www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Greek-Catholic Church this one? Nu pot sa cred!

Hi Bernardo

It's nice to see you in this forum.

You'll sure know more about this, but I'm told that the church Porta Coeli, that Greek-Catholics use as Cathedral was (as the name indicates) a former Latin temple that was kindly given to them by the Roman Church so it preserved the architecture.

But you have one advantage, it's just a small parish and you have a Bishop there! Where there's a Bishop there's a good probability of solving the problem and make your parish as Eastern as it must be. In Mexico, where the Eastern presence is very weak, people from these Churches rapidly loose tides with the Byzantine tradition and it's not strange if they forget it soon, so it's good to make it Eastern and attract people there, otherwise Eastern Christianity will die out (among Catholics).

Mexican,

You speak of the Melkite parish, I believe. Unfortunately, we have no hierarch in Mexico - the Exarchate has been vacant for about a decade now, as Charles Bramson referenced in a recent post.

Many years,

Neil

Oh Irish.

I did not know this, I thought that Archimandrite Antoine Mouhanna was in charge of the Exarchate. This was not so long ago.

OK Folks

With a little help from our brilliant Admin

To prove that an RC church can look like a Church and not a modern barn I present Holy Cross Church on Easter morning before the 9.30 Mass [ and I had been there at the Easter Vigil too ] our beautiful Altar

Notice we still have Altar Rails even though the central gate has been removed -[ they are still there at the side Altars though]. The Mosaic above the Altar is normally lit with blue lights.

I must add though - that there are many Churches similar to ours in Glasgow - the modern ones are the ones that we are having to close because of falling population or problems with the buildings.

Anhelyna

Mexican,

Yes, Archimandrite Antoine has been the Apostolic Administrator of the Exarchate for some time, but there has been no Exarch since Bishop Boutros (Rai) reposed, back in 1994.

Many years,

Neil

Christ is Risen! Dear Mexican,Looking at the first church, about the only clue that it is not a Latin Rite church is the Proscomedia table in the background.Presumably , the priest does serve with his back to the congregation as in all Byzantine Rite churches.

I wonder if a lack of money had something to do with this.

-ray

Oh Lawrence, come on now, I think the Pope's crucifix is quite nice actually. I like it.

Anhelyna, that is a beautiful altar indeed. I recently graduated from the University of San Diego, and they have a chapel with an extremely beautiful interior. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it to post , but I must say, it reflects Latin Catholicism at it's best.

If anyone is in the San Diego area, and has some free time, you should check out this chapel. It's quite heavenly

God bless,

Rony

Dear Chaldean Catholic:

One day, while out some where, I ran across a great corpse of Jesus, in bronze, that looks very similar to the one of the Pope's. The very realistic corpus. It was on a plague with the stations of the cross around it. The body was not on a cross but centered on this square plague. I purchased it, took it home and removed the body.

I wish I were able to carve a realistic cross - to match the realism of the corpse, but alas, I can not. So I simple cut my own cross out of oak and stained it and then nailed the corpus to it (yup - little tiny brass nails).

I had just finished many months of study around the Shroud - so the more realistic style meant something to me.

The clash of the very realistic corpse on the slender and symmetric cross - is beautiful. I think you would love it.

-ray

Wonderful.

-ray