www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology EC veneration of certain Orthodox saints

Dear Friends,

When trying to translate an Akathist to the Icon of Our Lady of Zhirovits, an Orthodox Akathist, I came across some, well, not too favourable comments about Catholics . . .

What to do with something like that? Is it all right to "work out" those few words? Should one just leave the Akathist alone then?

Also, what about Orthodox saints that were against union with Catholicism?

Can such be in EC calendars?

I noticed that our dear Melkite friends had St Jonah of Moscow in their wonderful 1958 prayerbook calendar.

And St Jonah opposed strenuously Met. Isidore of Kyiv over the Council of Florence.

What say you, O Wise Ones of the East?

Alex

[Also, what about Orthodox saints that were against union with Catholicism?

Can such be in EC calendars?]

Alex, my friend, didn't you say that my most favorite saint, St Job of Pochaev is on your church calendar?

OrthoMan

Dear Orthoman,

He is in some, but not all. Many EC's I know, myself included, venerate him - and he was certainly widely venerated by Greek and Roman Catholics in the the 18th and 19th centuries.

There was even a process for St Job's Catholic canonization by Rome introduced there at the urging of the Greek-Catholic Count Nicholas Pototsky - who gave oodles of money to the Pochaiv Lavra and who has always been fondly remembered by the Orthodox. (This is written up in Ukrainian in the book by the Ukr. Orth. Met. Ilarion Ohienko "The Holy Lavra of Pochaiv").

Alex

Slava Isusu Kristu,

I would say leave the statements as they are. My own namesake was very against the Union, yet I still believe he intercedes for me in Heaven.
I also feel we as EC should not try and whitewash the past and the feelings our union with Rome caused our Orthodox brothers. It is as much a part of who we are as anything else. For instance, St. Peter the Aleut teaches us the price we pay for a weak identity and lack of education as I see it.

Dmitri

[For instance, St. Peter the Aleut teaches us the price we pay for a weak identity and lack of education as I see it.]

Mind explaining exactly what you mean by that Dimitri? St Pete the Aleut knewexactly who and what he was and died rather than turn his back on it. I just presented a large Icon to our parish of St peter the Aleut!

OrthoMan

Slava Isusu Kristu,

I was refering to those who killed him. Perhaps the good Fathers would not have treated him the way they did had they known BCs and our close ties with Orthodoxy. His death is inexcusable and was a terrible act of ignorance.

Dmitri

Glory to Jesus Christ!

When I asked my spiritual father about veneration of "anti-Catholic" Orthodox saints, he told me, "saints often fight amongst themselves." I have often found that the most holy people are often the most intolerant. This is not because they are uncharitable, but rather because they have a holy fear of distorting the Faith that was passed on to them. This is a virtue many of us cannot understand, because our Faith is weak. We find intolerance as un-Christian, period. But we really should revere it, even if we do not understand it. Thus, I revere the intolerance of a St. John Maximovitch, just as I revere the intolerance of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Both were saintly men, but in life they would have been at each other's throats. Fortuneately, it says nowhere in the Gospels that we have to get our ecclesiology totally straight before we enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Hopefully, they are both blissfully smiling down at us, realizing the error of their ways, but still thankful that they were firm against the agnosticism of modern life.

Arturo

Dear Arturo,

Actually, what you said is quite brilliant!

A good weekend to you!

Alex

Dear Dmitri,

Your point of view really grabs me - I think it is quite the breakthrough.

Good weekend to you as well!

Alex

Alex,

There are no schisms in heaven.

Joe Prokopchak
archsinner

Was it Cyril of Alexandria who said something to the effect of "If Chrysostom is in heaven, Judas is numbered with the apostles"?

Many church fathers used to fight.

And now they're all before the Throne of God where they HAVE to get along.

Dave

I was deeply moved by reading the story of St. Peter the Aleut. Clearly he is a martyr worthy of veneration by both Orthodox and Catholics, as much as say St. Joan of Arc, who was also killed by members of the Church hierarchy (in England) for political reasons.

Both St. Peter and St. Joan bring into strong relief issues surrounding imperial/secular control of the Church - issues with which both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches have struggled since the time of Constantine. (The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition and the Orthodox complicity in the active suppression and martyrdom of thousands of confessing Greek Catholics in the Ukraine come to mind...)

As a Byzantine Catholic, I have no qualms about venerating this holy Aleut, especially since one could say that he never rejected Catholicism per se. In truth, his murderers never really offered the Catholic faith to him, only their absurd version of Spanish imperial and colonial fanaticism - with Catholic dressing.

On Monday I will be ordering an icon of this great and holy Christian martyr. St. Peter the Aleut and Martyr of the Americas, pray for the unity of all Christians!

Gordo, sfo

Dear Friends,

I agree - and I too have an icon of St Peter the Aleut!

But I'm also speaking here of church services to saints that we already share in common (e.g. the Icon of Our Lady of Zhirovits) where there are some "hard thrusts" at the Catholic "heretics" and the "New Hagarenes" or the Uniates (Service to Our Lady of Pochaiv).

Can these be legitimately changed for use in Greek-Catholic Churches?

Also, the Akathist to St Vladimir the Great has two versions.

The Orthodox version depicts him choosing Eastern Orthodoxy and rejecting Western Catholic "heresy."

The Russian Catholic version simply depicts him as choosing Constantinople's Rite because of its beauty.

While we may venerate any Orthodox saint privately, we may not do so liturgically - if the saint had a history of being against Rome.

When Met. Andrew Sheptytsky applied to Rome to allow for the liturgical veneration of the all the Saints in the Russian Orthodox calendar, the decision came down in 1904 - and a number of Russian saints (e.g. St Athanasius of Brest) were dropped from the calendar because of their strong opposition to the Union etc.

Alex

Dearest brother in Christ, Alex - the All-Merciful Lord bless you.

Your question is an excellent one, and very pertinent to others within the Byzantine Christian Tradition.

The edinovertsy - Old Rite Orthodox united to the Moscow patriarchate - have to face this very question with regard to the saints of the Patriarchal Church, who were hostile to, or fervently opposed to the Ancient Piety and its adherents.

A dichotomy arises.

One the one hand one preserves one's rite and calendar, but belonging to a Church celebrating saints who were against one's whole spiritual Tradition.

Of course, the saints as human beings were conditioned by their surroundings and were not immune to historico-social prejudices. We need only look at comments regarding Jews, women, the heterdox or foreigners, with their satanic vegetables, beverages and musical instruments.

An old emigre friend constantly bemoans the labelling of the 'heterodox' as immoral or wicked in pre-revolutionary Russian religious literature, pointing out that many of the non-Orthodox Christians she knows are more devout and spiritual than many of the 'Orthodox' she has encountered in the Russian diaspora.

I often think, at least the saints can see this now that they are free from prejudice and social, historical and ethnic conditioning.

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Alex,

My husband insists that Orthodox saints cannot be venerated (even privately) by Catholics of any rite, if they were anti-Catholic. He says that unless the Pope has canonized them, Rome does not recognize them as saints and we shouldn't either.

Tammy