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Lord have mercy !

good wishes and prayers in all your endeavors and for your family members,
CS

Sending condolences on this anniversary to Our Lady's Slave, Anhelyna.
CS

Hoping he is better now. Healing prayers.

Prayers for Adam's mother's health and for the health and well being of Alice's mother. Lord, have mercy on these beloved ones!

You are quite correct to recognize that there are "broad spectrums" of both practice and theology within the Lutheran and Anglican realms.

For example: Most Lutherans are catechized to believe that Baptism and Eucharist are the only Sacraments. But there is a minority stream (represented in part by Professors Eric Gritsch and Robert Jensen, both of Blessed Memory) who hold that Confession/Penance is the third Sacrament and that , according to the Apology to the Augsburg Confession, Ordination might be viewed as a Sacrament because it makes the others possible. So there were a few of us (growing fewer all the time due to attrition to Rome and Byzantium) who taught and confessed that there were at least "three and one-half" Sacraments.

I disagree on being functionally the same. We tried being in the same jurisdiction before. It was not a good situation for either side. Ukrainians are generally too ethnically tied to being Ukrainian or at least they are ethnically more homogeneous, whereas in the BCC, the ethnicity is more superficial and has a longer history of being multi-ethnic. Initially we were Rusyn, Hungarian, Croatian (Catholic Serbs), Slovak, and even arguably Romanian. At this point, the BCC is not really that culturally close to the average Ukrainian parish, especially the further West in the US you go. We have blacks, Hispanics, Anglo/Irish/German-Americans, and the Rusyn identity is basically pyrohies, holubkies, and a smattering of Church Slavonic and paraliturgical folk hymns.


Historically the Ruthenian Church has never been ecclesiastically aligned, under, or with the Ukrainian GCC/Kyivan Church, or at least not since the 13th Century, being directly under Constantinople, then Serbia until Union of Uzhhorod. Historically, Rusyns had closer ties to the Romanians (Wallachia) and the Serbs than Galicians, even though the two groups are culturally very similar (but not the same, and it is like saying the Moscovites and Ukrainians are the same).

The reality is, for us to be assumed into another Church either makes no sense, or it makes as much difference to go Melkite or Romanian as it does Ukrainian. All three are more ethnically homogeneous, and have the same pluses and minuses. The biggest one, in my experience, is language (even among Melkites who cannot get along if you don't speak the right kind of Arabic). And when there is English, are different translations, different music and even different ways of how the services are celebrated (even between the Ruthenians and the Ukrainians, who are not close enough in this regard to keep from stumbling when going from one to the other). I speak from my experience-our community has Melkite and Ruthenian services, and we have folks from the UGCC, Melkite, BCC and Romanian GCC in our mission.

The Church is blessed with many Godly Hierarchs.

Metropolitan Joseph is known for delaying responses to major issues until after a time of prayer and Fasting. This prayer was published during Great Lent in part as a response to misunderstood statements made at the National Right to Life March two months earlier.

I've since moved, but I attended Annunciation in Anaheim. Will have to figure out how to change my profile

Wonderful!

The first miracle of Our Lady, Undoer of Knots took place before the icon of Mater ter admirabilis, which is a miraculous copy of the miraculous original icon of Salus Populi Romani.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Well, technically, it is neither. This is a quote/reference to 2 Timothy 2:15. The word in Greek means "to cut straight; to set forth truthfully, without perversion or distortion". In older translations it would be rendered "to divide rightly (correctly)". Here, grammatically, it is an present active participle (accusative singular masculine), which is describing the (arch)bishop (or in this case Pope and (arch) bishop). The text can be rendered (from Greek):

Among the first be mindful, O Lord, of our Archbishop (name), whom grant-for thy Churches in peace-(that he be) safe, honored, healthful, increasing in days, and dividing rightly the word of thy truth.

I would say that (if I read rightly) that this a petition that he teach the word rightly, although in St Paul, this is an attribute he should already possess, so it would be a petition for him to retain the attribute. It a way, it is asking for both-that they are teaching rightly and that they continue to do so.

Does anyone know if any further progress has been made translating the Dolnytsky Typikon? I believe Fr. Matthew Schroder was working on one, but I can’t find any excerpts.

Why should this pericope be included for Pentecost? The readings included are prophecies of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and the connection between the Apostles and Prophets, which is the main thrust of the feast, not speaking in tongues, or the division of speech or undoing Babel. Only the Kontakion makes reference to Babel, and the other references to language serves to highlight the disbelief of those who did not follow the Prophets in truth or that the various languages serve to teach the doctrine of the Trinity. Overall, the language aspect is secondary and not probed at any real depth.

Prayers!

Ruthenian, as a Latin, I don't feel that way at all. (I don't like being called Roman Catholic, as I live in South Carolina and always associate it with the "romanism", insult). I agree that sometimes Latins can be cold. But, I tell you what, when I went to a smaller church, there was a greater sense of community.
Having said that, I am fine with both Eastern Catholicism and Latin Catholicism. And I love doing what I can to tell people about the little Melkite community in Augusta.

No problem. Lord Jesus, have mercu!

In 1963, the Russian communists dynamited the Church in Zarvanytsia where the original miraculous icon was enshrined. The church was reduced to rubble but the icon was untouched. I remember seeing a photo of what can only be called a miraculous event!

I inherited a small copy of the icon of Zarvanytsia from my grandmother, Presbytera Irene, who kept it by her bedside all her life and was touched to the original, I believe.

The word "Zarvanytsia" comes from the Ukrainian word "zarvatysia" or to rise up quickly - the experience a fleeing monastic had under the icon. It is also one of the icons associated with the Protective Mantle of the Most Holy Mother of God as She appeared over the village of Zarvanytsia extending her mantle or scapular.

Our former Bishop, Vladyka Stephan, was in Zarvanytsia for an indulgenced pilgrimage ("Vidpust" - also very popular in Ukrainian Orthodox circles, probably a carry-over from the Uniat times . . .). He looked out on the square an was told thousands of pilgrims were there. He wondered, as he later said, where all those pilgrims were staying as there are no hotels at Zarvanytsia . . . And then he saw them all coming out of the nearby woods and fields . . . thousands of them who had slept in tents. It is the most popular Ukrainian Catholic shrine in western Ukraine and I grew up with that devotion. The icon is also highly honoured in Orthodox circles. as an Orthodox icon.

And now that Vladyka Brian is our permanent Eparch, Our Lady of Guadalupe is everywhere. As a Redemptorist, he promotes devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help - also extremely popular among our people. We will just have to get used to Our Lady of Guadalupe too!! (There's a lovely akathist to her . . . I've already given him a copy).

Many years to His All-Holiness, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople! May his flock in Ukraine continue to increase!!

Alex

Specifically a Triptych depicting Blessed Bishop-Martyr Theodore Romzha, Blessed Bishop-Martyr Basil Hopko and Blessed Bishop-Martyr Paul Gojdich. Anyone seen anything like it?

God bless you and all the Hutsul people!!

Christ is in our midst!!

Roman,

I can answer your question. The icon was brought to Altoona awhile back--maybe a year now. The pastor of St. George's Church who brought it to Altoona asked that no one post any pictures or mention the miraculous myrrh-streaming icon on the internet. He said he did not want a lot of publicity because it always draws the secular naysayers, and it becomes a point of mocking the Church by secularists. It is the reason he does not post on the church's website. He did not and does not want the MSM descending on his parish church. The word passes privately among believers and that is sufficient.

Please do not spread word about this icon far and wide. This miracle is meant to be part of the Church's inner life. Believers will make pilgrimage; unbelievers will mock.

I will tell you that I was anointed that night and asked for a special intention from our Holy Mother, the Theotokos. And I received it as a gift. Suffice it to say it was a problem I had wrestled with for about 45 years.