www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Scripture and Patristic Writings on-line Scripture study

Are there any suggestions for a good and reliable Catholic on-line scripture study?
Silouan, monk

Try St. Paul's Center for Bible Theological Studies. I've found it very helpful.

http://www.salvationhistory.com/utilities/sitemap.cfm

james

Jakub,

Thank you posting this link. The courses appear to be set up very nicely.

Does anyone have any links for a similar course that focuses upon the Eastern Theology? (Alex, I have read through the entire FAQs on the Ukranian Orthodoxy Website- very very informative!) http://www.unicorne.org/orthodoxy/

As I progress deeper into the Eastern Faith, I feel that I can benefit greatly from this. St. Nick brought my wife the Orthodox Study Bible, and I really like to layout of the commentaries. The commentaries reinforce our weekly Homily.

Thank you to all for your help.

Christ is Born!
Glorify Him!

Michael (a sinner)

If you read Scott Hahn's history you will find it was at St. Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Pittsburgh that he fell in love with the Catholic Church. His wife told him if he was going to change faiths to that, and not change cultures. Oh well, our loss is Romes gain. But maybe he would not have reached at many as he does if he were Eastern Catholic. So he does have a great love for the Eastern Church.

Pani Rose

Greetings to all and Happy Sunday after the Theophany.

I stumbled across a website around a year ago. The site was for a seminary and offered on-line courses in Theology. I have searched in Google but have been unsuccessful. If I recall correctly, it was a Ukranian Seminary in North America. Could anyone help me out?

I believe this would allow me to pursue a two-fold course of action, 1. increasing my knowledge of our faith, and 2. providing some necessary courses in the event the Lord deems me worthy to participate in our Faith more fully one day other than as an alter server.

Thank you.

Michael (a sinner)

Is this like falling in love with your neighbor, and then marrying your co-worker instead? Is Pittsburgh in the Ukraine? I wonder what 'Catholic' faith he actually fell in love with? Obviously, he fell in love with the real Catholic faith. Good for him. The Byzantine Catholic faith is usually only a rest stop on the way to the true Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church anyway.

Joe

What an insulting comment.

I agree that Joe's comment is insulting.

Joe, can you place the quote in context or withdraw it?

Dear Cantor Joseph,

I thought you said you'd never (due to circumstances) become Orthodox!

Doesn't matter to me, either way.

Are you thinking of "doxing?"

Perhaps that's none of my business.

Whichever way you go, may God go with you!

And, Friends, Joe's comment is only insulting if he doesn't believe the Orthodox Church is the true Catholic Church.

One just never knows what to expect from the Cantor next!

That's what makes him such a thrill to know!

Alex

Administrator,

Sorry if my above statement sounded off insulting. I didn' mean it that way. I find it tiring to hear stories about how people found the Catholic Church in the Byzantine tradition and then finalize their conversion in the Latin one. I have nothing against Latin Catholics - I married one you know - but to simply write off Eastern Catholics as a different culture, and hence the reason for avoiding it only plays into the current understanding that True Catholicism subsists in the Latin Catholic Church, and cultural exhuberance only takes up residence in the Eastern Catholic Churches. Hence, we are to be avoided at all costs if one wants to find home in communion with Rome.

I found Scott Hahn's wife's comments insulting, if that is what she really said. Are we just a cultural phenomenon? A museum of ethnic shlop and hushkie-papushkie? Or a vessel of salvation unto the world?

Joe

Joe,

Thank you for your clarification. I can understand you finding Kimberly Hahn's comment insulting (although I'm not sure if she actually said that; she's such a sweet and holy woman I kinda doubt it [but it's possible]).

To be sure, any attitude that the Eastern Catholic Churches are simply a "way-station" to the "true Catholic Church", which is Latin Church, is insulting as well. In fact, that is what I misunderstood you to be saying!

In my own experience, I have found it odd how often my fellow Latin Catholics look at me like I have three heads when I say I've been to an Eastern Catholic Liturgy, or I'm reading some book on spirituality by an Eastern author. I think they are sometimes trying to figure out in their head if I'm falling away or not! Even my wife I think sometimes is worried (I recently spent $100 of Christmas money on an icon, a prayer rope, and 6 eastern books, which made her pause [especially the prayer rope]). So I can imagine how actual Eastern Catholics can feel sometimes.

Joe,

Thanks for your clarification. I suspected you meant it a more positive way and I�m glad you indicate this.

I see two possibilities:

1. The Lord calls someone who comes from having no faith, or comes into the Church from Protestantism or even a non-Christian faith to become a Roman Catholic, and uses the Byzantine Catholic Church as a step on the path towards that goal. This possibility also allows for the reverse � there are certainly those who have become Roman Catholics and eventually were called to work out their salvation as a Byzantine Catholic.

2. The Lord calls someone to become Byzantine Catholic but, because the person is unwilling or unable to also accept the mantle of the ethnicity of our Byzantine Catholic Churches, they wind up joining the Roman Catholic Church were they can actually become one of the family and not always be treated as an outsider.

If people are expected to take on the mantle of ethnicity I don�t blame them for giving up and joining the Roman Catholic Church. I know of at least two individuals who felt called to become Byzantine Catholic but who wound up Roman Catholic because they were overwhelmed by the ethnicity of our Churches. I have met members of the Greek Orthodox Church who worship at Roman Catholic Churches because they wanted to worship in an American (i.e., English speaking) Church. I found that odd since there are plenty of English worshipping Orthodox Churches in the area, but I realize now that the average American probably sees them as super-ethnic, despite the use of English and generally hospitality of the parishes.

There is nothing wrong with people choosing to maintain and promote their ethnicity. But we need to find a way to welcome people of all ethnicities into our churches.

Admin

A m e n ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Thank you soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much for this! Now I have a few bishops for you to talk to!!!

Your poor brother in Christ,
+Fr. Gregory

Dear Administrator,

Apart from the issue of ethnicity in the North American ecclesial scene, the fact is, as we've often discussed before, that many Eastern and Western Churches are nationally-based and espouse a particular national culture.

The Roman Catholic Church is not "international" by any stretch of the imagination either.

If it is "English" then this has meant that it is dominated, in NA, by the Irish.

It can be, in areas, dominated by the French, the Italians, the Poles et al.

The National Catholic movements were really Poles, Lithuanians and others wanting "their own" church.

There are also the Black and Hispano-American Catholic traditions.

These are not "ethnic" movements, but churches with a definite cultural/national character that not only links up with local traditions, but religious and even theological traditions too.

For example, Eastern iconography is different for the Greeks, the Arabs and the Slavs - each reflecting, in theological art, the particular spirituality that is born of their respective national/cultural perspectives.

The term "ethnic" can really only apply to what is "non-mainstream" in a cultural sense.

And while there are ethnic identities in North American society, I don't believe that can apply to churches whose "being" is determined not only by religious perspectives, but by cultural/national ones, intermingling with religious, as well.

I know we disagree on this score, but I'm happy that you still let me stay on the forum notwithstanding . . .

p.s. my cousin says "hello" from Kiev!

Alex

Administrator,

Yes. Only positive.

My experience of those saying we are so "ethnic" is that it is the only word they can muster for us being so "different." Anything different from their experience, however narrowly conditioned in a generic culture, can seem so ... foreign, hence "ethnic." But such is the ignorance of our own generic culture. We are considered non-ethnic, whereas everyone else is considered ethnic. The familiar is not ethnic; the unfamiliar - or strange - is ethnic.

Unfortunately, our parishes can, and do, promote the culture/ethnic background at the expense of the Gospel. That our churches reflect the miracle of incarnational Christianity is one thing, but when the formula puts our ethnicity in the numerator is another.

One of the most troubling aspects of our generic culture is that it carries its own baggage - such as anti-Christianity (news, books, TV, radio), anti-life (legalized abortion), ego-centric driven ("It's all about me!"), and _______ [fill in the blank]. This is culture too.

But when supposedly "Christian" or especially "Catholic" enters a temple that is lavish in its temple-ness (as opposed to a hall with a table used for an altar), then the knee-jerk reaction can be one of fear. People fear things they don't know, especialy when they can't even begin to recognize how Christian a real Byzantine temple is. I can't tell you how many times people, including Latin Catholics, wandered into one of our churches unprepared and eventually left. Some even stay as long as the sermon! They don't feel at home. They don't feel they are in their own culture, which is iconoclastically generic at times. My one classmate from college at first did not receive communion at one of our liturgies because he thought we were Buddhist! The iconostasis, vestments, the censors, the domes, all looked Buddhist.

Ignorance and fear of the unkown lead to identify things as "ethnic." But when everyone in that parish refuses to speak the language of the visitors or keeps promoting 'ethnic' events while expecting to hear Christ preached, then they may have reason to leave. Why should they stay if the Church is doing something else all the time?

Joe