We are reading many good ideas about how to confront our present "red alert" situation. Has there ever been a renewal movement within the Church?

Dan Lauffer

I see the restoration/resurrection of our Eastern traditions as a GIGANTIC renewal!!!!

Would a formal movement help restore our Eastern ways or would it destroy it?

I'd be interested in communicating with those who want to share information about such restoration. I know that many here want that restoration to continue. Others don't. But, I'd like to communicate with those who believe that it is central to God's work.

Dan Lauffer

Of course, there is the opinion that the restoration and resurrection of Byzantine Catholicism bore fruit in the labours and achievemtnts of St Alexis Toth.

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Bless me a sinner, FAther Mark,

St Alexis is an inspiration to all Eastern Christians to be "Tof" in defending our traditions!

Alex

And in defense of Eastern Catholics who remain in communion with Rome [I'm allowed to do that once in a while], St. Alexis faced a far more extreme form of Latinization/persecution than anyone in Eastern Catholicism faces today.

The Latin Bishop of Minneapolis literally denied Toth's validity to serve as a priest!

Were Eastern Catholics faced with similar attitudes today, I'm sure that I would have met more of them at the chalice than through the Byzantine Forum.

In Christ,
Andrew

Our entire Church should be the renewal movement. Many lay movements have come and gone in the church.

By being faithful to our liturgical, spiritual and theological traditions; by recognizing that the Byzantine tradition is universal and transcends any ethnic or linguistic boundaries; and by being living examples of the Gospel we will bring about renewal in its fullest sense.

The "Byzantine Restoration" is critical to Catholicism. The treasures and Traditions of the East can bring the light of the Gospels to a world that desperately thirsts for truth.

John

Diak,

Right you are, but the distance between "should" and "is" in some of these areas seems a bit large.

Dan Lauffer

Dan,

Renewal tends to the superficial.

One theory of management, the 80-20 Rule, states that most problems within an organization stems from the "system" installed and maintained by management. Having analyzed operations, studied business plans, having lived under politics-as-usual in a dying industry, I have come to accept the thesis that it is the 'system' that is the culprit. Not the employee at the bottom of the ladder who isn't told exactly what he or she should be doing, or the employee who is expected to produce without the proper tools, or the employee who can't quite do the job dumped on him or her with expectations of getting it done the day before, or the employees who don't have a clue where their company is going because they aren't told or there is no leadership to inspire them and educate them. I worked under an organization that was a subsidiary. Every decision was made elsewhere. Everything from job description that didn't involve grass-roots analysis of jobs actually being done to management sales plans that stipulated twenty customer contacts per month per salesman (though there were only three or four actual customers in the buying mood didn't matter). All this was all from outside. One quality management guru once brought attention to how one should have deep concern if there are more internal memos being issued and passed around than productivity and sales increasing. Yet GMs got promoted and were given new subsidiary divisions to manage. I remained in one company for 8.5 years steadily doing my job. In the course of that time, I witnessed six General Managers come through. Each time we had to overhall all our "standards" and redo our "costing sheets" to look and smell like we were going somewhere. But we lost jobs left and right. Seems that we had too many $1.00/minute consultants advising us. In the end, all General Managers got the axe. But could we find fault with them if they couldn't act as "managers?" Every iota, every move, and every memo had to be approved from overseas. We lost jobs because our owners overseas didn't want to sell what the customer wanted. They wanted to force their ideas onto the weary customer.

Is there a lesson here?

I would recommend a serious reading of Peter Drucker's "Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices," Tom Peter's "Liberation Management," "Thriving on Chaos," and "A Passion for Excellence." All are excellent management classics.

I also believe in the formula: [Authority = Responsibility]

We all know what happens when Authority > Responsibility.

We all know what happens when Authority < Responsibility.

The math is easy; applying it is difficult.

In addition, I would also recommend some creative understanding in reading Dinesh D'Souza's "The End of Racism" with a twist: in every place D'Souza writes 'racism,' read instead 'Latinization.' You'll see what I mean. It is enough to spook you if it is read in this manner. Every chapter has a parallel.

"Renewal" can be an ugly term seeing how it was used and abused in other churches. Do we really need to "renew" or do we need to just do what is in our liturgical books and Typicon for a change? It's all about taking seriously what we ALREADY have at our disposal.

Joe Thur

I agree with you, Joe. "Renewal" has some negative connotations, partly stemming from the "charismatic renewal" and other "renewals" in the Latin church which have had mixed results, and thus we need to be very careful in using that term. "Reawakening" or "revitalization" may possibly describe the Greek Catholic situation better.

Diak,

Re-awakening sounds good. It implies that we are in deep slumber. We are not fully conscious of what is going around us and who we are becoming or where we are headed. No alarm great enough has jolted us awake to notice that wolves in sheepskins have been pilfering our barns. Maybe too much intoxication from our neighbor's strong drink or just plain lazy.

By re-awakening, we can learn that we DO have a treasure chest in our attic with all the goods. We DON'T need to look elsewhere. We just have to dust off all the jewels and fine linens and have a grand ol' time being ourselves for a change.

But it takes a strong person to open that treasure chest locked away and hidden so long ago.

Maybe we can someday give America its third "Great Awakening?"

Dear Reader Andrew,

Your point is well taken.

But did not St Alexis Toth himself get the "cold shoulder" treatment from Orthodox hierarchs who tended to regard him as a "latent Jesuit" or something like that?

Wasn't his pastoral senstivity to the Latin devotions of new converts to Orthodoxy also viewed with suspicion by Orthodox hierarchs of his day?

In essence, he got it from both sides.

Alex

Reawakening, I like that as well.

There are all kinds of very excellent books on leadership. Perhaps they should be mandatory reading for at least all bishops, priests, and deacons.

John Maxwell comes to mind as well.

Dan Lauffer

Dear Alex,

And your point is well taken.

While Byzantine Catholics sometimes have their frustrations with their Latin brothers, they are not always viewed as authentic Easterners by the Orthodox Christians. I'm sometimes amazed how you guys avoid some kind of chronic psychosis!

Truly He is Risen!
Andrew

Dear Reader Andrew,

I'm not at all convinced I'm entirely free of a psychosis, now that you mention it . . .

Perhaps it's just me.

If given a chance to struggle as an Eastern Catholic, or to have an easy church life as an Orthodox Christian, I choose the former!

Do you give psychological treatments over the internet?

Alex

Dear Alex,

Usually, no. But for you, especially.


Truly He is risen!
Andrew

EASY Church life as an Orthodox Christian???????? You don't know them very well, Alex!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nope, not well at all, Alex. Having been where you are now many years ago, I can tell you from personal experience that even the atmosphere is different in Orthodoxy.

OrthodoxEast

Do we really have to come up with a new "program" or embrace the model we have already? Isn't "revitalization" the "end" of Pascha, while being "reawakened" by the "means" of the Great Fast?

Fr. Deacon John,

Good point. We don't have to come up with a new program or give ourselves and the movement a new name or title. We should just simply BE Church. We need to awaken from our deep slumber, open the liturgy books that are already there and open the curtains to let the light of Christ shine in. We don't need to look here and there for a gimmick or a colorful banner; we already have, as you say, the Great Fast and Pascha to embrace. What we need is to accept it and it seriously.

Joe

Do you all know the story about the two fellows who knew each others jokes so well that they eventually numbered them. All they had to do then was to say a number and the other fellow would have a great laugh. Of course no one else knew why they were laughing.

I feel like the outsider among the flying numbers.

All of what you say is true but how is any of it more than just platitudes? Help us who are life long insiders understand why doing the liturgy will address our problems. I'm in a congregation that is renewing. We use the liturgy and follow the fasts, etc. I suppose that all of our Churches do the same. Why are some in the midst of profound reawakening and others are not? Why is the entire eparchy on "red alert" if we are all following the liturgy?

Dan Lauffer

Alex,
You do not have a psychosis!

You just happen to know that we are formed by our
struggles, not by an easy time. Jesus did not send his apostles out to a life of ease. He sent them out to great struggles.

******
Orthodox East,
what do you mean by "even the atmosphere is different in Orthodoxy"?

Christ is Risen!
denise

Christ is Risen!

Our "Byzantine Reawakening" seems to hinge in part on the rediscovery of the Church Fathers.

Are parishes in the Metropolia studying the Fathers again?

How can we help bring the insight of the Fathers to life for today's typical Eastern Catholic?

John, a sinner

Are you suggesting that our prayers, vocation molebens and vocation icons aren't working?

Joe

Joe,

"Are you suggesting that our prayers, vocation molebens and vocation icons aren't working?"

I guess St. Paul would say, "Faith without works is dead." I do like the prayers, etc. But there seems to be some resistance to actually following through on the answers to those prayers.

Dan Lauffer