www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Charismatic Byzantine Sanctuary

Greetings to All,

I am glad to be back on this forum, after many, many months of being away. I hope everyone is doing well and that all discussions here are still informative and insightful.

I recently have been undertaking a study on the the different forms of liturgical practice in use in the Roman Catholic Church today. Among the topics of research include the pervasive presence of evangelicalism in tradionally Catholic countries.

One nation strongest hit by the evangelical wave of the 80's and 90's was Brazil. Which today boasts a wide milieu of Protestant and heretical sects. However the Charismatic movement in Brazil acted as a form of a Counter-Reformation there. One of its proponents was a former aerobics intructor turned Catholic priest, Fr. Marcel Rossi.

He is best known for conducting immense masses, outdone only by crowds at Papal services. He helped create over 30 congregations in his diocese alone. His church however, is what I found curious. It is very large, and would easily be called a mega-church if it had been built here in the U.S. It looks like a converted warehouse almost. The name of the church in Brazilian Portuguese is the Santu�rio Ter�o Bizantino, which according to an English translation is the Sanctuary of the Byzantine Rosary. I was wondering if anyone here was aware of this church and why it is called as it is. I just found it curious.

In the Trinity,

ProCatholico

You got my curiosity up so I went searching. If you plug this into google : Santu�rio Ter�o Bizantino
you will get a very interesting site. If you can't speak Spanish and I can't hit the translate button next to the page title on Google.

70,000 people wow

Also there is a page on the column on the left and you will find profile and then there is one below it I think from his family. Very interesting!

Pani Rose

PC & Rose,

I found it interesting, but it was difficult to follow the computer-generated translations and my own Portuguese language skills are too rusty and rudimentary for quality translation. I looked at several sites, including a few newspaper articles and at least one interview with the priest.

I couldn't find any reference to why the church is named as it is. I did get the impression that there is a healing ministry involved, a question of some "miracles", that there have been some allegations of "showmanship" made, and that the priest and his bishop either went to or were summoned to Rome. It wasn't clear to me whether the trip to Rome was to explain the success of his evangelization techniques to Vatican officials or for them to investigate the style of his ministry.

There also seems to be some concern on people's part that he may be on the way to founding his own Church, an allegation that he refutes with assertions of his loyalty to Rome.

If Filipe sees this and could give us a better understanding of what's going on (most of the sites are Brasilian Portuguese, not Spanish), I'd be interested in having a better sense of what's going on. One site, which was photos only, I found a bit disturbing - to my mind, there was something "cultish" about it. That was at:

Eh03 - Santuario do Terco Bizantino [rando.com.br]

Many years,

Neil

I don't think we should be surprised at any of this, not the success of the Pentecostals and others, or the developments within Catholicism there.

Brazil is essentially the largest Catholic country in the world, if one is to count only the Catholics in every country, they top the list.

The number of priests is far fewer than we have in the USA, and we think we have problems!

The ratio of priests to laypeople in Brazil is 1 : 9000 approximately. In the USA it is 1 : 1350 approximately.

I think we could see churches like that here in the future if the number of new vocations continues to slide.

Mega-churches would be the only way to minister to the population, with a very large staff of lay Eucharistic ministers! (One wonders if they should reintroduce subdeacons) The church could lose it's Catholic qualities entirely.

Pray for vocations.

Michael

Neil,

I think somewhere on this page you can find the explantion to the pictures, of course I have no idea of where http://www.rando.com.br/Cassia/curriculo/E/E.html

One has to click on the red arrow on the top of the page you posted and it takes you to this page.

Good point Michael.

Pani Rose

Rose,

That seems to be an index to the various photo pages - only 1 of which (at a quick skim) appears to be related to this particular priest and church. I don't find any explanatory text anywhere.

BTW, my comment about the "cultist" appearance of the photo spread relates directly to what appears to be a painting of the priest with golden rays, suggestive of saintliness, emanating from his head.

Many years,

Neil

Neil,

I see what you mean. I thought it looked kind of strange too.

Pani Rose

Apparently "ter�o bizantino" refers to the Byzantine rosary, i.e., the prayer rope or chotki. Here's another site that instructs the faithful on the use of the ter�o. The prayer appears to be ejaculations of the Holy Name of Jesus.

Ter�o Bizantino [catolicanet.com.br]

I read somewhere that 200,000 Catholics a day are leaving the Church for cults.

Morning everyone,

Thank you all for you're responses. And it does indeed appear that the Santu�rio Ter�o Bizantino
is named after the Byzantine chotki.

As to allegations of the groups cultish tendencies, I would surmise that this impression is giving largely due to the fact that the Sanctuary has a charismatic bent. And most posters/readers here view this movement as something foreign when put in the context of your own traditions.

As I've explained, I am convinced that the Brazilian Catholic charismatic movement of the 80's and 90's acted as a buffer to stifle the growth of evangelicalism and sectarianism in that country. Therefore it seems only natural that some innovations to the Faith had been created to better relate to the people's spiritual needs. I may or may not agree with them but the point is that these innovations (i.e. faith healing, exorcisms, speaking in tongues, etc) did occur.

The link I have provided below includes photographs from a Corpus Christi celebration of the Sanctuary. As you may note their congregation is very large. Also the presence of a bishop confirms to me that this Sanctuary, while being charismatically-charged :p is faithful to the local Magesterium.

Corpus Christi Mass at the Sanctuary [marcelorossi.org.br]

Also, is there any mega-churches of the Catholic Church in the United States? Many congregations and buildings are quite large (icluding my own parish) but I have never seen anything massive to the extent of some Protestant churches.

Thanks again,

ProCatholico

That website appears to be an on-line portfolio of an individual artist. If you click on the red aroww enough times it will take you to a page labeled "curriculo artistico" with links to pages labelled 'group shows', 'solo shows' etc.

The index appears to be of work made in honor of certain people. For instance, near the bottom of the list is a painting made for the President of Brasil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, along with a picture of the artist presenting her work to the president.

The Charismatic Renewal in Brazil and South America is indeed credited for stopping the exit of people from the Catholic Church. Here is one example of how it is affecting the country:

28/09/2002
Spiritual warfare in Africa
Kristina Cooper

The Catholic Church in Uganda is experiencing a revival: there are stories everywhere of healings and miraculous conversions. The editor of Good News, the British magazine of the Charismatic Renewal, went to see for herself.

THE scene before me is parish life but not as I know it in the West. Under the trees women cook and wash while a mad, violent young man with his hands tied thrashes around in the dust, screaming. Fr Gerard Mwonge has been priest of this parish of Christ the King in Butema, a rural area in northern Uganda, since 1997. He used to be the diocesan archivist and still looks the part: he is hesitant and bespectacled, certainly not the stereotype of a healer and exorcist. But such is his reputation that crowds arrive in his parish every day seeking help. �They often spend weeks here�, he explains. �They sleep in the church at night and look for healing.�

Fr Gerard has stumbled into this ministry almost in spite of himself. His background and education � he trained for the priesthood in Rome and was for years a desk man � did not predispose him to Catholic Charismatic Renewal, with its exuberant worship and charisms. He saw it as superficial and emotional and for years he spoke against it.

But then his bishop sent him to a witchcraft-infested area deep in the country to begin a new parish. He had no funds, no experience and the task seemed overwhelming. The day he arrived a man and his family camped out in his office for three days, tormented by evil spirits and seeking deliverance. He realised then he needed help and that charismatic renewal � with its understanding about the role and power of the Holy Spirit and of deliverance from evil spirits � could provide it. He began attending retreats and seminars to learn about the baptism of the Spirit and the charisms. In the process he was healed of high blood pressure for which he had been on medication for years and a peptic ulcer which had been disturbing him since 1980. �I spent six years in Europe�, he recalls. �I went to many doctors who used many machines and medicines but I didn�t get better. But with a simple prayer I was healed.�

Fr Gerard was prayed over by Fr Joseph Bill, an Indian priest who said he should start giving monthly retreats in his parish, preaching the Gospel and praying over people. �The Lord will heal them�, he promised. Inspired by Fr Bill�s words and impressed by his own cure, in 1998 Fr Gerard began leading healing retreats on the last weekend of every month. �At first I didn�t believe that people would be healed�, he remembers. �But I started to see wonderful results and people came back to thank me.�

They still come � Muslims, Protestants as well as Catholics, even witch doctors � from miles around. Friday is officially the day for praying over the sick, but they arrive every day, walking, perhaps for days, or on the back of motor scooters, pick-up trucks and the odd ambulance sent from the local hospital. Who could turn them away because it is not Friday?

Clergy training is ill-equipped for dealing with this demand. �We learnt nothing about how to deal with evil spirits in seminary�, recalls Fr Gerard. His curate, Fr George, did an academic paper on the influence of witchcraft on Christianity but never imagined that one day he would actually be in the frontline of spiritual warfare. �I interviewed many witch doctors for my paper and they told me all kinds of things, but I didn�t believe them�, he told me. �At seminary we were taught theoretically about the existence of evil spirits but they never taught us how to deal with them in a pastoral situation. We have learned what we know through our own experience.�

In Africa spirits cannot be explained away as metaphors. Throughout my time in Uganda, I was constantly amazed by the matter-of-fact way people referred to the presence of evil spirits, which are seen simply as part of life. While I was having supper, for example, at another small lay community, a little boy who was sitting at the table suddenly began to scream. He fell to the floor in a fit. He was quietly carried out to be ministered to while the rest of us carried on eating. I asked one of the girls, who was a nurse, whether he was an epileptic. �No�, she said. �He doesn�t show the right symptoms. We are praying to find out what is wrong.� Evil spirits turned out to be the explanation. I watched the healing, which involved getting the spirits to reveal themselves and confess their names. It was all done with firmness and kindness. Over the course of the next couple of days, the boy was prayed for by various members of the community, in between lots of bicycle riding and rest. By the end of the week his bedwetting and convulsions were over, and he was ready to go home.

In Uganda, witchcraft exerts a huge spiritual and cultural hold over people, in spite of their Christian faith. The wife of the chairman of the parish council told me how the family had given 50 goats and 100 hens to a witch doctor so that she might be healed of a �spirit of suicide� which, she said, threatened to kill her. She spent so much money seeking a cure that she had to withdraw her children from school because they could no longer pay the school fees. (She was eventually healed by the Charismatic Renewal, and became a committed Christian.) Even national politicians will invoke the spirits for protection in their campaigns; Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord�s Resistance Army, one of the main rebel forces fighting in the north, is known to seek military advice from a council of spirits, who help him to form his military strategy.

Only very devout Christians such as Regina Bashaasha Ndyamuhalu resist the lure of the witch doctors. A member of the international Grail community for more than 30 years, for 17 of these Regina suffered from a severe kidney complaint. During that time many of her well-intentioned Catholic friends suggested a witch doctor to her. �I told them I would rather be sick and be with Jesus, than healed by a witch doctor�, she recalls. In 1998 she was healed through the power of Christ and the prayers of a Catholic priest. Such was the extent of her healing that she was able to have an internal morphine pain-relief pump removed from her body.

It is easier in Africa to accept the possibility of dark forces at work than in the West, where strange illnesses are hidden from public view. Equally, it is hard in Africa to separate the psychological, physical, and spiritual. Consider Stella, a cheerful-looking 22-year-old member of the Christ the King choir who was psychologically disturbed for years. �I went to witch doctors and to the hospital but no one could help me�, she said. �I had the spirit of suicide and wanted to kill myself. I did not know God at all. I could not understand where I was at times and would fall unconscious.�

Stella was prayed with for deliverance and healed, a process which involved, said Fr Gerard, forgiving her father who had not allowed her to go to school. She went to confession. Fr George, the curate, prayed for her, and she received the gift of reading � without ever having learned how to read. �She even reads quite well�, said Fr Gerard in that matter-of-fact-tone. �She reads in church.�

Anxious to give witness to all that God has been doing among these people, Fr Gerard arranged for those who have been healed or delivered from evil spirits to witness for me after evening Mass. Among them is Sr Apollonia, a serious-looking 50-year-old religious sister from the local congregation of St Teresa. A car accident in 1995 broke her spinal cord in three places and left her bedridden, she explains. She was referred to Germany for treatment but it was too expensive. Then, in 1998, she was taken on a stretcher by friends to a retreat given by Fr Joseph Bill, the Indian priest mentioned earlier, and was entirely healed during the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. In case I had any doubts about the fullness of her recovery, her eyes lit up and she danced before the applauding congregation.

And up they came, a whole stream of people who stood up one by one to declare joyfully what Jesus had done for them. They had been dumb, mad or psychologically disturbed; crippled, epileptic, haemorrhaging; they had had cancer, epilepsy and asthma. By turns they declared that they had been healed by prayer and the power of the Lord Jesus. So many people wanted to testify that in the end the parish catechist simply resorted to calling out the afflictions and doing a headcount of those who had been healed. It was an impressive � and amazingly heterogeneous � list. The frontrunners, too many to count, were those who had been �bewitched� or who had �left church and now returned�, and �smokers, drunkards and alcoholics�, all classed as one condition. Then came insomnia (50), high blood pressure (26 � including the parish priest), madness (21), sand in the eyes (21), asthma (12), VD and sexually transmitted diseases (much embarrassment about this one until �ulcers� were added; about 12 people then put up their hands), needing to wear glasses (11), could not breast-feed (7), lameness (6), cancer (5), haemorrhaging (5), epilepsy (4), and diabetes (3).

One of those who testified was a 44-year-old man called John, a former witch doctor. Rivalry with another, more powerful, witch doctor led to his being bewitched himself, and he was unable to sleep for 14 days. His family took him everywhere for help, but there was nothing to be done. In desperation he was taken to some members of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal who prayed for him. �I was the devil�s agent�, he cried, �but because of Jesus� love I was delivered.� Because of the man�s involvement in the occult, Fr Gerard later told me, it had taken almost five days of prayer for him to be set free. Afterwards, as a sign of his repentance, the man burnt all his fetishes and gave up his practices. Fr Gerard estimates that about 35 witch doctors have converted and given up their craft in the past five years. And those who still do practise now have serious competition from the parish of Christ the King. Unlike the witch doctors, the parish does not charge for its cures.

Everywhere I went in Uganda, I saw this extraordinary yet everyday ministry of healing and deliverance being exercised by Catholic priests. �For us this charismatic renewal is something new�, a man in one village told me, �but we understand it has been around in the Church for a long time. Why did no one tell us about it before?� There was joy in his voice, but some indignation, too, because he realised what he had been missing before. For him and other poor people like him, this Gospel proclaimed with signs and wonders and conversions is just like Jesus coming to town.

By the way, I forgot to mention that I own a Cd by Fr. Rossi, now buried somewhere under stacks and stacks of other Cds. I was actually a bit disappointed by the arrangements (I was hoping for something more 'brazilian' sounding) but he has a pleasant voice and the music is similar to some I've heard before. I even recognized some of the songs!

All,

I'm still on the quest to discover the meaning behind the name of the Brazilian charismatic church called the Sanctuary of the Byzantine Rosary.

I came across a new site, replete with photos from and around the Sanctuary.

Photos from the Sanctuary of the Byantine Rosary, Brazil [catolicanet.com.br]

I found the mosaic behind the altar (apparently of the Byzantine rosary)to add a unique Eastern flavor to a very Latin, charismatic center.

In the Trinity,

ProCatholico

Well here is a link to the Rule of the Mother of God from St. Simeon. Or could it be because the Byzantine Rosary is slightly different from the Roman version/

http://www.angelfire.com/pa3/OldWorldBasic/RuleofMotherofGod.htm