www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese Of The USA

Is building a new church and they have the pics online: http://www.acrod.org/New_Church.htm

Which brings me to a question when is the Byzantine Ruthenian Church going to stop braking the contract of Union of Uzhord? In other words married priest. When are the Ruthenian Bishops going to allow married priest? What are they afraid of?

A beautiful Carpathian-style wooden church, even with the traditional shingle design. Congratulations to the ACROD for their success in constructing this beautiful church, similar to those in Ploske, Banica, and Mirol'a amongst others.

I believe our Bishops will stop "breaking" the contract when the Romans quit complaining about how much it would mess-up their clerical balance. I think Ruthenians pitied the Roman clerics more then they followed orders in regards to married clergy. Not to mention, celibate clergy are easier to control from an Administrative standpoint.
Also, the Ruthenian Catholics through the Greek Catholic Union also have erected a beautiful church in south west Pennsylvania dedicated to the early settlers. It is all wood and built in Carpatho-Russian style. It sits on top of a hill and is truely a beautiful site to behold.

Dmitri

Is the ACROD part of a larger "canonical" Orthodox Church? Since it's a diocese, I'm supposing it is.

All the Orthodox jurisdictions confuse the heck outta me!

ChristTeen287

Oh come now, it's not all that bad!

ACROD is, if I'm not mistaken, a Diocese independent of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, but like the GOA is under the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Yeah, I find it confusing, too, at times! I also find it confusing to sort out the Malankara and Malabar Catholic Churches and just who they came from (I finally figured it out--Malankaras from those following the Non-Chalcedonian Tradition and the Malabars from the Assyrian Church of the East). I also found it hard when I first became Byzantine Catholic to understand what the difference between Byzantine Catholic, Ukrainian Catholic, Melkite Catholic, Italo-Albanian Catholic, Romanian Byzantine Catholic, etc. was, until I came to realize that all were Byzantine Catholics of different jurisdictions that utilized the Byzantine liturgical Rite!

In truth, though, I am glad there can be diversity.

In Christ,

anastasios

Here is a link to the St. Nicholas Chapel [gcuusa.com] of the GCU.

Christteen:

The ACROD is a Diocese in communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, but its members are Americans of Russyn origin (they are very integrated to the Anglo-American population) just like the Byzantine-Ruthenian Catholics, or and also many OCA members.

They are the descendants of former byzantine catholics who left union with Rome. They share part of their history with other former byzantine catholics that integrated to the OCA in the 1940's.

The foundation of this diocese and maybe the most important founder of Orthodoxy among Russyns in the USA, was the modernist Roman Catholic Bishop of the USA, John Ireland. This Bishop wanted an homogenous English-speaking Catholicism, so the Slavonic Byzantine inmigrants, their married priests and their special liturgical tradition were an obstacle. He first requested the Russyns to replace Slavonic with modern English (but he was also against the national communities of Latin-Rite Poles, Germans, Czechs... because of their "lack of integration". English masses appeared too, among Latins). He was specially bothered by the presence of married clergy from the East so he suspended married priests (even widowed priests) of Russyn background, and replaced them with Latin priests ("it was necessary for their integration").

Many priests and faithful refused to loose their identity and decided to go back to Orthodoxy (and this coincided with the Pan-Slavist propaganda, pan-Slavism also means Pan-Orthodoxy). The vast majority of them went along with the Russian Pan-Slavist dream of an autocephalous Church, but Father Orestes Chomock, and some priests and Bishops, who were honestly aware of the problem of canonicity, asked the Ecumenical Patriarchate, who had legitimate rights over the New World's canonical territories, to be received in orthodoxy.

Remie,

Yes, unfortunately I know all about +Bishop Ireland and Fr. Toth. Through this horrible disaster many good Catholics (O.K., Orthodox-in-communion-with-Rome) were lost.

Anastasios,

I've never found the Eastern Catholic Churches that confusing because they don't have "alliances" (such as "under" or "with" or "in communion" or whatever with, say, the Ecumenical Patriarchate). And how many "canonical" Orthodox Churches are there? I'm not at all saying this to point a finger at Orthodox jurisdictions, I am honestly baffled as to all these jurisdictions.

ChristTeen287

Dear Remie,

Most of the former Byzantine Catholics that joined the former Russian Metropolia (now the OCA) did so between 1891 and 1909 during the lifetime of St. Alexis Toth. See the book Orthodox Christians in North America 1794-1994 [http] by Mark Stokoe and Lenod Kishkovsky, pages 26-30.

The now ACROD was formed in 1938 by former Byzantine Catholics. That diocese grew from that time. For a nice history of that jurisdiction see this link [acrod.org] and/or the book Good Victory [amazon.com] by Fr. Lawrence Barriger.

Tony

Dear Christ Teen,

The "canonical" Orthodox Churches are

http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Orthodox-Churches/index.htm

ROCOR is an Orthodox Church of irregular status in that it is in communion with the Serbian Patriarchate and Jerusalem but does not share communion with other Orthodox Churches. While I myself find this to be somewhat strange, I blame the communists for it.

Any Church not listed above is either "non-canonical" (ie a Church that was invented by someone going into schism and thus not Orthodox) or highly irregular (the Macedonian situation). There are irregular Catholic Churches such as the SSPX and the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht. The schismatic tendancies of these groups does not bear on the legitimacy of the canonical Churches.

Things like the "Johnstown Diocese" are similar to what an Irish-descent Roman Catholic bishop might have done in America: set up an ethnic vicariate for his say German or Italian parishoners. The Johnstown Diocese is similiarly a "vicariate" of the Patriarchate of Constantinople albeit it is a full-fledged diocese.

I still find Eastern Catholic jurisdictions to be as confusing as Orthodox ones. If we are in full communion with Ukrainian Byzantine Catholics in America, why in the world don't we have one administration?? A strange situation came up in a recent conversation I had, that the priest of an Ukrainian parish in NY recently forbade a Melkite couple who belonged to a Melkite mission parish that had no building of its own to use the Ukrainian Church for the wedding since they were... not Ukrainian! And we are all Catholics here! Geez!

In Christ,

anastasios

Dear ChristTeen287,

It is really no different. The canonical Churches, Catholic and Orthodox are in communion with those with whom they share communion. The various BC jurisdictions are not horizontally in communion it is all vertical, then horizontal at the top. In the case of the Melkites their Patriarch is in communion with the Pope of Rome and all other Catholic heads of Churches. The same is true in Orthodoxy. This is why, for instance, in the Russian usage the "Dyptichs" are read only when the "Primate" celebtates, to indicate communion with the other autocephalous churches.

Don't be duped by the non-canonical Orthodox or Catholics, there are both you know. They are another story.

Tony

ChristTeen,

Don't feel bad. I am a little confused on this too. Can someone explain it from the top down?

What is the Ecumenical Patriarchate, for example?
How many Patriarchates are there and who are their Patriarchs?

Which group did Alexis Toth move to? This wasn't the Johnstown Diocese/ and why did the Johnstown Diocese form their own, rather than joining the Alexis Toth group?

What is ROCOR vs. the OCA, and what about the Greek Orthodox? In terms of numbers, which group is largest, smallest, etc.

I started out with two questions, and now its up to about 7 or 8.Thank you in advance for answers to any of them.

Peace,

Sam

Fr. Ron Roberson provides a very good overview of the various Eastern Christian Churches in his book "The Eastern Christian Churches". You can find it online at: http://www.eastern-christian-churches.net/library/books.asp?bookid=1

That website is still very much a work in progress and I have not had a chance to do anything on it over a year.

This is supposed to be Fr. R. G. Roberson's too

http://www.cnewa.org/ecc-introduction.htm