Byzantine Divine Liturgy to be Celebrated in Kalkaska
The Byzantine Catholic Divine Liturgies of St. Basil the Great and St. John Chrysostom will be celebrated on a monthly basis at St. Mary of the Woods in Kalkaska beginning the First Sunday of Lent, March 1st at 4:30 p.m. Bishop Patrick Cooney of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gaylord and Bishop John Kudrick of the Byzantine Eparchy of Parma granted their approval in January with the hope of more fully ministering to Eastern Rite Catholics living in northern lower Michigan. These liturgies are the equivalent of the Roman Catholic Holy Mass. Fr. James Barrand, who was ordained at the Byzantine Ruthenian Cathedral of St. Mary in California in 1989, will be the presider for the Divine Liturgies. Fr. Barrand is a bi-ritual priest who has been granted faculties to celebrate Mass in both the Latin and Byzantine rites. He is currently assigned as Pastor to St. Mary of the Woods, Kalkaska
Glory to Jesus Christ! This is such welcome news and an answer to the prayers for any Byzantine Catholics in Northern Michigan. We have nothing up here , all the Byzantine Catholic parishes are in the southeastern part of the state. I will have somewhere to go that will be fifty miles away. My closest option so far has been a hundred-fifty mile trip one way. I will have the chance to attend Divine Liturgy again once a month. I just ran across this tonight by accident really, the above is copied from the Diocese of Gaylord website. Invictus, I have no idea really what it takes to start a parish but I believe you have to start a mission first which would probably be done by getting some people together and approaching the Bishops. Then again some of the knowledgeable people here will be able to tell you. I think that is what these people did because the article went on to say this began as a request tby a few Byzantine families to Bishop Cooney to minister to their pastoral needs. How many the few are I don`t know but it doesn`t sound like there were too many. I really hhope they get enough people to make this succeed so we can maybe have a lasting Byzantine presence in this area of Michigan. Anyhow I wanted to get this posted so that maybe it could be added by the administraters here to the list of parishs/missions.
