www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Byzantine Catholic congregation gathers for last time in Akron

Good, now let's hope that they will become more acquainted to make St. Nicholas their new home.

Bob,

Then you are part of the problem - instead of analyzing why you think the Ruthenians won't survive, try going mostly to your Ruthenian parish and work toward being part of the solution.

Many years,

Neil

Yes, I know, I am a Latin with a leaning Byzantine spirit, and I am looking to eventually become a parishioner at St. John the Baptist Ruthenian Cathedral here once I've moved to a condominium nearby.

One begins to wonder at the degree of commitment demonstrated by the people of the "Old Country", who won't go to a new parish fifteen or twenty miles away because it's "not convenient". Out here, on the wild frontier, Eastern Churches of any sort are thin on the ground, and people travel from Front Royal (70+ miles) and Fredericksburg (45+ miles) to attend Liturgy. Same thing on the Maryland side of the River. Of course, one could argue with the Church's choices of parishes to close--frequently it seems they choose the less viable one to keep and ditch the ones that are potentially stronger--but still, either you're committed to the Tradition or you are not.

We can't be to judgmental in this area. I travel an hour to go Liturgy. However, I can't afford to go every Sunday and it is hard on my little ones. If I lived closer I would go to vespers and Liturgy every week.

The Diaspora is still very very real - hang on for dear life to your traditions my brothers and sisters - they are less than one generation away from disappearing - they always have been - so it is up to each generation to keep the faith.

The JEWS have been doing it for a very very long time - and preserving everything under severe persecution -

WE CAN DO THIS!

therefore we chant - Commenmoration Our Most ... let us commit (commend?)ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.

I've seen both commit and commend used ... commend was a feudal law term whereby you submit yourself to be under the protection of a lord ... interesting to me - different meanings altogether.

The correct translation is "commend". Whoever decided on commit did not have a particularly good mastery of English. This is the most common shortcoming of technical translators of all sorts, including liturgical and biblical translators.

I think this is a very important point to remember. Gas is over $3 a gallon. Young children need to be fed and to nap. If a person has to drive an hour or more, stay for a 90 minute liturgy, and drive an hour back home, the kids are going to be tired and cranky.

Nobody in my parish drives less than 20 minutes to get to church, including our priest. Some drive over an hour, with one man who makes the weekly trek from Reno to Sacramento (about 2 1/2 hours). We are a small, but dedicated group. Many who have young children don't make it every week. We only have about 12 active families, with 1/2 of us having 4-6 children, all under 11 years old.

Frankly, having a commuter parish makes it very difficult to have a really strong parish life. The families who live out of town can almost never come for Holy Days. We're lucky to have 3-4 people present for Vespers. It is difficult for people to show up to clean the church, do needed repairs, and support fundraisers. On the positive side, almost everyone stays 1-2 hours after liturgy for lunch. Then the little ones start to need naps.

I'm having trouble sympathizing, since I know several families with multiple children, including infants, who somehow manage to schlep 150 miles round trip every Sunday in a large van. Their kids, by the way, are all very well behaved.

As for having a strong parish life, you need a small nucleus of people who at least live near the church, and then people from farther away who can come in as occasion necessitates. Then you need only have a parish gathering ever month or so, which shouldn't be too great a hardship.

But, I really do think in light of shifting demographic patterns, the Church would be well served if it actually erected parishes where the people are, and closed those which it inherited but which no longer have a community to support them. Too often the Church seems to close parishes that do have viable communities because it's loathe to close parishes that have recently undergone modernization or refurbishment, even if those don't have the cadre to support them. The result is too often the people from the church that was closed do not go to the church that remained open, and the latter ends up collapsing, too.

I don't know what has been going on in Passaic but in Pittsburgh every parish closed since Metropolitan Judson, of blessed memory, has been down to less than thirty regular Sunday attendees and had another parish within a 20 minute drive or less.

Infants are easy. They don't really become problems until they are toddlers . We're there every week, with 5 children under 10, but I still have tremendous sympathy for those who can't make it.

Perhaps you can find some sympathy for the couple in their 70s, 30-year parishioners, who find that they can no longer handle the 100 mile drive (each way), financially or physically.

The reality is, gas is expensive and travel is difficult. Some people and some families are more able to deal with those difficulties than others. Those who can, will. Others will do something else. I'm not in a position to second-guess what somebody else decides works for their family. I'm happy to see them when they can come.

In Sacramento, we have a several Eastern churches: 2 Ukrainian (1 Ukrainian speaking, 1 English speaking), Ruthenian, Melkite, Chaldean, Maronite, and a Syro-Malabar mission. The Ukrainian speaking parish, the Chaldean parish, and the Maronite parish are thriving. The Melkite parish is holding its own, but was hit hard by the opening of the Chaldean and Maronite parishes. The Ruthenian parish (mine) and the English speaking Ukrainian parish are struggling. The thriving churches have current immigration from the homeland.

Within a 5 mile radius of our parish, we have at least seven Catholic churches. Within a 10 mile radius, we probably have thirty Catholic churches. Less than 2 miles away from our parish is a thriving FSSP (Tridentine Mass) parish. They are bursting at the seams, with 3 priests, 3 Masses every Sunday, well attended Vespers on Sunday evening, and parish activities during the week. We have 50 people each week. Ours is not a demographic issue. Our parish is about 50% convert, 40% Latin Rite or former Latin Rite, and 10% cradle Byzantine. When you say that the church should erect parishes where the people are, do you mean Ruthenians or Ukrainians or whatever ethnic group? Out here, the Slavic immigrants are all Baptist and Pentecostal. We don't share the situation of an abandoned inner-city. We are where the people are. We just need to evangelize, which is increasingly difficult in a hostile, secular world.

We are where the people are. We just need to evangelize, which is increasingly difficult in a hostile, secular world.

In a nutshell, this is our problem. Well said.

You can blame translation, music, personalities, lack of vocations, language....but by far secularism is the biggest problem.

To overcome the crisis on an individual parish level you need evangelization through media, advertising, charitable social activities, near-perfect priests with a strong corp of deacons, cantors, teachers and various activity coordinators. How do you pull together such talented people. Do you go to colleges, monasteries, hospitals, social service organizations and actively recruit and proselytize? Maybe...

Or maybe our Churches should lock up on weekdays and lease a room in the mall for daily activities.

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll only get what you already got."

If we don't employ new ways, then maybe our best direction is the early church system of "household churches" with a priest coming twice a year for the Mysteries. We have a recent example of this under Soviet suppression and it kept the Church alive.

Then you also have the population per capita problem, too. Around here in NE Ohio, which is where these parishes are located, you know that most of the urban populations are minorities, ones that are in poverty, and most of the people that are evangelicals and that do make money, and work are primarily suburban, and prefer their church to be in the suburbs as well.

This was the problem with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland about 3 1/2 years ago when Bishop Lennon had to close or merge at least 50 churches. Now admittedly Bishop Lennon's approval rating of how he's leading the Diocese of Cleveland may have taken a huge hit after that, sure, and the Vatican did order reopenings of about a dozen of those parishes (mainly ethnic parishes).

At last Sunday's Divine Liturgy over at Holy Spirit Parish, which was followed by a St. Nicholas Spaghetti Dinner, Fr. James Batcha made a good point when it came to all this, is that a lot of these people are too dependent on a specific priest, or of a specific parish, and trying to keep their own community. We should really be worshiping the Divine Lord, and being together in Him, we should not be dependent solely on where we worship, or who we want celebrating our worship with... That was a very, strong, but real point in all this.

Also, unlike the Akron area, where you only have one Byzantine Church in, like, a 10 mile area, in Cleveland/Parma, you have Byzantine Rite parishes (if you include the UGCC Parishes), like one within every 1 - 2 miles of each other, so that would make things more convenient, if one parish closes, they won't have too much further to go to get to the next one. I feel for how much further the St. Michael's congregation has to go to get to St. Nicholas in Barberton, though, that's an even tougher drive.

You all back east have no idea... If our parish closed, the nearest Byzantine Catholic church is 130 miles away.