www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West This thread is about culture, rite?

Dear Friends,

This is something I've wanted to ask for a long time, and I address it primarily to those who came into an Eastern Church, Orthodox or Catholic, whose traditional ethnic background isn't theirs.

Traditionally, in our Eastern Liturgies, we have invoked many saints. These saints are oftentimes particular to a certain group. For instance, Syrians would honour Saint Ephrem in a way similar to the way Russians would honour Saint Seraphim of Sarov, but not always the other way around. And that's because Saint Seraphim is tied to the Russian people and Church in a way that Saint Ephrem isn't. And that's just one example...I'm sure there are others, not just the saints, where culture ties into the spirituality of a ritual patrimony, of a Church.

So what about the converts?

I have heard of converts among Irish, Italian, Spanish, and other peoples to the Eastern Churches. Many of these used to be Roman Catholics, and so their saints and spirituality are more European in origin, I would think anyway, and their cultures are different from those of Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

So how do they work within a Church where Saint Francis isn't invoked as much as Saint Gregory the Theologian (again, just one example), and where in other ways the Church's approach to faith and spirituality is coloured more or less intensely with a culture that isn't theirs originally? Does one adopt the culture for one's own? Or do you just say "This is the way my Church does things, I'll just go along with it"?

The spirituality of the Syrian Church is just that...Syrian, Middle Eastern, and Jewish. It's not originally Indian. But over the centuries we've been able to "Indianise" it somewhat. So Syrian Christianity and Indian Syrian Christianity are very closely related, but there are differences. But this transformation has taken time.

How do converts and those who transfer deal with this seeming change of cultures?

I fear I haven't been able to articulate my question as clearly as I wanted to, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to get at. Thanks!

Mor, I think you've done an exemplary job in stating the question.

This is something that confronts the various "Churches" when they missionize outside their own areas. The Greeks preached to the Slavs, and Bingo! Slavic Christianity.

I dare say that we are in a similar situation in the "new lands" (the Americas, Australia, and non-previously Christian areas in Asia and Africa.)

I think that many enclaves of 'ethnics' follow the Canadian mosaic style of inculturation; i.e., "we're in Canada, but we're really _____". And we keep our ethnicity, come hell or high water.

But for those church communities that are now like "blended families", there is a question of what's the core spirituality/theology, and what is not really relevant any more.

Being of Greek descent (among other heritages), I tend to look to "my own" for models. And I worship in a Ruthenian parish, which still has fairly strong Ruthenian identity. So, when the beatifications of the Carpathian bishops was accomplished, I saw the real joy in the Ruthenian-ethnic parishoners. But, to be honest, I felt a bit 'left out', since I have NO connection whatsoever with Preshov, Uzhorod, etc. (But I love the folks in my parish -- loving, generous, accepting, and party-down!)

So, I do all the stuff that we do in the parish, and when the "Ruthenery" comes to the fore, I just accept it, rejoice in my Ruthenian brothers' and sisters' delight, and we go have a beer and a kielbasa --- OOOPS! kolbassy.

Not really much of an issue. It's the loving kindness that takes over. (Sort of like in-laws, I guess. But the Ruthenians are a good family to "marry into".)

Blessings!

The Church includes but is bigger than its traditional cultures, of course.

A 'Net personality who's Church-hopped has written about missing the Western Catholic saints during his dip in the Orthodox pond. I can relate. Providentially not all in our communion are hardliners and one may privately venerate whoever. It is culture shock to go from SS. Joseph (a forgotten man in our piety but a large, relatively recent, post-medieval devotional phenomenon in the Latin Church), Anthony of Padua (does anyone remember he became famous for his preaching?) and Francis to SS. Ephrem, Andrew of Crete and Barsanuphius! IOW, from SS. Teresa and Th�r�se to the welter of relatively little-known preschism Greeks who populate our calendars. (The Byzantine Catholic calendars I remember had little else, and mysteriously stopped keeping track around the year 900, except for Josaphat, killed by the "schizmatics' [sic].) But there are big compensations, of course — the Orthodox Church has kept right on producing and canonizing saints all through the millennium after the divorce in the family. Get to know St Sergius, St Seraphim and St Xenia of St Petersburg, and the elders of Optina! Or the Russian new martyrs. (And yes, here I am talking to BCs in good standing, too.)

Does one adopt the culture for one's own? Or do you just say "This is the way my Church does things, I'll just go along with it"?

Those are two legitimate options. If you are adopted by a Greek "family' you eat gyros; if a Slavic one then kolbasy and stuffed cabbage!

The Church is much more than ethnic sentimentality — if you wear a "Kiss Me, I'm _____' button but vote "pro-choice' (big sic), you're not Orthodox or Catholic, no matter your DNA — and of course isn't nationalism in the modern sense, but it is incarnated in various Old World cultures. American culture is at best one jump removed from Western Catholicism: Protestant. To be o/Orthodox is by necessity to learn from the old country as a teacher and classroom, lest one lose the faith and drown in an at-best un-o/Orthodox larger culture. And providing community and continuity for immigrants and their descendants is a legitimate mission (as my priest patiently explained to a convert complaining after about a month about the lack of English — hey, she chose to join, knowing what it was), but of course not to the exclusion of ministering to the American-born, English-only speakers (for people like the convert I'd be cool with one all-English Liturgy a month at our foreign-born-majority church, but the majority wouldn't want it).

http://oldworldrus.com

[Linked Image]

I'll answer this from my perspective-
I converted into the OCA from the Episcopal Church, so I pretty much have a generic Western European background, and am actually a little bit WASP-ish.

There really aren't any ethnic OCA parishes in Oregon-though there are plenty of cradle Orthodox, ethnicity in the OCA parishes in this state really isn't much of an issue.

While there is a general tendency towards things "Great Russian" out here in the OCA, personally I just can't embrace that to a large extent, though I do like Russian spirituality the most out of all of Orthodoxy.

Personally, I venerate many post-Schism English saints-SS Thomas Becket, Thomas More, John Fisher, Cuthbert Mayne, etc. There are plenty of people I know who don't agree with me on this, but I am sticking to what I believe.

An interesting recent phenomenon is the wide-spread veneration of Celtic saints-i.e. non-English saints (esp. Irish and Scotish) who lived before the Synod of Whitby. I think it ties into a general Celtic-mania of the 90's. Even the calender published by St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood is big into Celtic saints.
Also of note is that the OCA calender does have St. Augustine of Canterbury, and one of his successors, St. Theodore, on it (though they were definately not Celtic!).

In the end though, ethnicity isn't that much of a problem for me-believe me, I have many problems, but ethnicity isn't that much of one. I've even though of visiting the local Ukrainian Orthodox Church, (EP) and maybe even going there full time-talking about jumping into ethnicity!

God Bless,

Michael

[ 01-31-2002: Message edited by: Michael King ]

There is nothing wrong with each local community glorifying and venerating its own saints as long as in theory it recognizes all the other saints of the apostolic/Orthodox Churches with which it is in communion.

An interesting recent phenomenon is the wide-spread veneration of Celtic saints-i.e. non-English saints (esp. Irish and Scotish) who lived before the Synod of Whitby. I think it ties into a general Celtic-mania of the 90's.

As some Americans used to say, during the CB radio fad of the '70s, that's a big 10-4, good buddy.

My take, straight up:

While such saints (the monks of Iona, St Fiacre the gardener, et al.?) deserve to be brought out of obscurity and venerated again, as does the rafter of obscure Greeks I mentioned above, the intention "skeeves' me (from Italian schifoso, yucky, something to avoid ... I live close enough to several Little Italys and to Rocky's home turf) a bit. ISTM there was a big dollop of heterodoxy in '90s Celtic-mania*, specifically a New Age version of no-popery, where the Irish were depicted as some kind of Mother Nature's children until those big bad Roman Catholics sailed up to the British Isles and loused it all up. I fear some of this Orthodox attention to the preschism Irish, et al. is similar — even going to ridiculous lengths to "prove' the Irish really were Byzantines before, again, "those Romans' quashed them. ( "Whitby — BOOOO!' ) Rubbish. St Patrick (Patricius) was ethnically part Roman himself and nobody ever celebrated Mass in Gaelic — everybody used Latin. There was a Celtic Rite once a long, long time ago but it was a non-Roman Latin rite.

Granted, there was crossover in the preschism Churches — St Theodore the archbishop of Canterbury was Greek and originally a longtime Byzantine monk (as we now would describe him) before Romanizing on his move to England, and the forum has mentioned the Greek and Syrian preschism Popes. There was the monastic crossover figure of St John Cassian. And Irish monks in their ascesis were comparable to Athonite monks today! Iona was no Haight-Ashbury.

But still, the revisionism of some hardline converts to me smacks of a denial of Catholicity, just like the deficient Byzantine Catholic calendars from years ago I described earlier.

*An acquaintance of mine and good friend of Edward's, Fr Serge Keleher, told me his litmus test for Celticophiles is, "Do you speak Irish (Gaelic)?' (Fr Serge does.) This separates the serious-minded and orthodox from the poseurs, in his experience.

P.S. My kingdom for being able to use quotation marks and parentheses in posts without them being turned into annoying winking smileys.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 01-31-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]

Aww, Reader Serge, just when I unintentionally started using a lot of those...my apologies. (insert apologetic, but still annoying winking smiley here). Hehehehe. Um, you should only get those if you start with some sort of colon, I'd assume...or for the winks, semicolons. As far as I know, quotes and parentheses don't do anything together.

I am, as you say here, a transritual eastern christian. I have no problem with the eastern saints commonly venerated. Wouldn't it be silly for a Anglican familiar with St. George to give that up after converting?

axios

http://www.axios.net

http://www.plagal.org

Phil,

Your intentional winks are cute — I just hate it when the combo of a "smart' (curled) end quotation mark (inverted comma for standard English speakers outside North America) and an end parenthesis turns into a wink unintentionally. Rather than use, er, dumb quotes (' or ") I have to remember to add extra space between this punctuation to prevent UBB from automatically changing it. Otherwise it turns smart quotes into code, which ends with — you guessed it — a semicolon, hence the winky-winky effect.

Axios,

I don't like the word "transritual' because it implies the new church member isn't a real member, but I know what you mean.

Wouldn't it be silly for a Anglican familiar with St. George to give that up after converting?

Yes, it would. Besides, St George already is a well-known and loved preschism saint in Orthodox piety — he is the patron of Greece as well as England (which is why both have the +-shaped Greek or St George's cross in their flags) and a patron of Russia (particularly its military) too — he is in the shield on the two-headed eagle symbol and a patron of the Kuban Cossacks.

But even if he were postschism, you could keep him in your icon corner and ask his prayers privately.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 01-31-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]

Holy Great Martyr George, pray to God for us!
Dear Mor Ephrem,

Some years ago (1996), I picked up a paperback titled "Saint Hilarion Calendar". This published by Saint Hilarion Press in Austin Texas. This is one of those Western Orthodoxy Groups.

This interesting calendar contained a martyrology which combined in two columns on one page, the Orthodox commemorations of saints (very complete), and the traditional Latin martyrology for each day. It is a very interesting exercise, and is an attempt to address the concerns of those travelling to Orthodoxy, who yet have devotion to western saints.

On the Latin side, it ruthlessly removed every saint reposed after the first millenium. So for example Francis of Assisi is not mentioned. For that reason, many of the most popular Latin saints are excluded. Perhaps this diminishes its value?

Elias

This published by Saint Hilarion Press in Austin Texas. This is one of those Western Orthodoxy Groups.

I'm sure the calendar is a valuable resource, but a distinction must be made regarding "those Western Orthodoxy groups'. St Hilarion's is a former "independent Catholic' monastery ( they called themselves "Old Catholic' ) that has joined the uncanonical Milan Synod, a group that apparently broke off from an Old Calendarist Greek faction. The synod appears Orthodox and mostly Byzantine. St Hilarion's seems to use a slightly modified Sarum Use, Roman Rite with very Byzantine externals.

They are not to be confused with the Western Rite Vicariate of the Antiochian Orthodox Church, who unequivocally are in the canonical Orthodox communion and are made up mostly of former Episcopalians using a deprotestantized, slightly byzantinized Book of Common Prayer. Some use a slightly byzantinized Roman Rite. The Moscow Patriarchate and even ROCOR have had Western Rite experiments too. These three can, without qualifiers, be called "those Western Orthodoxy groups'.

Then (catching my breath) there is the Orthodox Church of France, which began when some former Modernists in France who'd formed an "Old Catholic' group decided to become Orthodox; the Moscow Patriarchate took them in back in 1937 or so. Then somehow they ended up under ROCOR in the 1950s; St John Maximovich was the ROCOR bishop of Paris at the time and had a hand in composing their liturgical texts. Then they were in the Romanian Church but for some reason were cut loose by them (some say it was a kind of ecumenical gesture owing to complaints from the French RC authorities) and so now are outside canonical Orthodoxy. Their liturgy is an attempt to revive the Gallican Latin rite (St Germanus), heavily byzantinized. Pretty, and perfectly orthodox, but a hothouse flower or lab-experiment liturgy, with no history of unbroken continuous use by a living community.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 01-31-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]

Dear Mor Ephrem:

I am almost afraid of getting into this topic, given my rather complicated background.

I am technically Roman Catholic but am very close to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

I attend services in both, sometimes more in one, other times more in the other.

That is more a case of convenience than anything else because I remain unfortunately, a biped.

Culturally and ethnically I describe myself as a Canadian, Azorean-Portuguese.

I am also a Portuguese nationalist, but remain open to all cultural influences as long as they are personally edifying.

I love both Eastern and Western Church traditions and feel that whatever I take upon myself only increases my person and does not diminish it.

Strangely, most of my family now considers me to be Byzantine [Rite that is].

I am very interested in Russian Art, History and culture, and that in itself engenders a whole other group of concerns.

Understandably, the Ukrainian Church is based upon Ukrainian cultural, as well as religious traditions.

I can make a claim to be related to ancient Greeks, Romans & Carthaginians, to Visigoths, Moors, Black Africans, Sephardic Jews, and Dutch Flemings but nowhere have I been found to be related to Ukrainians.

This past Christmas [Julian calendar] I was invited to the Holy Supper by a family from my Byzantine Church [St. Elias, Brampton].

We had around the table people of Korean, Irish, Dutch, Hungarian, Portuguese, and Ukrainian descent.

We followed Ukrainian custom generally but sang carols in Ukrainian, English & even Latin.

It was a most pleasant evening.

Eventually I will become, with the greatest pleasure, completely ensconced in the Byzantine Church but will always remain true to who I am.


Yours Sincerely
Jos� Jacinto de Freitas, Correia, Moniz, Lopes

Yowsa, Jose!

As a young seminarian, I had the privilege to teach in the Jesuit High School in Fall River, Massachusetts. There were TONS of Azorean Portuguese students (as well as Cape Verdeans), a whole mess of French Canadians from Ste. Anne (Dominican parish) and Notre Dame (LaMennais congregation), several Poles, a few Maronites, some Irish and some Italians.

What a melange!

However, I came to appreciate the Portugueses -- incredibly hospitable people who'd give you the shirt off their backs if you needed one. You should be very proud of your Portuguese heritage.

You are, of course, aware of the Portuguese sausage delicacy: chourico. (For the non-Ports: shoo-REES). It is frequently put on pizza (the Italian delicacy!!! And not the Pizza Hut kind. Yuk. Too much sugar).

The absolutely best, no questions asked, no holds barred chourico pizza in Fall River was served in the dining area of the Ukrainian National Home. And EVERYONE in eastern Rhode Island and S.E. Massachusetts went there.

Who'd a thunk it!!!!

Thereby proving the old adage: if you feed them (good stuff), they will come.

VIVA FOOD! The cement of humanity!!!!

Blessings!

Dear Dr. John:

Funny you should mention Fall River [Fal Reeva in the mother tongue] my mother's family have lived there for about 100 years.

Also no Byzantines.


defreitas

Ouch, buddy! There's a Ukie parish down by the river. I went there once, in full Jesuit cassock and byzantine riason. I entered the church, was addressed in Ukrainian, responded in English and was substantially ignored. Got kinda pissed. But I realized: Ukrainians want other Ukrainians. If you're some other type of Byzantine, that's OK, but get the hell out.

I had a better reception among the Polskis.

(In Fall River, there was only one Catholic Boy's High School; I taught there. As a recent emigre from Germany, I was very European -- with a beard and a full cassock; and I spoke German. I was addressed BY NAME at many local stores where I knew no one: "You must be Mr. B." The Ukies didn't care; the Polskis were just enthralled. The Maronites were very welcoming. The French-Canadians didn't know what the hell to do, but were welcoming. The Portuguese, well what can I say. "Hey!!! We're having a dinner!!! You'd better be at XXXX by 8 o'clock." And if you were late, they'd call!!! And demand to know where the h*** you were. Community? Oh yeah!!! If you're part of this group, you'd better be around. Or else. (Yes, the Portuguese have babas too. And they too take no prisoners.)

Blessings to all God's good people!

Dear Friends,

What a fascinating thread all around!!

Let me share with you my experience with this.

I developed an English, on-line listing of the "Saints of Ukraine" or all known saints of the Kyivan Church tradition.

And how does one define what constitutes a "Ukrainian Saint?"

If you asked a traditional Ukie today, it would mean, of course, those who were ethnically Ukrainian, spoke Ukrainian etc.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Ohienko, however, included saints who also lived as members of the Kyivan Church etc.

So I began with Sts. Andrew and Clement I, the Scythian saints since these lived in the territory of Kyivan Rus', other Scythian saints, including St John Cassian. The Kyivan Caves Lavra particularly venerated Cassian as one of "their own" and there was one or two saints there who took his name.

Then there are the princely saints, the monastic saints, especially of the Kyivan Caves Lavra, the saints of the Kyivan Baroque period.

I also included the saints of Siberia, the fruits of the missionary outreach of the Kyivan Saints as Prof. Golubinsky does. I included also the saints of Belarus and Russia given the close relation of these Churches to Kyiv, the Mother Church of the Eastern Slavs.

I also included the Western saints who came missionizing to Kyiv in the time of St Olha, the Saints of Crimea, the saints of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition, the Slavic New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke and the New Martyrs of the Soviet Yoke, of course.

There are many Russian saints who lived and worked in Ukraine, who were its citizens and these I include.

There were, as Catholicos states, "foreigners" like the German St Procopius of Ustiuh and the Tatar saints. Several Patriarchs of Constantinople are included including St Athanasis of Lubensk who died in Ukraine and was glorified there. St Gregory V the New Martyr whose martyred body was brought to Odessa by Ukrainian sailors, St Photios who first sent Sts. Cyril and Methodius to the Slavic lands and others are included as well.

I also mention the Oriental Orthodox saints and martyrs who died in exile in and near the Crimea, including St Timothy Aelurus of Alexandria.

"Phyletism" is the heresy that occurs when a Church cancels out anyone that does not belong to the nation/cultural group that it serves.

However, the "inculturation" of Christianity within a Particular Church is something that is part of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition.

Dr. John is correct in saying the beatification of the Ukrainian/Ruthenian/Russian New Martyrs didn't speak to his spiritual/cultural soul (I hope I haven't overstated this).

We should venerate all the Saints of heaven. But those who lived the Life in Christ through a cultural prism shared by us are close to us and we venerate them in a special way.

For those who would like to view my list, it is at:

http://www.unicorne.org/orthodoxy

Alex