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Is there such a thing as a Serbian Catholic Church? A Romanian Catholic Church? Just wondering.

Dear Jeff,

Yes, in both cases!

I have relatives who belong to both, but attend the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Alex

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Dear Jeff:

Check out www.bru.ro [bru.ro] and www.greek-catholic.ro [greek-catholic.ro] for the Romanian Greek Catholic Church.

BTW: where are you in SD? I used to live in Sioux Falls!

God bless,
Christopher
Armenian Catholic

There is no Serbian Catholic Church.
The Serbian Church is the only Orthodox Church without a Catholic counterpart.

There's an Eparchy for Catholics of the Byzantine Slavonic Rite in Krizevci, Croatia, whose members are descendants of Russyns and Ukrainians, mostly, and now identify themselves as Croats.

In the 1600's there were some Serbs who entered to communion with Rome, but they were probably assimilated by the Croats.

During WW-II, the Ustasha regime, as a part of its extermination campaign against Orthodox Serbs, explicitly forbid any reception of Serbian Orthodox into the Greek-Catholic Church. At that time, the Bishop of the Eparchy of Krizevci was replaced by a Latin vicar, and the Latinization and "Croatization" of the already existing Greek Catholics, was enforced.

When WW-II ended, the Eparchy was able to re-organize again and its jurisdiction was extended to all Yugoslavian Greek-Catholics, including Macedonia. Today, there are aproximately, 50,000 Greek Catholics in the former Yugoslavian Republics.

It's important to say that, despite the fact that Macedonian Greek Catholics were included in the Krizevci Eparchy after WW-II, they've had a completely different history and development. They originated from a nationalist movement, and as far as I know, the Macedonian Orthodox liturgical tradition (an amalgam of Serbian, Bulgarian and hellenic influences) was preserved among Greek Catholics, without latinization. They're now under the care of the Latin ArchBishop of Skopje.

In Croatia, the Greek Catholic Church is quite latinized. The ethnic problems there, have caused a serious crisis of identity. This is because Catholicism of the Latin Rite is the most important part of the Croatian national identity, and Byzantine-Slavonic Orthodoxy is the heart of the Serbian identity. So Greek Catholics there , felt themselves in the middle, and many thought it was better to adopt latin customs and traditions (said masses, latin vestments, stations of the cross, organs) in order to look "more catholic."

I was informed that priests are afraid of wearing the traditional Orthodox vestments because they could be targeted as Serbs. This leads me to understand that there might be Serbian Greek Catholics, hidden.

Alex:

do you have Greek Catholic relatives who identify themselves as Serbs? That's interesting

I don't know how to understand the above. There is no (to my knowledge) Georgian Greek Catholic Church.

Is there still an Albanian Greek Catholic Church which I understand at one time there was. There are Greek Catholics in many places but in many there is no Greek Catholic Hierarchy.

Actually there is, but I understand it doesn't have a hierarchy.

ChristTeen287

Dear ChristTeen287,

According to the information on the CNEWA site [cnewa.org] that is attributed to Fr. Ron Roberson "Because the tsars forbade their Catholic subjects to use the Byzantine rite, and the Holy See did not promote its use among the Georgians, no organized Georgian Greek Catholic Church ever existed."

Sure there are communities of Greek Catholic faithful in various places but without hierarchies. I said that in my post above when I wrote "There are Greek Catholics in many places but in many there is no Greek Catholic Hierarchy." Church is being used here in the patristic sense of "where the bishop is there is the Church."

When Fr. Ron lists among the Eastern Catholic Churches with no counterpart the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church [cnewa.org] he is not denying that there are currently Orthodox faithful living in the same geographic places as the Italo-Albanian Greek Catholic faithful. There are small Orthodox communities there, but there is not a local church in the sense of having a bishop for those communities; they are cared for from a distance and there is not currently an Orthodox diocese that is exclusively of their usage.

Tony

Tony,

The following is taken from www.cin.org [cin.org] (Catholic Information Network):

ChristTeen287

Dear ChristTeen287,

I searched the site but cannot locate the quote, I don't doubt it is there, I simply can't find it. Since neither (apparently) you nor I have traveled to Georgia we can't give a first hand account we can only go by what is written by others. Fr. Roberson and CNEWA is my choice in this matter. You, of course, are free to choose your source of information.

The Administrator posted a general link to this site [eastern-christian-churches.net] previously. You might wish to read that information.

Tony

Here's a link to Georgian Byzantine Catholics http://www.stmichaelruscath.org/georgiahist.htm
This subject might also be treated more extensivley in Fr. Chris Zugger's book. Has anyone read it?

Georgian Byzantine Catholics (including an Exarch) are also mentioned in some pages on Russian Byzantine Catholics
http://rumkatkilise.org/necplus.htm
[rumkatkilise.org]
http://www.rispubs.com/article.cfm?Number=841

And here's the link for Christteen's quote:
http://www.cin.org/archives/cineast/200110/0273.html

Sorry, Tony, that's my fault. I only gave you a link to www.cin.org, [cin.org,] not the particular area of the site.

I read on another site (I believe it was Fr. Roberson) that the Georgian Catholic Church was one of the 22 sui iuris Catholic Churches, but I don't know if that's true or not.

Does anyone know where to find a complete list of the 22/21 sui iuris Catholic Churches?

ChristTeen287

Dear djs,

Greetings on the Lord's Day!

Thanks for the accurate links! I don't know who Reader Methodios Stadnik, Linda DeLaine or Shawn Dorisian are or their affiliation other than the obvious.

My money still goes with Fr. Ron Roberson.

Tony

Peace to all on this beautiful Sunday.

Dear Tony,

You asked if there is an Albanian Greek Catholic Church. Yes there is. In late 1939, the Holy See established an apostolic administration for the Albanian Greek Catholics. From the time of its establishment until late 1996, the administration was headed by Latin bishops. It was vacant from 1949 to 1992 due to the Communist persecution. In December 1996, Father Hil Kabashi, O.F.M., was named Apostolic Administrator and Titular Bishop of Turres in Byzacena. He was consecrated on 6 January 1997 by Pope John Paul II. Bishop Kabashi was born in the territory of the Eparchy of Krizevci.

Dear ChristTeen,

You asked if there were any place where you could find a list of the 22 sui iuris Churches. The Annuario Pontificio - the Vatican`s yearbook - has a list. In the 2002 edition, it can be found on pages 979 to 982, in a section entitled "Riti nella Chiesa" (not the best descriptive heading). Under that heading, the sui iuris Churches are first listed by their ritual tradition, e.g., "Tradizione Alessandrina". At the bottom of page 979, a geographical prospectus of the sui iuris Churches is given. It is in this prospectus that we see each one called a Church, e.g., Tradizione Alessandrina, followed by Coptic Church, then Ethiopian Church. Each sui iuris Church is listed with it own eparchies, broken down by countries.

Here is an abbreviated list (without the eparchies or countries):

Alexandrian tradidion - Coptic Church, Ethiopian Church

Antiochene tradition - Malankara Church, Maronite Church, Syriac Church

Armenian tradition - Armenian Church

Chaldean or Eastern Syrian tradition - Chaldean Church, Syro-Malabar Church

Constantinopolitan or Byzantine tradition:
- Albanian Church, Belarusian Church, Church of the Byzantines of the Eparchy of Krizevci, Bulgarian Church, Greek Church, Greek-Melkite Church, Italo-Albanian Church, Macedonian Church, Romanian Church, Russian Church, Ruthenian Church,Slovak Church, Ukrainian Church, Hungarian Church.

I hope that the above is helpful.

Peace,

Charles

Thank you Charles, the list is very helpful.

ChristTeen287

Dear Charles,

So where does the Georgian Greek Catholic Church fall in the above? And, why is it absent from Roberson's list?

Thanks!

Tony