Glory to Jesus Christ!

Peace everyone,

I was rather disappointed and dismayed learning the trouble that the Ruthenian Byzantine Church is experiencing. I guess I was under the mistaken impression that the Byzantine Catholic Churches were on the upswing. I'm blessed to have three Ukrainian parishes, three Ruthenian parishes, a Melkite parish and a Romanian parish all within a 20-30 minute drive of my home. I thought they were benefiting from Latins looking for more traditional/orthodox pastures.

I was curious which of the Eastern Catholic Churches could be considered as thriving in North America?

None of the above.

Perhaps the Malankarese Rite?

The Melkites are making some moves because of the flight from Lebanon. But the stats are so bad no one really knows.

CDL

I don't think he is talking about people moving from point A to point B. That is not growth just a horizontal move.

Hi, Chance!

Perhaps the blessed situation that you describe above serves to illuminate one of the basic problems our Church faces today. All of our Eastern Catholic Churches have displaced members living in areas that offer no opportunity for them to worship according to their their own canonical traditions. Typically these relocated folks will "default" to the nearest readily-accessible Latin Church (as do their children, and so on), in order to maintain their Catholicity. Take this situation and fast forward a generation or two, and it's not hard to see how entire families of canonical Easterners become lost to our Church, to the point that many today don't even know that, officially, they were and still are Eastern Catholics!

How great it would be if we were able to take situations such as the one you describe in which eight Eastern Catholic parishes are clustered within a half hour of your home and "spread them out" so that none of the transient, mobile members of our Churches need to forfeit their canonical Church affiliation for lack of a reasonably accessible parish!

Al (a pilgrim)

I am astonished and quite frankly envious that you have such a nice choice of EC churches within a short distance. in Tennessee, we are blessed to have one (ONE) Byzantine mission for the whole state, and another small cluster that hopes to become a mission some time in the future.
Much Love,
Jonn

Thriving eastern communities is a hard one to assess. I am inclined to ask "thriving as compared to what?".
In the Phoenix area (now 5th largest in the U.S. in population, having passed San Diego), we have a Melkite parish, Maronite parish, 2 Chaldean Catholic, 1 Ukrainian Catholic, and 2 Ruthenian parishes. I believe that the Ruthenians are the largest single group.

There are also many Orthodox parishes- 4 Greek, 2 Serb, 1 Kievan Ukrainian (non-canonical), 1 Antiochean with a mission, 1 OCA (Russian), 1 ROCOR (may be non-canonical), 1 Roumanian (OCA), and there me be a few more missions. The largest among the Orthodox have been the Greeks- by far the largest single group here, having grown from 1 church to 4 in about 25 years.

Since I originally came from the OCA (Russian) parish, I am inclined to see the Ruthenians as more successful than the OCA here, since they share a great deal in common with the OCA parish, but have steadily grown, while the OCA parish has not.

Jim wrote:
Good question.

I guess at off the top of my head, I'd single out vocations, are they growing or declining? Despite problems in western countries I believe I've read that vocations in the Latin Rite have actually been on the increase since 1985.

Perhaps a less accurate measure might be if the number of parishes are stable or even increasing--though I suppose with many ethnic populations shifting from major cities to the suburbs that skew purely looking at numbers.

Do any of the Byzantine Churches have increasing vocations and a growing number of parishes in the suburbs?

Chance, I guess your answer depends on which part of the world you look at.

In eastern Europe there have been increases in vocations ever since the fall of communism, in all churches, Catholic and Orthodox.

In the U.S., there appears to be varied success in vocations. The smaller the church, the fewer the vocations sometimes. But, within the Orthodox communities, the Greeks have had the largest shortage of priests, and are the largest church, and continue to grow at a healthy pace, Arizona for example.

It would be good to know how many converts to the Faith are occurring, too.

Aye Jim,

I guess I'm reacting to the dire statements about the Ruthenian Byzantine Church down in the revised liturgy forum.

May be I should cut to the chase and ask how the North American Ukrainian Catholic Church is doing? It appears I'm heading in that direction as I discover my Ukie heritage and growing love of Byzantine spirituality. Bouncing around the web, I get the impression to some degree it's flourishing in Canada How's the U.S. Ukrainian Church doing?

Thanks!

You know, I have to wonder how much the lack of vocations is due to internal issues (lack of candidates) and how much of it is external (Latinizations, difficulty in being accepted and making it through seminary, etc).

I've seen this gloom and doom talk, but I realize that the only way we'd be seeing it if there are enough people around who care deeply and passionately to be talking about it. Which leads me to wonder if it is the internals or the externals at work, and if the externals are changed if the internals will be as well.

I believe Fr. Thomas Loya (a Ruthenian) has had much success with a similar (though much more thought out) mentality.

I, for one, am not looking for the next closest Ukrainian parish. I think this is an exciting time to be in the Eastern church, and the Ruthenian church in particular. Sure, things could get pretty bad in the next couple decades. But they can also get really good. And if they are to get really good, the church needs those who know it and love it to stick around with their wisdom and passion. It is apparent to me in all of this that there are plenty of those people still around.

We need to pray for more vocations in the Eastern Church. We have lost a lot of people to the RC church because we just don't have parishes available to everyone. If we must attend an RC church because we do not have the ability to attend an Eastern church then we have an obligation to our children to keep our Eastern faith alive for them at home.

I went to two more Divine Liturgies at two different Ruthernian Byzantine parishes this weekend. They were both wonderful services with friendly people. As another poster mentioned, I don't see why Latins aren't fleeing from the liturgical abuses that are occurring in many Novus Ordo parishes to their closest Eastern Catholic Church.

I know I'm feeling a whole lot better over these last couple of months. Though, I think I've always had Byzantine leanings and these last 15 years, I've been more or less trying to shoehorn myself into mainstream Latin Catholicism.

Peace

Hi everyone,

I'm a new guy to the group. As it happens, I'm a Latin fleeing the liturgical abuses in Novus Ordo parishes! I just had to say hi when I read this thread.

I'm doing a little private research on Eastern rite churches because I think it would be really nice to belong to a community that better understands and practices the Faith as it's been handed down through the centuries.

I've been very impressed with the knowledge, devotion and insight of the people on this site. I look forward to getting to know you better. God bless.

Dan

Welcome to our forum, Dan!

In Christ,
Alice

Thanks Alice!

The short answer is they all are. They all have places where liturgy is celebrated. By thriving I mean they are all not dead yet.

Please do not take this the wrong way...ANYONE

I fully believe we all need to pray for vocations. Prayer is never a bad thing!!! What I have noticed over the years is those of Ruthenian Jurisdiction (I'm being very general since I have seen it with more than one specific bishop and priest (although definitely not all)) is that We need to pray for Metanoia and holiness from the bishops and priests to lead and foster those vocations that God sends us. I firmly believe He does send them. The clerics kill them (metaphorically not literally). I for one was part of 3 candidates to the priesthood for the Eparchy of Passaic back in the early 90's. So the people were there...Only one, (in my opinion the worst of the bunch) was actually ordained. I left over the celebacy issue and I'm not sure what happened with the third member all I know is he left before I did. FYI...that "worst of the bunch" grew up to become a "henchman" for his grace Andrew. After, as I understand it from a very reliable source at the time, almost being denied entrance in the first place by +MICHAEL...

Yes am all in favour as I note we do need more subdeacons. It is very high up on my to do list on the wall.

Normally, I let this kind of thing pass, but it seems to be raising it's head more and more these days. ROCOR is and has always been Canonical. Your own American Metropolia (OCA) was a part of ROCOR until 1948!

Alexandr

To back up what Alexsandr said, reunion with the Moscow Patriarchate is due to be effected within a very short time. This includes accepting all their clergy and hierarchs. If there was question regarding canonicity, this would not be happening like this.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Job, when I was in the SS Cyril & Methodius seminary we had over 150 guys in there. The total for the full eight years. Jammed in two and three to rooms designed for one.

The vocations were there. They still are. They no longer present themselves. They are "dis-invited" to attend.

Staro

There is a direct connection between this fact and my constantly harping elsewhere on the fact that our Ruthenian Byzantine priests have been kept out of the process of liturgical revision. We are not training our own priests any more. We are borrowing them, and the ones that were trained forty years ago are being shuffled off to Buffalo or parts unknown, and their parishes are being shut down as though they and the people in them are expendable.

And that is supposed to make us what...attractive to the new convert? Well. Perhaps. All that annoying ethniki stuff well soon be gone entirely and we will be a Church without a past.

Let's see how that sells in Peoria.

Eli

Eli,

you can find out for yourself firsthand...

Divine Liturgy in Peoria

Deacon John,

What's going on in Peoria is the exception and you know it. If what were going on in Illinois were going on in every other state we wouldn't have a problem. And that happens to be an outgrowth of Homerville. Every state in every parish needs to be doing that kind of evangelization. The Light of the East radio show needs to be on as many stations as we can get it on, and it needs to be supported by the Eparchy. Does anyone know if it is? I didn't see that as part of our Stewardship.

That's the point... Not everything is gloom as Eli would point out. Parishes in the West are growing and flourishing. Asian-, African-, Filipino-, and Hispanic-Americans worship side by side with those whose forebears came from Eastern Europe. Babies sometime drown out the cantor. Mature men of faith are answering the call to vocations (the diaconate)... I could go on... In spite of ourselves the Church will survive...

Just an observation from one looking on. It has been my experience that if a Church provides spiritual "meat" instead of "kasha" and "kapusta", that Church will be full. I can use my situation as an example. I live near Pittsburgh, which as most of you know, is EC/Orthodox central, i.e. Little Kiev. But if one looks deeper, past the golden domes glinting above the rivers, one sees empty Churches, with a handful of Babyshki, priests serving at 2, 3 even more parishes, just to keep the cycle of services going and empty collection plates with an occasional much-folded dollar bill. The sound of silence and muttered prayers abound, the eery lack of children's voices is immediately noticable. But there is a solution. In 1984, ROCOR established a mission parish in a 2 car garage, about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh. Today, that number has grown to 4 full parishes, with 4 priests and over 1000 families. Why, when all around, the other Churches are dying? Because there is "meat" being provided there. Full cycle of services, fasting, religous education, preservation of Traditions, both capital and small. Just the opposite of what our hierarchs have been telling us for 50 years. The people are hungry, but it has been the habit of the our Churches, both Orthodox and Catholic to provide fluff instead of sustenence, social settings instead of worship. Thinking back on this past Pascha at the Church in McKeesport, even cynical me was impressed. People were jammed everywhere! We had to keep all the doors open because there was no more room in the Church and the faithful stood outside, on the steps to the choir loft, even onto the road in front of the Church! And no, I am not talking new wave Russian immigration. Our total new wave population is less than 15 families. As warden, I chuckled at seeing some of our eminent local BC clergy present. It felt strange saying "Christos Voskrese, Monsignier" in a ROCOR Church! Same deal at Christmas.
My advice, is to return to Tradition. Return to the Orthodox Calendar, Present a full cycle of services. Provide parish outings to and become active supporters of your local monastery. Revive the mystery of the East. Provide comprehensive adult education. Teach the people Slavonic, Greek, Russian. If my priest, who is married and has 6 kids can do it, why can't the celibate clergy provide even more? People won't run from 3 hour services if you are giving them what they are crying out for. So dump the 45 minute Sunday Liturgy, dump the Bingo and Polka masses, Put your Iconostasii back up and start behaving as Eastern Christians and not as the dwindling survivors of some dying emigration.

S'nami Bog

Alexandr

I Yest i Budet!

Well said, Aleksandr!

Aleksandr Romanovych

Alleluia! Yes, the ROCOR church in Cincinnati is experiencing the same kind of growth. We can too. It just takes strong leadership from our God-loving Bishops!

It is sooooo true that the vocations are there. They just don't fit the 'cookie cutter' mold of those in power at the seminary. If one has a calling and is not received in their own eparchy then one must shake the dust of that eparchy from their sandals and move on. For it will be worse for that eparchy at judgment than it was for Sodom & Gemorrah!

AMEN!

Wonderfully Stated Alexandr!!!

Alexandr hit the nail on the head!

Amen, We'd love to export it further. It will take some courage but we are willing to come and tell the story. The rest is up to you.

CDL

Slavipodvizhnik, I was not speaking of ROCOR in general, only of the parish in Phoenix. There was a disagreement locally about deeding the property to the diocese, and I believe they are no longer part of ROCOR, but found a Greek old calendarist bishop to shepherd them, who was willing to leave ownership in local hands. I could be wrong on that, but in any case the reason I said may be non-canonical had nothing to do with ROCOR in general, but with the change of jurisdiction of the local parish.

There is also a Ukrainian Orthodox parish that is no longer canonical here as well, because they accepted a remarried priest over the objection of their bishop.

Dear Jim,

Just a note to warn you about those Ukrainians!

You just never know what they'll be up to next!

I think you know that already though . . .

Ciao,

Alex

I agree. Many people do not however, especially regarding the last part.

Andrew

A wonderful post!

There is much wisdom in the call to pray our tradition in its fullest form instead of revising it. I have regular contact with 2 ROCOR parishes that are both incredibly spirit-filled. I try to keep the Old Calendar feasts at St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Washington, DC (as a refuge from the current Passaic Divine Liturgy). I also attend St. Alexander Nevsky Church in Richmond, Maine when I am vacationing in Maine. Both parishes take a very full Vespers, Matins and the Divine Liturgy. Both are crowded with people, young and old.

Admin

John,

It does seem strange just when people are clamoring for the real thing that we decide to water it down. It's a trend that will be hard to buck but we intend to try.

www.byzantineevangelization.com

CDL

During the Melkite Convention this year, people commented quite often that St. Georges is more Orthodox than most Melkite Parishes. Nothing has ever been shortened but added to. It seems the more is added the more people come.

Being blessed to +Archbishop Joseph Raya for 27yrs to bring it forth from the many latin-isms imposed upon it through the early years, it reminds me the phoenix rising from the ashes. However, Sayedna Raya was followed by dynamic preists who were willing to take the heat and stand the ground and form a people that has found a wonderdful bounce between the Catholic and Orthodox.

St Georges is a wonderful melting pot, don't know how else to describe it. We are people of Middle Eastern Orgin - bringing that mystery element that only they can give to faith and worship expression. Yet we are many, many Protestant converts, a lot of Ukrainians, Ruthenians, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, actually we have a few Buddhists now and at least one athiest(so who knows), along with some Episcopalian priests who come as often as possible - our Coptics are now meeting separate now and meet elsewhere - but God is doing a WORK.

Nothing has ever been shortened, but added too, and it grows!

Pani Rose

I realize that many have a perception that this is America and that English should be sufficient. However true that may be, it still remains a fact that not 1/1,000,000 of Russian spiritual writings have been translated into English, to say nothing of the Greek! The writings of St Ignaty Brachiannov, St Feofan the Recluse, the Letters Of Starets Amvrossy, etc immediately come to mind. The quantity and availability of English spirtual literature is scant and sporadic, and what is available is often of scant use and questionable accuracy as regarding the translation. St Ignaty Brachiannov's works immediately come to mind. His Russian is so flowery, with implied double meanings and almost poetic overtones, that I would not even attempt to translate them into English. It would be like trying to read Pushkin in English. Try it and you'll wonder why Russians make such a big fuss over him. But in the original Russian, Angels sing through his words!
Alexandr

I suppose it is worth pointing out that followers of Islam also say worshippers need to learn Arabic in order to experience the fullness of the Koran and their Faith. They believe that the Koran loses something in translation. The same argument about going back to sources in original languages is given by every group whose language is being subordinated to some other language in the here and now- Greeks, Russians, Armenians, etc. It can be true for some, but it doesn't fly with lots of people, especially those without an ethnic connection to that group.

Fortunately, God transcends language even if mankind doesn't.

It is interesting that the Eastern Catholics are experiencing much what Latin Rite Catholics did in the time following Vatican II. Actually many of the changes in the Latin Liturgy that one see's in most Roman Churches was never authorized by Vatican II but the product of so called liturgists. Now after over 40 years there is a rebirth of tradition in the Latin Rite. But that rebirth is grieving many more modern faithful. I attended a Tridentine Mass authorized by the Diocese of Phoenix and it basically was a liturgy of the priest...the people sat quietly not responding. I would prefer a blended liturgy but maybe The Dormition of the Theotokas Catholic Church in Phoenix has it right...they offer one Liturgy in English and one in Russian. As one blogger pointed out, some,especially converts, do not have the ethnic background to appreciate the old languages.

Not only that...I believe I just heard again or read somewhere that it is Islam that is the fastest growing religion worldwide...the need to learn Arabic apparently is not stopping them from tremendous growth...

(Actually, Phoenix Rising, Dormition doesn't use Russian. It uses Ukrainian.) Dormition sort of has 2 different congregations as well, one on the Gregorian calendar, the other on the Julian. Tough on the priest, I would think- 2 Holy Weeks, etc.

Liturgical language is a whole other matter. What I am referring to is spiritual and edifying writings, teachings on the faith, homiletics, Dogmatic and Pastoral theological works, etc. The quantity of such materials in English is almost nada. How do you expect people to become educated in the faith when there are no learning materials available to them?

Alexandr

Dear Pani Rose,

It is wonderful to hear of such a successful parish, and you are blessed to be part of it...or perhaps I should also say--*they* are blessed to have you as a part of it!

In Christ's love,
Alice

A link to Baptism at St Georges with an explanation
http://www.melkite.org/Baptism.html
Now-
Our Stephanie and Marley's Baptism, most are done on Sunday morning. However, due to the convention and everything that was approaching it was done on Sat. evening, ordinarily the church would be full.
[url=

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/srwan1/album?.dir=/ef6fre2&.src=ph&.tok=phRFmVFBCasefwLS]Baptism[/url]

The Divine Liturgies at Dormition of the Theotokos are celebrated in English and Ukrainian (not Russian).

You are correct, I doubt the Ukrainians would appreciate their Divine Liturgy's being celebrated in Russian.

Deacon,
Have you ever heard a liturgy celebrated in Russian?
I've heard Liturgies in Church Slavonic...

Since our background is Polish (well my hubby anyway) then our Church is Ruthenian with the Slavonic, yet we are in a Melkite Church with the Arabic and Greek.

Talk about heaven - all the tones and languages run through my head in resounding joy as my mind and spirit sing, raising the hymns of praise to our God.

To never have experienced the old languages is truly a loss.

The Koran was originally written in Arabic. The Greek in which the Bible was written is a special kind of greek that no one speaks whereas classical Arabic is still in use. So,that can't be justification for making folks learn old eastern european languages, no matter how beautiful they sound.(As a translator I respect languages and know that every language has its beauty).

I'm sure there are many writings that haven't been translated, but maybe it's time to press translators into service. Encourage an interest in translation for those with the talent and inclination for it (otherwise, you're asking for trouble) , and a couple of churches go in together and pay for translations into english.Consider hiring someone in Europe to do it since professional translating is taken more seriously there. I know, expensive, but eventually it will have to be done. Better a job very well done than mistranslations that will haunt you in the future.

If the Eastern Rite and Orthodox are going to survive outside of their native lands they must provide services in the dominant language of the land. Even if everyone learned these languages aren't many of the writings written in non-Roman alphabet?

The Roman Catholic church at one time conducted all services in Latin, and it eventually became a unifier. (Though, folks complained about that too. My guess is folks weren't properly educated in latin so they were repeating by rote as opposed to understanding what was said.A shame that)Greek could possibly pass as a unifier for converts ,but not for those still culturally tied to specific EC and Orthodox churches. If you're serious about evangelization and reaching out , lets face it, non Slavic and non-greek converts are likely going to be the norm in coming years.

A Latina whose second language is English is not going to look forward to learning to speak and read Russian just to worship.She'll either go towards an English language service, go Antiochan orthodox if she is determined to worship under Orthodox theology or stay in the Roman Catholic church. And that's worth considering because there are Spanish speakers out there looking for churches.(services in Spanish would just lead to more ethnic enclaves being formed.Not a good idea)

So, though I agree with some of the other suggestions, the language one (as others have mentioned)won't fly.I'm not saying kick out all services that are now in non-English languages, but realize and prepare for the day when the need for them will dwindle .

Peace,
Indigo

Yes, I agree BUT.....(Don't you just love buts!?!)
A wise man once said "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, Teach him to fish and he will feed himself for life". No doubt, translations must be done. I know that in my Jurisdiction, Fr. Lawrence Campbell and Reader Issac Lambertson are diligently turning out translations left and right. But even if we took 1000 translators and put them to work 24 hours a day, it would still take decades to translate all that is available! Has anyone ever seen the library at Pechersky? You'll see what I mean! My emphasis, which some seem to have missed, is not on the language used during services, but learning other languages so that one can educate onself from the vast resources available to those that can read them!

As far as liturgical language, yes, the predominant local language should be used, together in measure with the traditional languages, so that all may understand, and yet learn at the same time. In my home parish, we serve about 50/50 Slavonic/English, changing every week so, for example, one week the Nicene Creed is in Slavonic, next Sunday, English. As a result of this policy, I have new American converts singing in Slavonic and New wave Russians singing in English. We have classes available to teach our new Russian parishoners English, as well as to teach our American born parishoners Slavonic and English. I know of an African American Reader who reads beautifully in Slavonic. What has to be avoided is the hard line approach, as in "You MUST learn Greek/Russian?Slavonic/Arabic/English, whatever. The end result for us has been a multi-cultural Russian parish, the oxymoron that that may seem to be! It brings a smile to my face to see a 65 year old Italian Grandmother clutching her little Azbyka (Slavonic ABC's) under her arm as she leaves class just as much as helping a new Russian try to decipher her driver education book to pass her driving test so that she can get a job.
Do I forsee the day that Slavonic/Greek/ Arabic will not be used at all in America? Absolutely not. These are the Traditions of the East, and as Eastern Christians, we should respect and hold true to these conditions, just as Western Christian should hold fast to their Latin Traditions. We can always look to what happened to the Roman Church when it lost it's liturgical roots.

Alexandr

I just realized how bad this sounds! Please forgive me if I have inadvertantly offended anyone!

Alexandr

The classical Arabic in the Qur'an is not the same as spoken Arabic, although some Arabs like to claim it is. Infact he Arabic in the Qur'an is mainly understood through interpretation, not even by native modern Arabic speakers.

See this article about the varieties of Arabic .

Hehehehe - you have just ahown how much you are a member of Byzcath

Unitl your apology - I hadn't noticed and I strogly suspect that very few others had either.

No offense was intended and I'm certain that no offense was taken

Alexandr, I don't agree with you entirely, but I must admit I like your friendly enthusiasm and passion. I've noticed your posts are always characterized by them, so I look for them when lurking.I wonder what's lurking in that mind though; it took me four posts before I realized why your apologizing for such an innocent remark I rather liked your,um, 'conjunction usage'.

I'm glad to hear things are working out so well in your church. I still wonder though if the writings are in Roman alphabet or cyrillic (or greek),in which case that will still be a problem in the future as even second and third generation Slavs will likely not be able to read older spiritual texts either.

I guess, I'm burnt out on the cultural stuff and would rather not learn yet another culture and language in order to worship.But, that's just me. Again, I'm glad to hear there are places where it works.

Michael, thanks for the Arabic info I'll run it by my Muslism friends too.Interesting.

Peace

Inidgo,
You write that about learning Russian to worship.
I think a VITAL point needs to be made, especially since you gave your two cents on not having to learn another language to worship and then pointing to having to learn Russian to worship.
It is called Church Slavonic, not Russian. These are two seperate languages.
Russian isn't used the canonical Orthodox Churches, it would be Church Slavonic. If any of the Russian Byzantine Catholic parishes in the USA use Russian, please let me know.

But, everybody's got one!

So this is what you look like Hesychios!!

Alice

Yes, that's me before I put on a few extra pounds!

Orthodox Pyrohy,
I stand corrected, thanks. If I ever hear aobut a russian byzcath church I'll send you an email.

Hesychios,
I would hope so!Both varieties are necessary and natural;linguistic and actual

Peace,
Indigo

Well..I dont understand half the politics and ideas here that you're all talking about. Why seminaries arent accepting the right people and all that is a mystery to me. I'm sorry to here this if it's true (everyone has their own perceptions don't they).

What I strongly feel is that you ought to put more ads on television to get people to come into Eastern Churches of all types. Also put ads up near or inside Assemblies of God Pentecostal churche type buildings.

If the local car dealer can do advertising on television so can a Church. When will churches ever realize this!? Fight back with the power of the mediums of communication.

Learning of a native liturgical or cultural languages is important...Priests ought to be required to do that is my opinion. Elders and leaders in the Church ought to have a responsibility/requirement to learn languages too. I see nothing wrong with teaching most of the laity..though I dont know that I feel it's necessary for certain either..the more that learn the merrier..translations..also sounds great..better learn the language or translate.

We are in the USA....we do need in some way to be a North American church...Expecting people to know two languages is fine. Perhaps even three. Beyond that I dont think is possible. In some ways the ethnicity of the Churches when taken to the USA is a little odd to me. I just cant answer this question, except to say that in the present it is good that they are separate in the sense that it does help preserve their identity in the USA, the maronites especially for instance since so few of them are even left in Lubnaan or Syria.

I don't know overall how the EC's are doing. There are two parishes (Ukrainian and Ruthenian) in the town where my parish is. Neither has a permanent priest, and the Ruthenian church has liturgy really early I think to accomodate the priest's schedule. He also doesn't have a Slavic surname, so I'm not sure what his church actually is. They did print in their bulletin that there's all of ten minutes for confession before liturgy, and that people can't run over because the priest has to maintain a tight schedule. I can't help but believe that is really detrimental to the life of a parish. I could be wrong though.

I do have one question. Why aren't the Melkites expanding at the same rate as the Antiochians?

Unfortunately, I think you are right on the mark. It doesn't matter what a parish is capable of...if there is no spiritual life it will die or be pronounced dead. Unfortunately, (I have no idea which parish you are speaking of, however based on my experiences) that Ruthenian parish (can't speak for the Ukrainians) will ultimately close, and the people will be blamed for its closure regardless of what they do. Why? The best way to "kill" a parish is to remove the spiritual life. 10 minutes for confessions, and keeping on a "tight" schedule so as not to run over does nothing for fostering a spiritual community. It sounds to me like it is one more example of the Ruthenian Church killing its own.

Chris

Ilian-

Do you have statistics for the Antiochian's rate of expansion. (not trying to be confrontational; it's just that I hear they're expanding and I'd like to see that stats behind this).

Best,

Markos

OrthodoxWiki says this:

The number of new parishes is probably the best indicator of growth, because that number is reliable. I took that from here - http://orthodoxwiki.org/Antiochian_Orthodox_Christian_Archdiocese_of_North_America.

This PDF - http://antiochian.org/assets/asset_manager/585.pdf

Has a list of missions started since 1988. I know near me St. Philip's has started two missions and St. John Chrysostom in York went from being a mission to a full blown church and they have built a temple.

Do you know the answer to my original question?

Ilian,

At one of my diaconal retreats,Bishop Nicholas (auxillary for the Melkites) said that shortage of priests has hampered their ability to open new missions. I believe he said they could start a dozen new missions if they had the priests to run them. I didn't get the chance to ask him why not start the mission and let them do reader's services until priest's could be found. I get the feeling Catholic hierarchs are not comfortable with lay led misssions.

Fr. Deacon Lance

A statistical report.

http://www.helleniccomserve.com/OrthodoxStatistics.pdf

On a more optimistic note, a few weeks ago I went to the priest for confession. There were a couple of people who had already arrived. By the time I was the only one left waiting, it was already a few minutes past the time for Divine Liturgy to begin. Fr. told me that he would hear my confession and as to the matter of being Divine Liturgy several minutes late, his response was, "They can keep praying a while longer," or some words along those same lines. While I don't want to make a habit of just showing up at the last minute, expecting Fr. to hear my confession, I was glad that he takes the matter seriously enough to be willing to begin Divine Liturgy a bit late.
Ryan

Why don't they have the priests then? I believe the Antiochians are doing fairly well in that regard as well.

Why on earth is that?

Ilian,

"Why don't they have the priests then? I believe the Antiochians are doing fairly well in that regard as well."

Vocation shortage like everyone else? They have 42 parishes and missions with about that many priests, a few cover two parishes. I would be surprised to hear the AOA has 236 priests. Do you know how many they have?

"Why on earth is that?"

Trusteeism fears I believe.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Deacon Lance,

I may be reading your post the wrong way, but I believe the AOA has 189 parishes and missions by there own disclosure, and about 236 priests and that includes those that are retired.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

I just realized in the original link I posted I had a period that broke the URL. Here it is again. http://orthodoxwiki.org/Antiochian_Orthodox_Christian_Archdiocese_of_North_America

In the link it says there are 236 communities in the AOA, 38 of which are missions. I'm sure some of the missions are serviced by priests from established parishes. I don't know the overall number of priests in the AOA. I heard in 2005 they had something like 20 ordinations (all of them married AFAIK). I've been in some parishes where they have more than one priest, but in the ones where they only have one I saw at least one deacon or sub-deacon. So it seems to me they must have something of a fairly steady pipeline.

I don't know if there's a shortage of priests in Orthodoxy in this country in general. Fr. Anthony would probably be the best source of that info. I would guess it probably varies between jurisdictions and regions. I have never personally been in an Orthodox parish that didn't have a permanent priest.

I'm still fundamentally not understanding why the Melkites aren't doing what the Antiochians are.

From what I have been told by different hierarchs regarding the possibility of shortages, is that we are holding our own right at the moment. There was a period of time about a decade ago that was for a while in which the ordinations were few and the retirements and deaths were more. I know that there is no real surplus, but one can pray that the vocations continue to find there way.

Also thank you for the corrected figures regarding the AOA. I did not have a source close at hand to refer to.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

My unscientific, anecdotal and no hard evidence impression was basically as you say. No shortage, no surplus, but meeting the need.

In our small jurisdiction I regularly see one or two ordinations in the Messenger when it comes out.

Andrew,

Where I agree that your approach is somewhat unique, I know that it is good when there a couple of ordinations. What would be of concern to me if you that same number of priests dying, and then also that same number of priests either retiring or worse yet, being incapacitated, then you are not keeping up with the numbers to maintain the needs of the communities that need to be serve. I would rather see ordinations over deaths of priests anyday in the Church papers. I am just concerned that we can keep on nuturing vocations, and that starts in the parishes from the time they are young, not when they apply to seminary.

Just my thoughts.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Ilian-

The Antiochian Orthoodox, according to orthodoxwiki/Word Magazine, have 236 parishes with 51,320 people (217 parishoners per parish). Their website says they have "4 hierarchs and over four hundred clergy in 238 churches and missions throughout the United States and Canada", a 1.68 clergy/church ratio.

By contrast, we have 27,207 registered Melkites in 35 parishes (777 Melkites per parish - an auspicious number, don't you think? ), served by two hierarchs, 103 major clergy (35 priests, 15 priests in a religious order, 43 deacons) with one more deacon coming in a few days. That's 2.22 secular clergy per parish. Though there are some quite large parishes in the eparchy, I'd imagine that a number of the Melkites are registered but not near any Melkite parish. Indeed, our parish sees some of these folks fairly often, including a significant Good Friday-Pascha influx (I know at least some are from outside our parish boundaries, as opposed to the usual Easter- and-Christmas Christians).

And as Father Deacon Lance points out, there are reportedly about a dozen missions waiting for a priest (bringing us down to 579 Melkites per congregation).


So, as you can see we have a higher nominal Melkite to parish ratio than our Antiochian sister Church, but the Antiochians have more parishes and about twice as many clergy. In terms of parishoners, they're about twice our size; they also have about five times the numbers of parishes and would-be missions.

I don't know what the reasons for this are. Ideas I'd put forward include:

- we had no eparchy until 1975; AO has had a variety of eparchies going back to 1904. I'm sure a good number of our immigrants Latinized (and Latinize), especially in the early parts of the last century. They've also had much longer to build themselves, whereas we've been just getting off our feet for much of the past 30 years.

- the AO has had whole Protestant congregations integrate with them, something we do not have.

- I also get the impression that they've been VERY good at evangelization

- most importantly, thus far God has been behind them, and their tenure of their patch of His vineyard has apparently been very good.

Markos

I would frankly be a little suspicious of the accuracy of that number. Does your weekly attendance come anywhere near that number? I have a lot of trouble believing each and every Melkite parish in this country has on average that many people. I looked at the CNEWA stats, and right below Newton it has an Eparchy in Canada that lists 33,000 members in three parishes (11,000 members per parish ?????). Something just doesn't seem right with those numbers. 217 per AOA parish does sound fairly reasonable to me.

Again, I'm not sold on the ratio being accurate.

Why haven't the Melkites targeted the same groups?

And the Melkites?

Ilian-

I'm not an eparchal or even a parish insider, and I don't have the answers to your questions. Just to clarify:



Me too. Some parishes I'm told do have a lot of people; I have no idea what the count is in my parish but I doubt it's 777. The Antiochian 217 per parish sounds more reasonable to me. I also don't know how they get 27,000; again my first guess would be

Good Friday, Pascha we see a HUGE surge of Christmas-Easter christians and Melkites who arrive irregularly from places (sometimes hours away) without Melkite parishes. I'd expect some of the latter account for the 27,000. Unfortunately, I can't provide more info.


Again, I'm sorry I can't provide any more info on this question.

Okay. The question just stuck out to me because it seems to me that the Melkites share much of the same tradition that's found in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch. I was just curious how their approaches are different here, and how it might be yielding different results.

I did notice one thing in an letter written by Bishop John Elya in 2003. He says

http://www.melkite.org/sa54.htm

Has the Melkite church in North America actually contracted?