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Glory to Jesus Christ!

Are you asking me!?!

I've got "Byzantine Craziness" myself!

The atmosphere is electric! I am waiting for the explosion.
You are right, for the most part, Annunciation has an awful lot of advantages and incredible potential. I was exagerating for effect when I made that comment, I beg everyone's forgiveness.

However there are some who are just happy that things are going well in their corner. I think you know what I mean, the problem may be more acute in other places. We cannot sit on our hands and watch an Eparchy go down the soil pipe!
Dan, I am very proud of you for inviting those people to the parish, I was very impressed! I saw a twinkle in more than one pair of eyes.

I also struck up a few fruitful conversations, I always get pumped up when we have visitors.

Thanks!
Michael, that sinner

Check this out,
Since our regular Priest has been out of action I convinced the temp that the light on the Cross on top of the church should be left on at night.We have had several visitors that have come just because they saw the Cross at night when driving by. I have seen that it usally is the smallest thing that brings people into the Church. Amost like a mustard seed. Poor Sinner Chad

I don't want to minimize the importance of evangelization and the good comments on this point. The numbers in the US are pretty grim. But the trend is probably not as grim as it may seem.

There has been some reasonable dissection of the numbers over at Cineast. Anastasios's suggestion is probably important. This suggestion, of course, in no way impies that our "our bishops [are] liars akin to Enron executives".

How would you go about making a count? Do all of the baptized BC's living in your territory count? Perhaps only those that show up from time-to-time. Perhaps only those that show up most every Sunday. Perhaps the campers - those that show up all the time but are not registered - they might count; if they are Cathoic. Do BC's out in re-diaspora who camp at RC or Orthodox churches still count?

I am curious about this. It is easy to imagine different counting schemes of differeing utility. Certainly in gearing up to establish a mission, or a new Eparchy, one would probably like to consider the total number of canonical BC's in the area. For other applications such a number would be "grossly inflated". But it's a real twist to see something sinister at work. There has been no posting- here, or e.g. at the Catholic Hierarchy site - with details of what, exactly, is counted.

One of the reasons the numbers were inflated before was so that Rome would give us more dioceses. But the problem was of course that the Peter's Pence and other assessments rose. So Met Judson demanded accuracy.

I don't see how that is akin to Enron.

anastasios

In the area of inflationary numbers and not being truthful. Call it irrational ecclesial exhuberance.

Joe

I'm sure I don't know how counting is done. I've never seen anyone counting the number of worshippers on a Sunday or at any other gathering.

Methodists are nearly neurotic about numbers. We count almost everything. We were always accusing each other of inflated numbers. It makes a difference if we are trying to estimate trends. But more often than not if the numbers are going up we relax because we don't have to evangelize. If the numbers are down we still don't evangelize but make excuses for why we don't. The great enemy of the Methodists were the Baptists or secularism.

I don't see much difference here, except we don't count so many things.

When push comes to shove if numbers makes one fearful or lazy, ignore them and go out and reach the world with Christ.

Dan Lauffer

BTW Has Father Michael started growing his beard yet?

To talk about "truth" in this context assumes too much. There simply is no such thing as the number of BC's. (Does Anastasios count? Do I count? Do Latin wives of counted BC men count?) The best one can hope for is accurate counting according to prescribed criteria, whatever they may be. Publications such as the one cited on this thread should be careful to include these prescriptions and to note any changes in them over time. Absent these precautions it is very difficult to draw sound conclusions about magnitude of the trends.

If anyone knows exactly how the count is done, and if the process was changed recently, please pass the info along. I am curious about it.

PS I agree with what Dan said about not relaxing (NOT about interest in counting being a sign of neurosis. Well maybe a little.

I still would like to know what criteria are used when doing these counts, and if the criteria have changed. Most cases require some kind of estimating to round out the reporting.

Different administrations of the U.S. federal government have counted unemployment in different ways. Depending on how one defines discouraged workers the number of people actually out of work can be reported up or down and never come close to a real figure.

As a case in point, a local RC parish I once belonged to had 3000 sets of envelopes mailed out on a quarterly basis and were getting 700 to 900 per week plus loose cash. How does one allow for the difference?

Adjusted for inflation, have the collections experienced as dramatic a drop?

Is it possible the in one period all baptized persons were counted and in another only active parishioners were counted?

And of course, many parishioners do not properly belong to the eparchy but in fact are Roman Catholics, some will not switch if they have no need for a marriage ceremony or have no intention to persue clerical orders. A person like that could be a parishioner for many years and not actually be Ruthenian or Ukrainian or what have you. Are they counted?

Just a few thoughts off the wall.

I seem to recall the Byzantine Ruthenian Church doing a formal census in the 1990's.

I've also heard that the numbers were greatly inflated in the past to look better to Rome. At some point it all catches up with you. Now what do we look like?

I still don't see how that is like Enron. In Enron those numbers were inflated in order to cheat people. In the case of the alleged marking up of population in our Church, it was just to get more bishops, but it wasn't really hurting anyone.

Of course, the ends don't justify the means. I am just saying I don't think it's like the Enron situation.

anastasios

[/qb][/QUOTE]I still don't see how that is like Enron. In Enron those numbers were inflated in order to cheat people. In the case of the alleged marking up of population in our Church, it was just to get more bishops, but it wasn't really hurting anyone.

Of course, the ends don't justify the means. I am just saying I don't think it's like the Enron situation.

anastasios [/QB][/QUOTE]

Aren't we called to be honest? Or is there a double standard?

An interesting study was done in 1997 by Dr. Nikolas K. Gvosdev entitled, "Orthodoxy in America: Crisis of Demography." The study mentions a similar crisis being experienced in Orthodox Churches: "the steady erosion of its demographic base -- the so-called "cradle Orthodox."

The study was based on the 1996 Vital Statistics issued by the U.S. gov't. These numbers are the actual numbers provided by the churches.

He mentions how the Big Four Orthodox jurisdictions claim a combined total of 4.3 million members. This would mean that the average size of each Orthodox parish would be:

3,600 persons per Greek Orthodox parish
3,300 persons per OCA parish
1,600 persons per Antiochian Orthodox parish
1,000 persons per Serbian Orthodox parish

The numbers didn't seem realistic even according to Paschal attendance.

Using revised numbers based on more realistic criteria, the numbers look like this:

900 persons per Greek Orthodox parish
500 persons per OCA parish
500 persons per Antiochian Orthodox parish
500 persons per Serbian Orthodox parish

The revised combined total would be 908,000 instead of 4.3 million. The jurisdictions were claiming membership at five times the realistic figures.

Comparing 1907 Orthodox membership figures with 1997 figures, we see a dismal growth.

Conclusion: "If Orthodoxy in this country cannot retain and reabsorb those who were born into Orthodoxy, its mission witness and effectiveness will be damaged and limited."

What reasons would the Big Four have for fudging the numbers? Were they hoping to get more eparchies and bishops?

Joe

I believe bean counting to get more bishops was a dishonest waste of time and effort. I wish it had not been done. Most Church politics are a waste of time and effort.

Now, if our bishops bravely moved forth and consistently challenged our Churches to grow; If they began ordaining men based upon their vocations and the Church's need for growth; If the bishops focused their attention on developing an ever increasing number of missions; then let's have a dozen or a hundred. If not we may come to the point where we don't need any.

BTW A good word should be said for our own Parma Patriarch good bishop John. He travelled all the way from Parma to Homer Glen to be with our children as we kicked off our ECF sessions. What a delightful and generous gift he gave us all. Axios to good bishop John!

Dan L

Joe,

Of course, honesty is paramount. The big 4 fudged numbers to get ranked higher on the list of religious "importance" by the US Government, I heard in class once. In other words, they rank religious groups by a bunch of factors, give them a number, and the better your number, the more "stuff" you get: like invitations to innaugurations, news coverage, etc etc etc.

anastasios

So, the Eastern Catholics wanted more eparchies and bishops (even though as late as Elko, who didn't want to split his turf!) and the Orthodox wanted more "stuff" to be seen and heard.

Reminds me of the Bible passage about the Apostles asking Jesus who will be the greatest or who will sit at his side in the kingdom.

Honesty isn't really paramount in these cases, only what is self-serving.

Joe

Well I suppose that it's always possible to assert dishonesty, if that's your mentality. But then please tell me how to count. Without that prescription you're just blowing smoke.