We have recently posted at length on the topic Do Most EC Converts Eventually Join The Orthodox Church?

I think that it was a fascinating and sobering discussion. I think it would be a good idea to balance this discussion out and ask the same question in reverse.

Do converts to Eastern Orthodoxy switch over to Easter Catholicism? What reasons are there for doing so? I am sure that Peter and his successors having the keys to the Kingdom might be the main reason for coming into communion with Rome, but what other reasons are there for doing so?

Mike L.

The quick answer is I imagine not: possibly they retain a Protestant aversion to the Pope, and/or intellectually they're convinced and/or they're being fed and just fine where they are. With a few exceptions of course, who like in the EC-to-EO [home.att.net] phenom talk themselves into switching after lots of reading and are commoner online than in real life... ex-RCs who change their minds and revert (I've met some... often in those cases it's the pull of emotion, and the anti-Westernism pushed them back), and ex-Protestants who find something in RC apologetics and make another switch.

IRL I've met a born Orthodox who switched many years ago but that was more an example of people floating from Byzantine church to Byzantine church thanks to one of the commonest reasons, marriage.

My guess is there are more cases like that (ethnic marries an RC and joins to fit in) than the intellectual converts.

Like most people don't read their way into becoming Episcopalians or Methodists. They join their spouse's church, it's the main church in town, they like it, etc.

I know of a couple people who went from Ukrainian Orthodox to Ukrainian Catholic because of there marriage, but they did that many years ago.

Over the years, I have met quite a number of people who became Eastern Orthodox and then became Eastern Catholics (I suggest the book Through the East to Rome).

I also had the pleasure of chrismating someone who was subjected to infant Baptism in the Lutheran Church, only because the neighbor lady believed (correctly) that children should be baptized and Chuck's parents simply didn't care. The parents never darkened the door of any religious edifice for other than social reasons; Chuck's father died and was buried by an undertaker.

At University, Chuck almost became Eastern Orthodox until he suddenly discovered, purely through reading, the existence of Greek-Catholicism, and decided this was for him. He then nearly lost his mind, unable to find any Greek-Catholics. Eventually he happened to find a friend of mine, who put him in touch with me.

We arranged to meet in Chicago, for the Divine Liturgy at Saints Volodymyr and Ol'ha - my thought was that if anything would discourage him, that would - the only word of English in the place is the notice 'EXIT' on the fire exits.

Joke on me - it was love at first sight. So he came to Canada at Pentecost and was chrismated. He's still doing fine in the wonderful world of Greek-Catholicism.

Fr. Serge

I have only seen a few EO to EC...a priest serving us is the most surprising case and there have been a few more I've met but it is by far more common to see the opposite - EC to EO.

I know what you mean. I have friends who were Byzantine Catholics and converted to Eastern Orthodox. I think one of the big factors is location and the distance in traveling to church. In my area, we're lucky to have both churches. I always considered the option of both depending on how far the drive would be for each church.

Quick answer: there are such people. Sometimes the reason is dogmatic along the lines that we usually discuss. Sometimes it relates to dogmatic/moral theological reasons that we would not normally talk about in such a discussion. Sometimes it's because parish life is "better" in one place versus the other.

And as mentioned in the other thread, some people openly claim to be Orthodox but who attend Greek Catholic parishes. Perfectly fine as far as Catholic pastoral practice is concerned; what their home jurisdiction thinks is that person's business not mine.

I have a friend who was born of a Filipino Catholic mother and a Greek Orthodox father; he was baptized Orthodox in Greece.

At the age of 13, feeling attracted to Catholicism but unwilling to leave behind his Rite, he went (or so he told me) to the Greek Catholic cathedral in Athens and was received into the Greek Catholic Church.

At present, he lives in the Philippines. Given the complete absence of Eastern Catholicism in the Philippines, he occasionally attends (but does not commune at) the Greek Orthodox cathedral in Paranaque. He is also a Dominican tertiary, and lives as a Latin Catholic. However, he is quite strict about observing the traditional fasts of the Orthodox Church and he frequently says the Jesus Prayer.

Isn't that illegal? It used to be that the conversion of a Greek Orthodox in Greece was illegal under the age of 16. It was not the converted teenager but the (usually) Protestant minister who faced a Greek Court.

Forget the legality, they let a 13 year old make a decision about conversion and accepted him?

The Church of Antioch has 32 communities in the Philippines. The Greek Orthodox also have some as well as the Russian Church Abroad.

http://www.ocp.uni.cc/

http://orthodoxwiki.org/Orthodoxy_in_the_Philippines

Father Ambrose, I was speaking of the Eastern CATHOLICS. At present, to the best of my knowledge, there is one Filipino Melkite priest and one (or two) Filipino Maronite priests, but they are all in the USA. There are Maronites in the Philippines but they have happily blended into the Latin Rite.

My own spiritual director is biritual, having served in Romania during the 1990's as a Jesuit serving the Greek Catholic communities. However, at present, he does not exercise his faculties.

We have an old monsignor who is authorized to offer the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom on occasion, but he does so only for a select congregation. And I think he does it only once a year, or less.

As for the Orthodox, the state of Orthodoxy in the Philippines is a mess.

There is a tiny Greek Orthodox community, but it hasn't grown much in the past several years, although they do have a trickle of converts. There are four Filipino priests plus the Greek vicar. Their cathedral is in Paranaque City, Metro Manila. They do not actively proselytize, but they do take care of a lot of poor children, who are raised Orthodox. The Sunday Divine Liturgy in the cathedral typically lasts an hour or so.

The recent establishment of an Antiochian jurisdiction in the Philippines has occasioned no small controversy and scandal. In addition to the apparent animosity that developed between the Greek and Antiochian jurisdictions over Met. Paul Saliba's un-publicized visits and mass ordinations of former Protestant and vagante ministers and priests, there is also the question of the liturgy. The new "Antiochian" priests offer the Novus Ordo with all the typical Filipino liturgical abuses (no alb under the chasuble, just street clothes; stole on top of chasuble or chasu-alb, etc.) and this has resulted in not a few people mistaking them for Roman Catholics.

Personally, as an observer on the sidelines, I am deeply troubled by the Antiochian enterprise; not so much because it is an "invasion" of a traditionally Catholic country, but because of the kind of people they are dealing with.

Please realize that the Philippines has a very bad "episcopi vagantes" mania, with dozens of them all over the place, claiming apostolic succession from this or that Patriarch, etc. Most of these groups pose as "Orthodox" or as "Eastern Catholic", and given the general ignorance of people here about Orthodoxy (something that isn't surprising at all), a lot of people do mistake these vagantes as the real Orthodox or Eastern Catholic! Indeed, a few years ago, a man posing as a Byzantine Catholic bishop fooled the Cardinal Archbishop of Manila into granting him an audience and inviting him to an important occasion. Only when another, more suspicious archbishop asked the Vatican to verify did it turn out that the man was a member of an American vagante group trying to establish itself in the Philippines.

Now, to make matters worse, many of these so-called "Orthodox" offer the Novus Ordo or something very similar, not the Byzantine Liturgy or any Eastern liturgy. One big group calling itself the "Byzantine Catholic Church Incorporated" -- its headquarters are a mere 15 minutes away from my house -- offers a "Syrian Qurbono" with "inculturated vestments and language" (go figure) and claims to be part of the "Assyrian Church". I wonder what Mar Dinkha IV will make of their married episcopate and their "Carmelite" friars!

And now, you have (presumably) real Orthodox priests acting just like these vagantes, calling themselves Eastern but offering the usual Filipino Latin Rite mass? I really wonder if the Antiochian Patriarchate knows what it is getting into by accepting marginal Protestants and ex-vagantes! Personally, my fear is that the brand-new Antiochian priests will end up establishing their own vagante community. God forbid that it happen: we have too many vagantes already. I hope that, at the very least, Antioch will insist that these new priests learn the Byzantine Rite asap.

As for the ROCOR, I think that this is an interesting question.

A member of the diakonia in the Greek Orthodox cathedral once told me that "St. John of Shanghai never chrismated any Filipino into Orthodoxy." He did, however, admit that there is a small group of Filipinos in Samar island (in the eastern part of the central Philippines) who claim to have been converted to Orthodoxy by the saint. (Tubabao island is near Samar). I've never had the chance to research the group, but the thought of a "lost Russian Orthodox community" in a remote part of the Philippines should be of interest to you!

There was also a Russian Orthodox presence in Manila in the 1930's and I'd be astounded if indeed not a single Filipino had become Orthodox then.

Incidentally, Deacon Martinian of the Russian Patriarchate in NY is a full-blooded Filipino, born in Bacolod City.

This is what I'm talking about re Antiochians in the Philippines.

Coming back to the topic, lest this thread get shut down because of me:

Are there cases of Eastern Orthodox becoming Eastern Catholic because a nearby Eastern Catholic parish is more "authentically Eastern" than the neighboring Orthodox parishes?

THAT would be very interesting!

Seems unsound. Of course, in the USA the Antiochians have one Novus Ordo parish, in Florida. It is indistinguishable in ethos, liturgy, music, and practice from any Cuban Catholic Novus Ordo parish

Unsound or not, it has happened. I remember Bishop +Tikhon of the OCA once made the statement publically that he wished more of his parishes celebrate as the Russian Catholic parishes of El Segundo and San Francisco.

Which Bishop Tikhon of the OCA? There are 2.

In another thread Griego Catolico says that "Saint Andrew's Russian Catholic Church in El Segundo, CA uses the Divine Liturgy books published by the OCA."

https://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/307478/Re:%20Russian%20Catholic%20Divine%20Li#Post307478

Bless Father!

Where is this?!

Nuestra Señora de Regla en Miami.

http://flickr.com/photos/occidentalis/sets/72157603991844778/

Shlomo Asian Pilgrim,

To go slightly off track, but not to far you should also look at Oriental Orthodoxy and the Church of the East. I think the numbers do prove to be interesting.

I will point out that the numbers are not exact, but they are of interest.

First, the Maronite Church 3.1 million with no counter-part amoungst Oriental Orthodoxy.

Coptic Church - 9 million Orthodox; 162,000 Catholic

Ethiopian Tewahedo Church - 35 million Orthodox; 223,000 Catholic

Armenian Church - 6 milion Orthodox; 375,000 Catholic

Syriac Church - 500,000 Orthodox; 132,000 Catholic

Syro-Malabar - 4 million Catholic; Church of the East counterpart no longer exists. The Mar Thoma Syrian Church claims 1 million members and is part of the Anglican Church.

Syro-Malankara - 2.5 milion Orthodox; 413,000 Catholic

Assyrian Church - 400,000 Church of the East; 419,000 Catholic.

Going from the Coptic Church which is resistant to re-union to the Indian Churches which are almost there, you have a great deal of interplay between them.

With the laity you find that they are not as concerned with who administers the Church as long as they are spiritually fulfilled. Even the Antiochene Orthodox feel that way.

Fush BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

At least, the altar is ad apsidem / ad orientem. That is a start. Better if they could start offering the Divine Liturgy of St. Gregory (a.k.a the "Tridentine" Mass in the vernacular and with a few Byzantinizations)

Hello Diak, (does that indicate a deacon or a sub-deacon?)

His Grace Bishop Tikhon has offered clarification... Umm, His Grace is noted for loquaciousness.

__________________________
Well, not quite.

A little background. The "Russian Catholic" idea was
born in the prayers of a Jesuit who became known as "Exarch Leonid
Fedorov.". There is a book with that title, probably available for
sale somewhere on line: it came out around the days before or during
Vatican II. Perhaps one could find it at the excellent
alibris.com This man, a Jesuit, and well-known in Petrograd
intellectual circles at the time,was convinced that if the Roman
Church were to initiate parishes, missions, etc., that followed the
Typikon exactly as the *****Russian***** Orthodox Church did,
unencumbered with the special baggage of the Unia and West
Ukrainian/Rusyn particularities, some of them deliberate
latinizations emanating from the "Congregation of Eastern
Rites", and clearly separate from and NOT responsible to that
congregations, then a considerable portion of the educated Russian
populace would be open to worshipping in those Churches and be more
open to the idea of union with Rome, conversion. Fedorov had a
terrible time with the forces of that Congregation of Eastern Rites,
especially when he insisted that Cardinal Scheptitski and what
Fedorov considered to be "Ukrainian" (his quotes) Catholics would
have NOTHING to do with such a mission and vice versa. Exarch Leonid
Fedorov was among the clergy who were tried and executed in Petrograd
along with our St. Benjamin and those with him. The Russian Catholic
mission and missionaries that were able to escaped to the Russian Far
East. There they resumed their activities and they even opened an
orphanage for Russian refuges in Harbin. I know some Russian Orthodox
now rather aging, who attended that orphanage. (I remember one
soprano, also Russian and from Harbin, who was somewhat competitive a
singer, who would regularly disparage a rival soprano who had gone to
school at the orphanage as "the Jesuits ruined her ear, that's why
she sings off-key." A Jesuit Priest NOT Russian but fluent in
Russian, was part of the Russian Catholic mission in China. When the
Communists took over China and masses of Russians from Harbin (and
some from Peking and Shanghai, as well) fled, the Harbinites first
ended up in a camp in the Phillippines, along with them that Jesuit
Priest, Fyodor Wilcox, was among them. The whole group went on to
Australia and many if not all went on to end up in California. I
believe St. John of Shanghai knew him rather well.

Father Wilcox became the Rector of the Saint Andrew's Russian
Catholic Church in El Segundo, Calif.

When I moved to California in 1972, he had an
assistant, a Father Tom, who was an Augustinian. That particular
parish (I've never ever been in a Russian Catholic Church in San
Francisco, though I've heard of one there) had a church building that
could not be distinguished from a Russian Orthodox Church in any way.
In fact, when the movie of Joseph Wambaugh's detective novel, The
Black Marble was being filmed, The scenes in Church were filmed at
St. Andrew's. Many scenes in the book too, place at our Holy Virgin
Mary Cathedral. The hero of the book was a Russian (Molokan)
detective from East Los Angeles. When Mr. Wambaugh was writing his
book he visited the cathedral often and I was the one (I was still a
Deacon) who was appointed to deal with him (in general I had to deal
with most movie and tv contacts then). I believe the first chapter
may be titled "Holy Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Cathedral." I was
somewhat shocked when the book came out, because one scene in the
book involved a drunken Russian man who used some bad Russian
language out loud in Church when having a contretemps with some
parishioner or other about standing in the wrong place or something.
When the book was bought for a movie, though, we absolutely refused
to allow our choir to sing (of course) or to allow the Church to be
used as a movie set. It's definitely wrong for a Church consecrated
to be a Church to be converted to any other use, just as no Priest
should be allowed to "act as" a Priest in a movie.

The studio persuaded the choir of the Protection Church on Argyle
(Fr. Alexander Mileant, Rector) to sing in the movie, but they chose
the Russian Catholic Church for the actual location, since it looked
more authentically Russian Orthodox than the Church on Argyle (a
converted "Liberal Catholic" structure).

If you can find the movie on line at Amazon or whatever, you will be
able to see for yourself how well the Russian Catholics succeeded in
imitating the Orthodox.

There was some kind of festival at that Church once, and some of our
clergy went to it out of curiosity. When we got there, the Liturgy
was not over, so we peeked inside. Everything was about as it should
be. However, and I think this may partially answer Reginald's
question, the parishioners seemed to be rather "off" or "not quite",
if you know what I mean. I doubt if there were any Russians there at
all. However, the parishioners, Americans who either had been
received into that Church from outside the Roman Church or who had
been given a license to transfer from the Latin Rite to that Russian
Rite, were quite Russophile. Many were the Russian rubashkas on the
guys and many of the women/girls wore those showy satin dresses with
high onion-shaped and peaked hats with brilliants or pearls on them.
Father Vassily Vidakovich (a Serbian OCA Priest of blessed memory)
poked me in the side and said, "They all think they are Vasilissa
Prekrassnaya!"

There is also (or there was) a Russian Center at Fordham University
in the Bronx which had a really good bookstore where one could buy
excellent icon prints and Church Slavonic service books (published in
Rome and NOT Ukrainian Rite Byzantine stuff) which were reprints of
pre-revolutionary Russian Orthodox.publications, and that bookstore
was an offshoot of the Jesuit "Russian Catholic" mission.

I have, indeed, often said that it would be good if all the American
ORTHODOX Churches were as conscientious about following the Orthodox
worship traditions and monumental traditions as were (and are) the
"Russian Catholics." I have never ever said and I would never ever
say that I wish that more of "my" (Just that use of "my" relative to
a parish or clergyman is not me at all. I've never called a choir,
"my" choir, or a Deacon, "My" Deacon. I am careful to try and always
use "our". Having never been where near the Russian Catholic parish
in San Francisco, it would be foolish, indeed, to say that anyone
would be well advised to emulate their celebrations!

I recently had occasion to remember that El Segundo parish: on
Facebook someone referred to a very very peculiar congregation
calling itself a Church of the East. It's actually a slap-dash
creation with the most unauthentic (but garish and exotic) looking
vestments and so forth, married bishops. Typical American
self-starter (but they've no doubt got documents in a safe-deposit
box somewhere which PROVE that they are in The Apostolic Succession
(and we know what they mean by THAT!).

Well, "back in the day", at an Orthodoxy Sunday Vespers Spectacular
(at Spiros Skouras's St. Sophia Cathedral), Father Wilcox showed up,
back in the 70s. He mentioned that he had heard that there was a
"Church of the East" (i.e., Nestorian/Assyrian/Syrian) mission up on
Vine St. north of Hollywood Boulevard. He had sent "Father Tom"(the
Augustinian assistant I mentioned above) to investigate, to "sniff
them out" and see if they were "the real thing." Father went to that
Mission: It was called St. Herman of Alaska! When he spotted a man in
a clergy suit and shirt coming out, he asked, "When are the
services?", he got this answer, "Sorry, you're way too late! Too bad
you didn't come earlier, we had the blessing of the Harleys!"
Now, how's that for "too much information!"

Oh, yes, Exarch Leonid Fedorov DID have some successes, converts, in
his work in Petrograd among the intelligentsia and nobility.

+Tikhon, The Retired Bishop of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the
West; The Orthodox Church in America

"I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I
girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from
the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none else. I
form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil: I
the Lord do all these things. (Isaiah XLV, 5-7)
_________________________________

Brother Yuhannon,

The Syro-Malabar Church does have a very small counterpart in the "Chaldean-Syrian Church" (which is the Assyrian Church of the East in India headed by His Grace Metropolitan Mar Aprem). I think they have less than 90,000 faithful worldwide.

Shlomo aHO Yuhannon,

Thank you for the correction.

Fush BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

Wow! It took twenty years, but the mystery is solved. I have the Black Marble on DVD. I thought it was a ROCOR parish that was used for the movie. The director called it a Russian Orthodox church in the extra features of the DVD. Thanks for clearing this up.

Is Father Wilcox still alive? Maybe a silly question considering the age of the movie, but I don't know how old he was at the time of filming.

Sigh!

The Blessed Leonid Fedorov was not a Jesuit.

Andrei Sheptytsky (not Scheptitski) was never made a cardinal. I guess the spelling could be forgiven though, since the French Benedictines of Clairval spell it as Cheptitzky.

I have always been under the impression that Met. Andrei was very friendly with, and supportive of, Leonid Fedorov and the latter's devotion to Russian Orthodox liturgical traditions. And the Vatican was certainly friendly to Fedorov's ideas as well.

Your Grace,

Father, bless!

Thank you very much for your reply!

With respect, I would like to make one correction to what you wrote: Blessed Exarch Leonid was not a Jesuit. He did make his profession of the Catholic faith in the mother church of the Jesuit order, Il Gesu in Rome and went to a seminary run by the Jesuits, but never became an official member of the Jesuit order.

Blessed Leonid is quoted as saying: "You know how much I love the Jesuits, but their ideal (to unite contemplation with action) is not within my means."

May Our Lord bless you.

Sincerely,

Griego Catolico

In fact, it is believed that the Servant of God Andrei Sheptytsky ordained Blessed Leonid as a bishop. This was never officially confirmed although a photograph exists that clearly shows him in the vestments of a bishop.

Etnick,

Father Feodor (Wilcox) was, I believe, one of the first graduates of the Russicum to be ordained. He ministered initially to Russian refugees in Poland and Czechoslovakia, after being expelled from Russia on several occasions.

At the start of WWII, he traveled to China and founded a boarding school for the Russian refugees there before the need arose for the Russians in Harbin and Shanghai to escape to the Philippines. In 1950, he founded the Russian Center at Fordham, afterwards serving the Russian Catholic community in Brazil for about a decade.

He had returned to NYC when he was called to El Segundo to bury Father Fionan (Brannigan), SJ, its pastor and one of his pupils from Fordham. He reposed in 1985; he was in his late seventies at the time, I believe.

Memory eternal.

Many years,

Neil

No, Father Wilcock passed away at the age of 78 on Jan. 25, 1985.

I have seen the movie as well including listening to the director's commentary. Yes, he is mistaken in refering to Saint Andrew's as a Russian Orthodox Church. He also referred to Saint Andrew's as a "chapel" located in the basement of a building. Not true.

I attempted to e-mail the director and point out his errors in the commentary, but I am not sure if he ever recieved it since I never received a reply.

Also, the deacon depicted in the movie was the actual deacon of Saint Andrew's at the time.

Neil, thanks for the explanation about Fr. Feodor.

Right. That would be a most beautiful "basement chapel"! Just another example of the uninformed about the Christian East.

A history of Saint Andrew's [rumkatkilise.org], which presently serves also as St Paul Melkite Greek-Catholic Mission, both of which are pastored by Father Archimandrite Alexei (Smith), a priest of the Eparchy of Newton of the Melkites.

Many years,

Neil, who is thinking that the thread is getting a bit off-topic

Agreed. Let's steer it back.

Dear Griego,

It is the custom of Russian Greek Catholics to refer to themselves as "Russian Orthodox"

Nearly all the Russian Greek Catholic parishes in Russia are designated as a "Russian Orthodox Church."

See

http://rumkatkilise.org/shortlist.htm

My husband and I were both converts to Orthodoxy. Together we converted to Eastern Catholicism.

Dear Sister,
I think the term convert is a little to strong as if you switched from one faith to another. Maybe it would be more accurate if you said you both came into communion with the Church of Rome.
Blessings.
Stephanos I

My journey is not yet complete (that's why I'm here, avidly consuming what all of you have so helpfully posted), and it is too long and involved for a forum post. Email me, should you be interested, or want to help. EC has not before been an option for me, but I now live in Pennsylvania, and there are two parishes and two missions in this county alone (and even more Orthodox).