www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West When dis Eastern Churches reunite with Rome

It is my understanding that the Eastern Catholic Churches broke away from Rome to Orthodoxy and then later re-unified. Does anyone know when this happened ?

The "breakaway" of the churches that "reunited" would date to the time of the schism between Rome and the rest of Orthodoxy in 1054, if any specific date can really be set and if you assume the separation was practiced by the faithful.

In reality, the schism took a long time to form and a long time to complete. It is my understanding that the schism was never very well set among the peoples who eventually "reunited" with Rome. It is also my understanding that the schism really solidified at a practical level only after the churches in question officially joined Rome (1586 and 1646).

Some of the bishops came under Rome (or in communion with Rome) in secrecy. Many of the faithful may have been unaware of the actions of their hierarchs and many may not have cared much if they had known.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to separate the Eastern Catholic churches from Orthodoxy during the development of the schism until the unions were signed and implemented.

Many Eastern Catholics here see themselves as being as much Orthodox as they are Catholic (by that meaning "in communion with Rome"), while other ECs and Latin Catholics like to see the Eastern Catholics as distinctly different and separate from Orthodoxy and see them more as "under the Pope" than as "in communion" with him.

Actually it was 1596, not 1586... but, hey, who's counting??

Besides... what's a decade or so among friends??

Dear IL, this is a very complex question.

Each Eastern Catholic Church has a unique political and ecclesiastical history associated with her union with Rome, whether that be Ukrainian, Carpatho-Rusyn, Melkite, Maronite, Malabar, Malankar, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopian, Syrian, Italo-Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, Macedonian, Russian, Byelorussian, Greek, Chaldean, etc. etc. etc.

No way, eh. That was like the, uh, secret part. Yeah. Yeah. I thought I typed 1596 and I edited the thing four times.

My lousy fat fingers . . .

Diak is right. Sorry. I was assuming the Ukrainian/Rusyn unions.

Well, they are the *important* ones anyway.

(BTW, just kidding).

You mean there were others??

(BTW, me too!)

Perhaps in the aftermath of the Fall of Constantinople and the repudiation of the Council of Florence. At any rate, solidlt O and not C for a relatively short period of our existence.

Brest, really? No wonder it all went so smoothly, with no backlash from brotherhoods, no excommunications by the EP, no parallel Orthodox jurisdictions established...
Uzhorod? If Bishop Tarasovich made the transition in secret, that is one well-kept secret!

Who, exactly, are you talking about, Cizinec?

I have read your similar representations on two other boards. Is there a fact behind this? I find it hard to believe: our people were simple but there were not so ridiculously ignorant about the light of their life! Please consider what you are suggesting.

It is arguable, btw, that such ideas emerged from calculated testimony made in lawsuits over the ownership of parish property in the 30's. Court records reveal that such testimony was not considered weighty.

Intrigued,

I think I'm reading what you asked a bit differently than anyone else has. Or, it may be the fact of not yet having had coffee.

If I understand correctly, you are presuming that, chronologically:

1. there was Rome and there was Orthodoxy
2. ECs left Rome to join Orthodoxy
3. ECs left Orthodoxy and reunited with Rome

If that is what you are stating - no. ECs are Orthodox who reunited with Rome, not some third entity who left union with Rome to become Orthodox* and later returned.

Those who effected separation from Rome are those whom we now term Orthodox. Later, some of them reunited with Rome; it is the latter who are now termed Eastern Catholic (exceptions being the Maronites and the Italo-Grieco-Albanians, who never separated from Rome).

*exceptions - 1. the early 20th century US schisms, (e.g., ACROD) attributable in major part to the unconscionable behavior of Latin bishops toward Eastern Catholic clergy and laity seeking to preserve their heritage and traditions and 2. the forced schisms in Eastern Europe under communist rule

Many years,

Neil

Intrigued,

For a synopsis of the histories of separation and reunion, you may want to look at Father Ron Roberson's material at the Catholic Near East Welfare Association site. In my experience, it offers most of the generally accepted dates and explains the sequence of events in a relatively non-judgmental presentation (because as Daik notes, there are a fair number of such dates and a lot of qualifiers involved):

Eastern Christian Churches [cnewa.org]

Many years,

Neil

djs,

I agree with Cizinec's theory. Andrew Rubis, Ghazar, and I had a discussion about this on a previous thread, with specific but not exclusive reference to the Albanians. See:

Our discussion

And, truthfully, I don't think that saying so is any adverse reflection on the intelligence of the ethnic laity - rather it reflects the reality that formal education was much more common among the clergy, who also had a level of sophistication as to matters ecclesial that might easily be seen as absent or of no concern to peasantry, laborers, etc.

As to the similar arguments that arose in the early 20th century church ownership cases involving the various parish level schisms that occurred, we didn't consider those in this context, but I'd suggest that the weight given to such testimony by the courts was probably fairly split.

Many years,

Neil

Dear Irish Melkite:

Cizinec was referring to Rusyns and Ukrainians. Clearly different dynamics were at work in Southern Italy. I would like to find out the basis, if there is one, for the suggestion for hierarchial secret communion with Rome.

I don't doubt that some people in some places, at some times may have been unaware (and certainly indifferent) to jurisdictional issues. But it would be exceedingly difficult to make the case for "many". The history is tumultuous enough to vitiate a case for many people not knowing about the unia.

And certainly by the time of immigration to the US such a posture is not credible. Court cases has outcomes determined, AFAIK, principally by the legal documents of incorporation. Not by testimony that the latiy didn't know that they were Catholics. But such testimony was given, and now has to be supported, just as Patriarch Alexy continues to vouch for the validity of the Synod of L'viv.

djs,

I am with you on that issue. I don't doubt that it occasionally occurred, but I think it would have been rare and I can't say that I see what particular benefit would have accrued from it.

I'm not certain we're in complete disagreement here. The legal charters, etc., certainly were deciding factors. My point was that several such cases turned on who constituted the body described in those documents - did the body of faithful that represented the corporate entity survive the change of Church jurisdiction? Or, was the nature of the corporate entity so vested in the religious identity of its original Church affiliation that, absent that affiliation, the body of faithful no longer had a claim against the real assets. What was the defining nature of the parish corporation - its faithful or its faith? IIRC, there are cases decided on both sides of that argument.

Many years,

Neil

I would have to say that my view is a speculative one and not well grounded in known facts, but I am pretty sure that this was true. I am getting a little interpretive here.

Great communication like we have today just didn't exist for our predecessors. The years up to the 15th century were not blessed with good roads and telegraph wires. Away from the major Patriarchal centers bishops and priests may have taken almost any position on communion, in the East and the West.

Clearly too, the East did not have the kind of lock-step discipline that we have come to associate with the Western church. Even today we see evidence of that.

After all, what does being in Communion mean anyway? It doesn't matter unless you have someone around who needs it. Some places, like K'yiv for example, may have had Italian and German merchants pass through on their way east or south. Would all of these people have been denied communion? I don't know but doubt it, especially so if the local ruling prince wanted these visitors to feel welcome. But the bishop isn't going to send a report to Constantinople with a message like "my diocese communed 21 heretic schismatics today, I thought you'd like to know"! I would call it a 'don't ask, don't tell' kind of thing, that could be interpreted as secrecy if one will look at it that way.

That kind of economy could have been a commonplace in some areas. It's only when a bishop might take a formal public stance (like a formal union agreement) that the Patriarch might have to crack down and try to depose him or excommunicate him. If he had the protection of a king or prince nothing more would happen. The fact is that we don't have very good information about those times but I am pretty sure that the anathemas exchanged between Constantinople and Rome were not followed by hundreds more from bishop to bishop across Christianity.

In Christ,
Michael

Michael's post begins what I will respond with.

I may have been confused about the specific events of Brest and Uzhorod and a later union of a similar group.

That said, I don't think you are likely to find a document that says, "I'm signing this and not telling anyone," or,"I'm going to make sure all the priest's announce next Sunday that we are under Rome." It *was* my understanding that those signing the documents didn't keep it a secret to the ones pressuring them to sign the documents, but that they didn't run through the streets announcing to the local faithful what they had done.

If I am wrong and the signators were very honest with the public (the Orthodox faithful, not Polish and Hungarian princes and clergy members) about what they did and they made it eminently clear to the worshipers that they were now in communion with Rome and not with Orthodoxy as they had been, I stand corrected and apologize.

I also stated that I'm not sure many of the faithful would have cared had they not known. After all, Vatican I had not yet occurred and infallibility, the Imaculate Conception, and many other current issues had not yet developed.

I think the people were probably too busy trying to survive in an odd political situation and,oftentimes, in a less than ideal economic situation.