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I have some questions regarding the cathedral pictures of the Immaculate Conception cathedral thta I saw on the picture forum recently. I didn't know that the Roman Catholics had such interesting church buildings. Do they say mass facing away from the people? The communion table looks different than other Roman churches I've been to. Very Byzantine paintings too. How does this church fit in? I am sure the are Catholic since they believe in the teaching of the Immaculate Conception. I at least know that. All very beautiful.

Ed

I believe that was the Urkainian Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

If you notice, the altar has the exact dimensions that god described to Moses in the desert. There are many similarities to the worship in the Old Temple to the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, which is a shorter version of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, which is a shorter version of the Divine Liturgy of St. James the Brother of the Lord. St. James patterned the worship of the Early Church from the Old Temple Liturgy, or so I've read.

The priest doesn't turn his back on the people, he stands as the leader in the worship with his face turned to the East and metaphorically to God, just like Moses did. The priest also comes out at various times to bless the people, read from the Gospels, and to preach.

The "communion table" is a little table which holds the Icon of the Feast Day or of the venerated Saint(s) of the day.

Thank you, the Church is beautiful.

Thank you, Dr. Eric. This is interesting. Did the Ukrainian Greek Catholics have to accept the Immaculate COnception to be Catholic? I thought they were more like the Orthodox Church which doesn't belive in it.

Ed

Once again I have another questoin that is related to the accepted dogma of the Immaculate Conception that the Ukrainian Greek Catholics accept in order to be considered true Catholics. The question is this - did they also have to accept the Catholic dogma of the Assumption that Rome mandates to be considered an acceptable Catholic? I ask this because another photo on the photo forum showed up about a church with the name Assumption in it. In my studies of Eastern Orthodoxy, it would seem that the Ukrainian Greek Catholics have turned to another church's dogmas. is this problematic for them?

Ed

This website can offer you answers to many of your questions about Eastern Catholicism (which includes Ukrainian Catholics) http://www.east2west.org/doctrine.htm

I am Ukrainian Catholic, I am just as Catholic as a Roman Catholic, and a Roman Catholic is just as Catholic as me. We do, however, have a completely different spirituality and we have different theological interpretations on original sin, purgatory, and marriage that mirrors our Orthodox brethren and our understanding of the Trinity is more closer to the Orthodox understanding than the Latin one.

As for the Immaculate Conception some Ukrainians here on the forum may have mixed feelings but the grand, grand, majority of Ukrainian Catholics believe in it (they are, after all, Catholic). As for myself I would die to defend this holy dogma.

As for the Assumption I believe, like the Orthodox, in the Holy Dormition, which teaches that Mary (being Immaculate and all) did not die (it is kind of impossible to die if you don't have original sin) but fell asleep. The apostles mistaken her as dead (quite common for people in deep coma's to be mistaken as dead before modern medicine, as I am sure you know, heck even Pius XII made this mistake 55 years ago ), and after being placed in her tomb God assumed her into Heaven.


Hope this helps.

(edited for website address)

Sorry Zan...

The Orthodox definitely believe Mary Died!!! There is no "wiggle room" in Orthodoxy about this...Take a look simply at the hymns of vespers for the Dormition...(rather than getting into a tit for tat regarding interpretation of the fathers)...

I stand corrected.

Regardless, Edhash, many Catholics believe, like I said, that she did not die but fell asleep.

Hi Ed,


You're a character!

Eastern Catholics don't accept dogmas just "to be considered true Catholics" -- They are true Catholics!

Catholic dogma cannot be "something new": that's called heresy. But, they can be proclaimed as dogmas by the Church much later, when necessary or otherwise appropriate. As proclamations, that of the Immaculate Conception was in 1854, and that of the Assumption was in 1950. The UGCC was in Communion with Rome (again) long before that.

Best,
Michael

Let's talk about a case all can agree on. Jesus did not have original sin yet he died.
That being said, the Catholic church does not take a position whether Mary died or not.

The Latins don't but the East is explicity clear that Mary DID DIE...

Without, parsing what church fathers have said...again I say...look simply at what we pray and profess during the vespers and matins services of the Dormition...If you don't believe that...then you need to do some re-evaluation of what you believe...

Chris

The Kontakion and the Irmos used by part of the Catholic Church for the Feast of the Dormition clearly indicate that the Theotokos experienced death.

From the Kontakion:
(emphasis mine)

From the Irmos:
(emphases mine)

Without death, the Theotokos - model of Christians - would have failed to imitate her Son in all things.

And I would say most Latin if not all theologians teach that Mary experienced the pangs of death just like her Son did, although not out of necessity.
Stephanos I

In the Catholic Church one is allowed to believe Mary did not die and many Catholics, Eastern and Western, believe that. I do not need to evaluate anything seeing how everything I believe is accepted by the Church as being a valid expression of the Catholic faith, and I do not take spiritual advice from people on the internet whom I do not know and who are of a different religion than mine, thanks anyways.

Jesus Christ was murdered, and did not die a natural death.

If the result of sin is death, like the East teaches, and if Mary is Immaculate (like what is said in the Divine Liturgy) and with out sin then she could not die a natural death. Vespers and matins may say that she "died" just as Pius XII said but these can be interpreted and being figurative.

Mary's death couldn't be anything but supernatural.

Zan,

What you have shared here is really nothing more than a pious fiction with absolutely no basis in tradition. Mary was actually napping and then those medically ignorant apostles buried her in a tomb? There's a nightmare scenario for you! (ala Thomas a Kempis) And Our Lord permitted all this to happen to His Holy Mother? If you were divine and had the power over life and death would you want that to happen to your sinless mother?

I think not!

As St. Alexander of Alexandria (4th century) wrote:

Our Lord Jesus Christ in very deed (and not merely in appearance) carried a body, which was of Mary, mother of God.

Sorry - if you actually read the Dormition traditions from the Fathers as well as our liturgical texts, you will see that no such belief is acceptable to Orthodoxy or Catholicism. The beautiful writings Sts. John of Damascus, Andrew of Crete and Germanos of Constantinople are perfectly clear on this matter: Mary died because it was fitting for her to die in perfect conformity to her Son so that she might experience the Resurrection and glorification of her humanity.

As Father Stephanos mentioned, there was no necessity for her to die, but rather there was a fittingness that she die also due to her role as the New Eve and her maternal care for the Church. A mother always goes before her children, especially to a place that may be feared, and leads the way.

So given her great holiness of life, her participation in the redemption of the world through her Son, and her freedom from the ancestral curse, the death of the Theotokos was completely voluntary on her part. There is even a tradition that she asked her Son to take her, also requesting that she be spared seeing the faces of the demons who sometimes come to attack the holy ones in their moment of death. (This is even mentioned in the marvellous Orthodox text The Life of the Virgin Mary, The Theotokos published by Holy Apostles Convent and Dormition Skete, which, incidentally, also vehemently denies the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception.)

Additionally, like Christ, the fathers are unanimous in stating that corruption did not touch her holy body in the tomb.

Here are some wonderful texts on the Dormition:

http://www.balamand.edu.lb/theology/feastdormition.htm#text

Like you, I believe deeply in the Mary's graced primordial perfection of holiness from the first moment of her creation. "Holy her beginning, holy her end, holy her whole life." as the fathers teach us. She is the New Eve, and all that Eve possessed in her creation through Adam, in the very least Mary can be said to have received through Christ at her conception. So without resorting to popular notions such as the scenario you mentioned above, it is possible to reconcile her holy beginning to her mortal, yet equally holy, end.

As Metropolitan Kallistos Ware has stated:


As to Latin Catholics, I disagree that they are free to deny the death of Mary. The patristic tradition of the Church is very clear on this matter, and it has been taught magisterially through the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Churches. Just because Pope Pius XII did not explicitly address this in his definition of the Dogma of the Assumption, making reference in a vaugue way to the end of her earthly life, does not mean it is an open question for the Church.

In ICXC,

Gordo