www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Just an observation

I was just reading the post from "Roamin' Catholic" on the influences of the Eastern Rites on his church (a Latin Church). Now my observation is that when a Latin curch employs Eastern things be they Icons, or certain prayers we applaud them. However, it is quite the opposite if an Eastern church uses Latin things. Now perhapse I am just mislead being as Roamin's church is a Slovak Catholic Church of the Latin rite and these churches are used to and have a history of mixing things Latin and Roman...to be sure I am honestly not familiar with the rules regarding ethnic parishes. What kind of mixing are they allowed to do, I mean, after all they are Latin churches, why are they not just Latin churches that happen to do the Mass in their particular language??

Please know that i am not posting this to make any arguements or anything of the like, this is just a question I have. I mean not harm whatesoever if this has offended anyone that attends an ethnic parish such as Roamin'. I am simply ignorant and would like to be educated!

In His Name,
Stephen

You haven't offended me. But...you have to remember the Latin Church is the 500-pound gorilla in the neighborhood. It has enormous clout. Eastern Churches have had to fight off accumulated Latin influences and Latinizations that threatened our traditions. Fortunately, we are now shedding those Latinizations and getting back to our authentic traditions. If this is a sensitive issue with many Eastern Catholics, it's because the Latin Church has in effect threatened our existence.

Stephen,

I think it depends what influences you are talking about. Many things that the Latin Church instituted after Vatican II were recommended by Eastern Catholic hierarchs: Baptism and Confirmation together, Baptism by Immersion, Communion under both Species, Restored Diaconate, Vernacular Liturgy, Anointing of the Sick rather than the dying, Synodal government of the Church, and a few others. These things were a return to the ancient patrimony that both the East and West shared and therefore cannot be seen as an Easternization.

Icons seem to be very popular among Latin catholic these days, but these to were once the patrimony of the West, at least in Italy.

On the otherhand, I know of no Latin parish that has wholesale jettisoned a Latin practice and adopted an Eastern one in replacement as many of the Eastern Churces did with Latin practices, for example replacing Presanctified Liturgy with Stations of the Cross.

Latin adoption of "Eastern" practice is almost always a return to the shared patrimony of the Church in the first millenium. Eastern adoption of Latin practice has been on the otherhand always a jettison of Eastern tradition and replacement with a medieval Latin practice or imitation of one.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Stephen,

I believe you had another question. To wit: "What are some of the ethnic or Eastern practices that seem to be a normal part of Roman Catholic Churches from Eastern European countries?" I have no answer because I'm not very familiar with Roman Catholic Churches that aren't either Irish or Italian except for St. John Cantius a "Polish" RC parish which has a nice mixture of icons and statues and has had since its beginning.

Dan L

Stephen,

There are many things in our Churches that were forced upon the Church by the Latin Bishops. One right off the top is confessionals. The Byzantine Churches as with the Orthodox had always said confessions before the Icon of Christ. However, the Latin Bishop insisted they St. Georges had to have the confessionals. So we had confessionals that were used for storage. Ours are now gone and we have a beautiful baptismal pool for complete emersion of children and adults in that place. This is a glimpse of it http://www.melkite.org/Baptism.html We just store the stuff elsewhere

Also, the statues, not that we have problems with statues but they didn't belong in the front of our churches. Our wonderful statues now grace many Roman Churches in Birmingham including St. Ann who is at EWTN, they are life size. The Church overflows with the beauty of the iconograpy. I don't think we could get that many statues in there, compared to the incons, and still have room for all the parisners. We would be on the outside looking in

Pews of course are an ongoing argument. Many are suggesting that we pull the pews out, I know at St. Georges many have been emilinated. All the kneelers on the pews are gone. Pews are also a Western development. Worship in the East is done standing, not that we all do, but we are getting there. The pews keep the people from prostrating. Although I love it during Pre-Sanctifed when everyone moves out of the pews and finds a place to prostrate for the Lord is coming through.

Another example would be married clergy. I am sure you have seen this argument on here. But, all of the married clergy was sent back to the Old Courntries, or as with the Ruthenians they went to the Russian Orthodox. You have many parrishes in a given town that have this mix of people even today. The Latin Bisops did not allow us to have them here.

So we can say well to what point in the history of the Church are we talking about restoring too. We may not even know for sure, but we do know that the Holy Spirit is taking us there.

If the Latin Churches are using Eastern influence it is because they choose too, not because they were forced to. That is the difference.

Pani Rose

Thank you all that have replied to me thus far! Fr. Deacon Lance, your post cleared up many matters in my mind.

Pani Rose,
Your post was great the part that impacted me the most was the last sentance: "If the Latin Churches are using Eastern influence it is because they choose too, not because they were forced to. That is the difference." THAT is exactly the heart of what I was not understanding! Thank you!

I know that the Eastern churches were forced into Latinizations, it was the fact that Latin churches are going back to their roots (as Fr. Deacon Lance pointed out) that was of concern/interest to me. I did not think of it as a going back to the roots so much as a addopting the east.

However, the question still is there as to what is is not allowed officially in the Latin church for ethnic parishes? What types of customs are they allowed to adopt??

In His Name,
Stephen

Reading this I have to make one comment about this cross-pollenization we find evident in so many Latin churches.

Usually, they are not borrowings at all, they are a reflection of the actual culture of the people who founded the parish originally.

It is fairly evident that central Europe got a taste of the Greek faith in the ninth and tenth centuries courtesy of Ss. Cyril & Methodius and company. The process of absorbing those Greek rite communities into the officially tolerated Latin rite church structure went on for generations.

Similarly many Eastern Catholics arriving in North America were encouraged to attend Roman Catholic parishes in the days before the Ortynsky years and even afterward in places. This would be particularly true if the number of Greek Catholics were small and there was a Roman Catholic parish of the same language nearby.

It is even possible that a parish like this one could have had a majority Greek Catholic parishioners in it's early days but they were not able to find or recruit a Greek rite priest as easily as the bishop could find a Roman priest speaking their language.

I hope I am not overstating the case, but I think it is equally as likely that the Roman Catholic church borrowed the parishioners (in one way or another) as the parish consciously borrowed some of the trappings, customs and traditions of the Greek church.

Michael

There are two ethnic Croation Latin churches here in Pittsburgh probably not two miles away from each other. The larger one is now closed or scheduleed to be closed, I think maybe to be turned into a cultural center. I'm not currently up on the latest on its fate.

The smaller church is still open and in use. It is built in what I guess you could call Byzantine style, but the inside is where the real treasure can be found. The walls and ceiling are covered in murals or frescoes depicting religious scenes and the life struggles of the early Croatian immigrants in America. I've never seen anything like it anywhere, absolutely beautiful, and in some of the scenes, for lack of a better word, haunting. Something that must be seen to be appreciated.

Bill