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Hi,

I read the phrase "Oriental Catholics" for the first time a few months ago. As I understand, that they are the Catholic versions of Oriental Orthodox like the Eastern Catholics relate to Eastern Orthodox. Since there are some subtle differences between Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox, do differences outside of ethnic culture and slight liturgical differences exist between Eastern and Oriental Catholic?

Mods, please feel free to move this is there is a better place for it.

Anastasia,

In North America, I think the Maronites would probably be the most common among Oriental Catholics. From what I've experienced, their liturgy is beautiful, but can also be very latinized. It's a lot more simplified than the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and felt more like a Roman Mass to me. I imagine that would mean they've become similar in spirituality to Roman Catholics as well. Although things could be very different in Lebanon, that's been my experience in this country.

P.S. Welcome to byzcath

Thank you.

Is the difference between a given Oriental Catholic Church and an Eastern Catholic Church like the difference between two different Eastern Catholic Churches? Are they organized the same? Do they approach theology basically the same?

I think the member here Mardukm would be the most qualified to answer that for you. I think he's a Coptic Catholic convert from Coptic Orthodoxy.

I have many times heard (or read) that the only Eastern Catholic Churches are the UGCC, the Melkite Church, the Romanian Catholic Church, the Ruthenian Catholic Church, etc etc (i.e. all the ones that use the Byzantine Rite), and that others like the Coptic Catholic Church should be called Oriental Catholic.

But the thing is, the people who say that usually don't define what they count as "Oriental Catholic" -- whether it is only the ones that correspond to an Oriental Orthodox Church, or whether the term also includes e.g. the Maronite Church.

The Maronite Church is in a unique position but I would still use Oriental Catholic Church to describe this patriarchal Church. Just as I would use Eastern Catholic to describe the Italo-Greek/Albanian Catholic Church, which has no Eastern Orthodox counterpart.

The Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Venice, now The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy and Exarchate of Southern Europe.

The terminology is totally Western (although Latin doesn't make a distinction between "Oriental" and "Eastern") and I'm not aware of an Oriental/Eastern language which does make the distinction between "Oriental" and "Eastern" (we can in Arabic, but it's not terrible usual).

I've assumed that Oriental means Eastern and Occidental means western.

Try googling the phrase "Eastern and Oriental Catholic Churches".

Oriental Churches are the deeper Middle Eastern Churches, Oriental Orthodox and Oriental Catholic churches. Eastern Churches are either bother Eastern and Oriental (more similar perspectives, history, and cultures) or the ones from Antioch north to Eastern Europe with Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic.

Generally the "Oriental Catholics" are the Syriac Catholics, Maronites, Copts, Syro-Malankara, Armenian Catholics, Ethiopian/Eritrean Catholics, and loosely the Chaldean and Syro-Malabar Catholics although the latter two would fall into a different family of Tradition to be perfectly accurate.

These are somewhat different in their theology and tradition that the "Eastern Orthodox" or "Byzantine Churches". The Syriac and Armenian Churches for example, do not necessarily hold a position of Supreme Authority by a Patriarch or Pope to be lacking as the Byzantine's usually do. Also, the theology of Essences and Energies are not dogmatic as in Eastern Orthodox/Byzantine Catholicism. The theology of the Immaculate Conception, even as defined by the Latin scholastic terminology, is not necessarily problematic. Most of these Churches also hold a Miaphysite view of Christology. These Churches also do not have one singular shared Liturgy and are more open to diversity in expression. They also sometimes openly have Saints, who in their lifetime, were adversarial toward each other.

Culturally, the "Oriental" Catholics and Orthodox maintain much more of the older Jewish cultural traditions (many don't each pork for example, men/women sit separately in Church, etc) and other local variants because they are ethnic descendants of those people; and are also more Semitic, rather than Greek or Latin in culture.

The distinction between 'Eastern' and 'Oriental' as regards the two Christian communions is one created to define a distinction. The terms are actually synonyms and the distinction is, therefore, artificial at best - and cannot readily be made in some languages - French, for instance, which lacks separate words for Eastern and Oriental.

Churches that utilize the Constantinoplian or Byzantine Rite are typically termed 'Eastern' (Orthodox or Catholic) Churches, with most others typically (even properly, given contemporary usage) referred to as 'Oriental' (Orthodox or Catholic) Churches.

'Eastern Catholic' and 'Oriental Catholic' have most often been employed interchangeably as umbrella terms, most commonly by the Vatican, to encompass all Catholic Churches sui iuris other than the Latin or Western Church. The Orthodox, however, have generally employed the two terms as if they referred to separate Communions - at least since the early 20th century.

And, it makes much more sense, in delineating the non-Latin Catholic Churches, to mirror that distinction and style those Catholics whose Churches arose as schisms from/are counterparts to Oriental Orthodox Churches as Oriental Catholics.

My personal preference is in favor of making the distinction and I almost always do so, although it is admittedly oft-times cumbersome and always verbose.

The Maronite Catholic Church, as a consequence of having no Orthodox counterpart, fails to fall neatly into either category - Eastern or Oriental.

Similarly, Chaldean and Syro-Malabarese Catholic Churches, the Assyrian Church, the Ancient Church of the East, and the Indian counterpart Churches to the two latter, can not be properly classified as being either 'Eastern' or 'Oriental', since their historical origins are distinct from either of those groupings.

For ease of categorization, there is a tendency to think of these Churches as 'Oriental', but that is a way of thinking which would be anathema to the Oriental Orthodox Communion most of which Churches have not reconciled the differences which arose from Chalcedon and brought the Assyrian Church into being as a separate ecclesial entity.

To Anastasia's original question:

Eastern Catholic Churches:

Albanian Greek-Catholic Church
Bielorussian Greek-Catholic Church
Bulgarian Greek-Catholic Church
Croatian Greek-Catholic Church
Georgian Greek-Catholic Church
Greek Byzantine Catholic Church
Hungarian Greek-Catholic Church
Italo-Graeco-Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church
Melkite Greek-Catholic Church
Romanian Greek-Catholic Church
Russian Greek-Catholic Church
Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church
Slovak Greek-Catholic Church
Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church

Oriental Catholic Churches:

Armenian Catholic Church
Coptic Catholic Church
Ethiopian (& Eritrean) Catholic Church
Syriac Catholic Church
Syro-Malankara Catholic Church

Other Non-Latin Catholic Churches:

Chaldean Catholic Church
Maronite Catholic Church
Syro-Malabar Catholic Church

Many years,

Neil

Personally, I would place the Maronite Church under Oriental (heavily Latinized, with Chaldean influence) since they worship with the Syriac Qurbono of St. James, as do all W. Syriac Churches, have similar calendar to the other W. Syriac Churches, and are essentially Assyrians with French influence. Also, the Church is called "Syriac Maronite Church of Antioch" ܥܕܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܡܪܘܢܝܬܐ ܕܐܢܛܝܘܟܝܐ‎ ʿīṯo suryaiṯo māronaiṯo d'anṭiokia)

I have to confess, though, that I have my doubts about whether the Orthodox should be determining what we call Eastern/Oriental Catholics.

I'm glad you said that. I often wonder (about the Chaldeans and Syo-Malabarese, and possibly the Maronites) when I encounter someone (usually on the internet) speaking of "the Eastern and Oriental Catholic Churches". (Just now I googled, just out of curiosity, the phrase "the Eastern, Oriental, and other non-Latin Catholic Churches". There was one result. Compare that with 94,600 results for "the Eastern and Oriental Catholic Churches".)

On a side note, I have also heard it claimed that only the Ruthenian Catholics (and not the UGCC, Melkites, etc.) are "Byzantine Catholics".