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"No one can ask for more. For myself, I find that the spiritual nourishment of Byzantine Christianity supersedes considerations of canonical communion, so Sunday away from a Greek Catholic parish will find me in an Orthodox parish, even if there is a Latin parish just across the street."

So, Stuart, would it be fair to say you view yourself as being Byzantine first and Catholic second? I am not at all trying to label you; truly asking an honest question. And I won't bite your head off about the answer.

Alexis

From the Code of Canons of the Oriental Churches.

Canon 880.3

Holy days of obligation common to all the Eastern Churches, beyond Sundays, are the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Epiphany, the Ascension, the Dormition of the Holy Mary Mother of God and the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul...

I don't doubt that the question is meant honestly. But since "Byzantine" is not the name of a religion, and "Catholic" is not the name of a liturgical tradition, the question is more than a little puzzling.

Fr. Serge

My thanks to Father Serge. The question is indeed puzzling, as it establishes a false dichotomy between Catholicism and Byzantine Christianity that implies the Churches of the Eastern Orthodox communion are somehow not "Catholic", in the same manner that some people posit that being Catholic precludes being Orthodox. I am an Orthodox Christian in communion with the Church of Rome, and my highest priority is living out my faith as an Orthodox Christian.

Father Ambrose needs to understand the extent to which the CCEO is merely the Codex Canonorum of 1983 in Eastern garb. Several leading Eastern Catholic prelates, including Patriarch Maximos V, condemned the CCEO as being a Western document whose form and spirit were antithetical to the Eastern Christian Tradition.

Yes, the CCEO is perhaps the biggest attempt at Latinization of the Eastern Catholic Churches in history.

I doubt it was intended that way. The canonists at the Vatican are just lazy and provincial. They took what they had and ran with it, not thinking that there even was a completely different Eastern Christian approach to canons.

While I am not a great fan of the CCEO, I would not go this far especially in light of the pontificate of Pio Nono and other historical circumstances such as the treatment of the Greek Catholic bishops in North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Well, Pius IX may have wanted to impose a Latin canonical approach on the Eastern Catholic Churches, but it was only during the "enlightened" period after Vatican II that such a move was successfully completed.

You are a more generous person than I am, because I think that the authors of the CCEO intended to be exactly what it is, a complete Latinization of the canons of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

Again I would disagree - if Pio Nono had authored the CCEO there would likely have been no provisions for any church to make particular law or even convene Synods and all upper decisions would be from the Holy See for every Eastern Catholic Church, including the appointing of all bishops.

After his restoration of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem (and appointing "Guiseppe the Butcher" as the first "restored" Patriarch), forcing Patriarch Clement to accept the Gregorian calendar which caused another schism within the Melkite church eventually leading to the abdication of Clement, the famous placing of the papal foot upon the head of Clement's successor Patriarch Gregory, etc. again I do not think the CCEO in the same ballpark.

Luckily Leo XIII had enough vision and sense to begin to reverse and repair some of the damage.

Actually, the first attempt to bring Eastern Catholics under a common system of canon law occurred in 1917, when the first Code of Canons was promulgated and a series of multu proprios issued to cover circumstances specific to the Eastern "rites". Until that time, the Eastern "rites" pretty much used the same canons as the Orthodox. Anthony Dragani, for instance, shows that the canons of the Council in Trullo provided the normative marriage regulations for Eastern Catholics of the Byzantine rite until 1917.

Alas, it appears unlikely that we will agree on this topic.

The CIC and the CCEO are about 90 percent identical, and if that isn't a massive Latinization, I don't know what is.

I wish Eastern Catholics were still using the same canons as the Orthodox.

Just my two cents here. Unity, yes. Subjection, no.

Converted Viking