

Thank you for bringing this to the attention of the Forum! My mother was a Romanian Greco-Catholic (she was on the Julian calendar, BTW) and I too love my Romanian heritage, especially in the upcoming beatification of these seven holy Great-Martyrs (One of the holy bishop-martyrs was too tall for the coffin the communists were going to place his body in so they cut off his legs at the knees and threw them on his chest . . .)>

It is a "small" country, but with great spiritual and cultural stature!
I have in hand, here and now, the "Happiness Diary " by Nicolae Steinhardt.

Originally Posted by Orthodox Catholic
Ad Multos Annos to His Holiness Pope Francis! Viva il Papa! (And happy feast day of the Annunciation today - Gregorian calendar - and of St Oscar Romero whose feast was martyrdom occurred on March 24th).

Alex

I love Pope Francis. Personally, I believe he's a living saint of our time. It hurts to see criticism unjustly imputed to him!

Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 26,391
Likes: 30
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 26,391
Likes: 30
Yes, the Pope is a man for these times. And I love the way he brings his own Latin American cultural perspective to the Petrine Ministry, especially his deep devotion to the Mother of God. He has established an amazing relationship with the evangelicals of Latin America and with other religious communities. He smiles, shakes people's hands, embraces them and his love breaks down all kinds of barriers! Viva il Papa!

Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
S
Member
OP Offline
Member
S
Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
Originally Posted by Orthodox Catholic
Yes, the Pope is a man for these times. And I love the way he brings his own Latin American cultural perspective to the Petrine Ministry, especially his deep devotion to the Mother of God. He has established an amazing relationship with the evangelicals of Latin America and with other religious communities. He smiles, shakes people's hands, embraces them and his love breaks down all kinds of barriers! Viva il Papa!
I do not know how to put it properly, but I think he's a "medieval", "pre-Tridentine" pope. Thus, it does not fit into any modern ideological scheme, it does not enter into any modern ideological warfare. It avoids doctrinal disputes, since most of the essential doubts raised by the Protestant Reformation have already been duly answered. It seems to me that he is a pope preoccupied with Christian practice, he wants devout, virtuous, saintly people who live the faith. Anyway, it seems to me that he is recovering the "normal" Western Christian.

Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 776
Likes: 23
U
Member
Offline
Member
U
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 776
Likes: 23
Originally Posted by Santiago Tarsicio
I do not know how to put it properly, but I think he's a "medieval", "pre-Tridentine" pope. Thus, it does not fit into any modern ideological scheme, it does not enter into any modern ideological warfare. It avoids doctrinal disputes, since most of the essential doubts raised by the Protestant Reformation have already been duly answered. It seems to me that he is a pope preoccupied with Christian practice, he wants devout, virtuous, saintly people who live the faith. Anyway, it seems to me that he is recovering the "normal" Western Christian.

Dare I add: a real First Millennial pope on the model of Pope St Gregory the Great; not a great theologian, but a great man of faith and missionary zeal rooted in Christ, truly "Servus Servorum Dei"! And so Papa Francesco!

Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 26,391
Likes: 30
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 26,391
Likes: 30
Well, when you want a job done right - get a Jesuit!!

Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
S
Member
OP Offline
Member
S
Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
Originally Posted by Utroque
Dare I add: a real First Millennial pope on the model of Pope St Gregory the Great; not a great theologian, but a great man of faith and missionary zeal rooted in Christ, truly "Servus Servorum Dei"! And so Papa Francesco!
Exact. I see no other alternative, we live in a secularized "neo-pagan" society, we must have a strong evangelizing sense; believers need to live the faith and through their own lives proclaim the Gospel. His comparison with Gregory is excellent, after all, we are living in a moment of comparable civilizational transition: St. Gregory lived in a troubled period of transition between the "fall" from Rome to the Middle Ages. We are also in a troubled period of civilizational transition, what we usually call "Modernity" is coming to its final end (but the boat of Peter will continue to sail through the centuries). I quote an excerpt from the excellent conference of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn at Harvard in the year 1978:

"(...) How did the West decline from its triumphal march to its present sickness? Have there been fatal turns and losses of direction in its development? It does not seem so. The West kept advancing socially in accordance with its proclaimed intentions, with the help of brilliant technological progress. And all of a sudden it found itself in its present state of weakness.

This means that the mistake must be at the root, at the very basis of human thinking in the past centuries. I refer to the prevailing Western view of the world which was first born during the Renaissance and found its political expression from the period of the Enlightenment. It became the basis for government and social science and could be defined as rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy: the proclaimed and enforced autonomy of man from any higher force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of everything that exists.
(...)

(...) Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. We cannot avoid revising the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man's life and society's activities have to be determined by material expansion in the first place? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual integrity?

If the world has not come to its end, it has approached a major turn in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will exact from us a spiritual upsurge, we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middle Ages, but, even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern era.
(...)"

https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/a-world-split-apart

Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
S
Member
OP Offline
Member
S
Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
PS: I am convinced that the Roman Pontiff is aware of the historical moment we are going through - see what he wrote in Laudato Si:

"116. Modernity has been marked by an excessive anthropocentrism which today, under another guise, continues to stand in the way of shared understanding and of any effort to strengthen social bonds. The time has come to pay renewed attention to reality and the limits it imposes; this in turn is the condition for a more sound and fruitful development of individuals and society. An inadequate presentation of Christian anthropology gave rise to a wrong understanding of the relationship between human beings and the world. Often, what was handed on was a Promethean vision of mastery over the world, which gave the impression that the protection of nature was something that only the faint-hearted cared about. Instead, our “dominion” over the universe should be understood more properly in the sense of responsible stewardship.

117. Neglecting to monitor the harm done to nature and the environmental impact of our decisions is only the most striking sign of a disregard for the message contained in the structures of nature itself. When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities – to offer just a few examples – it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected. Once the human being declares independence from reality and behaves with absolute dominion, the very foundations of our life begin to crumble, for “instead of carrying out his role as a cooperator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature”.

118. This situation has led to a constant schizophrenia, wherein a technocracy which sees no intrinsic value in lesser beings coexists with the other extreme, which sees no special value in human beings. But one cannot prescind from humanity. There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself. There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology.

121. We need to develop a new synthesis capable of overcoming the false arguments of recent centuries. Christianity, in fidelity to its own identity and the rich deposit of truth which it has received from Jesus Christ, continues to reflect on these issues in fruitful dialogue with changing historical situations. In doing so, it reveals its eternal newness.
"

http://w2.vatican.va/content/france...cesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html


It goes further and proposes lines of action, such as:

"216. The rich heritage of Christian spirituality, the fruit of twenty centuries of personal and communal experience, has a precious contribution to make to the renewal of humanity.

219. Nevertheless, self-improvement on the part of individuals will not by itself remedy the extremely complex situation facing our world today. Isolated individuals can lose their ability and freedom to escape the utilitarian mindset, and end up prey to an unethical consumerism bereft of social or ecological awareness. Social problems must be addressed by community networks and not simply by the sum of individual good deeds. This task “will make such tremendous demands of man that he could never achieve it by individual initiative or even by the united effort of men bred in an individualistic way. The work of dominating the world calls for a union of skills and a unity of achievement that can only grow from quite a different attitude”.[154] The ecological conversion needed to bring about lasting change is also a community conversion.
"

http://w2.vatican.va/content/france...cesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 1,511
Likes: 10
G
Member
Offline
Member
G
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 1,511
Likes: 10
Wonderful news!

Here's a webpage from years back promoting the canonization of these holy martyrs: Link. [web.archive.org]

The itinerary for His Holiness' visit to Romania has been released:Link. [press.vatican.va]

Included:

Sunday 2 June 2019: DIVINE LITURGY with the Beatification of 7 Greek-Catholic Martyr bishops in the Field of Liberty in Blaj

Holy New Greek Catholic Martyrs of Romania, pray unto God for us!

Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
S
Member
OP Offline
Member
S
Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
Originally Posted by griego catolico
Wonderful news!

Here's a webpage from years back promoting the canonization of these holy martyrs: Link. [web.archive.org]

The itinerary for His Holiness' visit to Romania has been released:Link. [press.vatican.va]

Included:

Sunday 2 June 2019: DIVINE LITURGY with the Beatification of 7 Greek-Catholic Martyr bishops in the Field of Liberty in Blaj

Holy New Greek Catholic Martyrs of Romania, pray unto God for us!

Wonderful!

Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 1,511
Likes: 10
G
Member
Offline
Member
G
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 1,511
Likes: 10
Holy 7 New Greek Catholic Hieromartyrs of Romania, pray unto God for us!

Vatican web page with links to video of Divine Liturgy with Beatifications (original audio) and photos: http://w2.vatican.va/content/france...019/6/2/divinaliturgia-blaj-romania.html

Video of Divine Liturgy with Beatifications (English audio): www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRmkepDhuXk [youtube.com]

Missal for the Apostolic Journey of the Holy Father to Romania [31 May - 2 June 2019]: www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/libretti/2019//20190531-0602_messale_romania.pdf [vatican.va] (Divine Liturgy begins on page 87 as printed in the missal or scroll down to 44/78 on the pdf file)

Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 1,511
Likes: 10
G
Member
Offline
Member
G
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 1,511
Likes: 10
High resolution JPEG of the icon of the 7 New Greek Catholic Hieromartyrs of Romania: link. [i2.wp.com]

There is another icon of the 7 New Martyrs that was given to His Holiness Francis: link. [vaticannews.va]

Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
S
Member
OP Offline
Member
S
Joined: Dec 2018
Posts: 77
Likes: 1
Fantastic Homily. Deafening the omission of the media (already expected, the media distort and sustains the fiction of the "Progressive Pope"):

http://w2.vatican.va/content/france...ncesco_20190602_omelia-blaj-romania.html

"The new Beati endured suffering and gave their lives to oppose an illiberal ideological system that oppressed the fundamental rights of the human person. In that tragic period, the life of the Catholic community was put to a harsh test by a dictatorial and atheistic regime. All the Bishops and faithful of the Greek-Catholic Church and those of the Latin-rite Catholic Church were persecuted and imprisoned"

"Dear brothers and sisters, today, too, we witness the appearance of new ideologies that quietly attempt to assert themselves and to uproot our peoples from their richest cultural and religious traditions. Forms of ideological colonization that devalue the person, life, marriage and the family (cf. Amoris Laetitia, 40), and above all, with alienating proposals as atheistic as those of the past, harm our young people and children, leaving them without roots from which they can grow (cf. Christus Vivit, 78). Everything then becomes irrelevant unless it serves our immediate interests; people are led to take advantage of others and treat them as mere objects (cf. Laudato Si’, 123-124). Those voices, by sowing fear and division, seek to cancel and bury the best that the history of these lands have bequeathed to you."

"I would like to encourage you to bring the light of the Gospel to our contemporaries and to continue, like these Beati, to resist these new ideologies now springing up. It is our turn to struggle now, as it was theirs to struggle in their time. May you be witnesses of freedom and mercy, allowing fraternity and dialogue to prevail over divisions, and fostering the fraternity of blood that arose in the period of suffering, when Christians, historically divided, drew closer and more united to one another."

Page 1 of 2 1 2

Link Copied to Clipboard
The Byzantine Forum provides message boards for discussions focusing on Eastern Christianity (though discussions of other topics are welcome). The views expressed herein are those of the participants and may or may not reflect the teachings of the Byzantine Catholic or any other Church. The Byzantine Forum and the www.byzcath.org site exist to help build up the Church but are unofficial, have no connection with any Church entity, and should not be looked to as a source for official information for any Church. All posts become property of byzcath.org. Contents copyright - 1996-2024 (Forum 1998-2023). All rights reserved.
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5