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Dear Friends,

I've always loved our local "Odpust" as I know you love your Uniontown pilgrimage and there are others.

What does it mean to an Eastern Catholic when he or she attends an "odpust" or "indulgence?"

Is it a violation of our heritage? Is it a Latinism that we just blink at and keep because of the wonderful experiences we have of them?

Professor Poselianin in his "Mother of God" mentions dozens of Orthodox "Odpusty" in Eastern Europe involving miraculous icons etc.

How do the Orthodox understand these "Odpusts?"

Is there a common understanding of them that both Eastern Catholics and Orthodox can arrive at?

Alex

Alex, please read my new thread about this. If these two can be consolidated better.

I think you are making Otpust = Indulgence. While that may be the dictionary term for indulgence in Ukrainian and other Slav languages, otpust usually means (in my experience) pilgrimage.

Let's start the poll "What does Otpust (the word) mean?

Bob

I was always taught Otpust=Pilgrimage, although I can see how Otpust came to be associated with Indulgence.

"Is it a Latinism that we just blink at and keep because of the wonderful experiences we have of them?"

If the Latinism you are refering to is the Plenary Indulgence, I think so. The older people expect it and it does no harm. It is one of those things I think will eventually fade away.

In Christ,
Lance

In another thread, Alex wrote:

As for Indulgences, please remember that one may get a plenary Indulgence for attending the public celebration of the Akathist to the Mother of God.

This is the same Indulgence granted to the public recitation of the Rosary, granted to the Eastern Churches by Pope John Paul II.

Not that I'm encouraging Latinisations or anything, but is there a similar "indulgence" for Eastern prayers to Mary other than the Akathist?

I don't know how many Syrians or anyone else would know about Akathists, but certainly there are other things they do know about...

Does this indulgence only apply to a specifically Byzantine form of prayer?

Slava Jesu Kristu,

If Eastern Christians don't necessarily hold the same idea of Purgatory as the Latins, how can we have Indulgences? Does the indulgence apply to the angels at the "toll houses"? How can we be remitted the time we spend in a place we don't recognize as actual? This is confusing....

Dmitri

Byzantine Catholics and other Eastern Catholics do not have a theology of indulgences, as does the Roman Catholic Church. As we know, there has been a lot of Latin influence upon our Churches and one of them is the Roman Catholic theology of indulgences.

The term �indulgence� means �kindness� or �tenderness�. From a theological perspective it signifies simply God�s mercy and kindness towards us. While we would not adopt the technical theology of indulgences and consider it to be a bit legalistic, we affirm the general principles behind it. No Eastern minded individual would deny that extra prayer and action help us to participate more fully in the grace that God offers to us freely, just for the asking.

Regarding the idea of �plenary indulgence�, we would not get caught up in trying to figure out methods of accounting but would simply note that the continued use of the term is a pastoral concession to an older generation of Byzantine Catholics. The theology of indulgences is not wrong but it also is not ours.

I wouldn't get too worked up over the doctrine of indulgences...they ain't too many "Latins" who think about them these days anyways. And, if I remember my catechism correctly...no Catholic is required to believe in them, they only have to refrain from condemning the teaching publicly. Indulgences are not an article of faith. Don

Dear Catholicos,

Yes, the general principle with respect to Eastern Catholic Churches is that the Patriarchs or Bishops of the Particular Churches can decide which Marian practices can be indulgenced in the same way as Western ones are.

It is just that the current Pope himself reads the Akathist every day and personally affirmed the indulgence for it.

Alex

Dear Bob,

Well, Professor Poselyanin would take issue with you, were he alive today!

In his magnum opus on the icons of the Mother of God, he uses the term "odpust" in exclamation marks as something borrowed from another tradition.

He writes extensively about how the RC, GC and EO people venerate the Mother of God, her icons, borrowings from the West.

And I have yet to see the word "Odpust" used in ANY Orthodox publication to denote "pilgrimage."

You're the guy who comes after me for references, so can you come up with one for this?

The parishes Poselyanin notes, are, as he says, former Greek Catholic parishes that returned to Orthodoxy. They kept their "odpusts" and the ORthodox Church seems not to have minded.

There are lots of Latin devotions taken up by the Orthodox Church, the Rosary is one of them. St Seraphim of Sarov is famous for his daily recitation of it and the Orthodox simply renamed it as the "Rule of the Mother of God."

If you want an Orthodox Church free of Latinisms, you'll have to go Greek or Arabic.

Alex

Dear Servant of Christ, Don,

How are you, Friend?

Indulgences are very much an article of faith for all Catholics, it is just that we are not required to make use of them. We cannot, as Catholics, deny them or their "efficacy."

Toward this end, the Pope has made available indulgences for Eastern liturgical forms of prayer, including the Akathist.

Alex

Dear Friends:

About a year ago our bookstore acquired a collection of Orthodox books in Greek, and a number of other Eastern languages.

Folded nicely into one of the books was a large woodcut print of a document.

It turned out to be an indulgence certificate issued by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem.

It seems that they issued them for a very short (and controversial period) sometime in the eighteenth century [?].

Can anyone tell me how common something like this was in Orthodoxy?


defreitas


P.S. the said item is now in Harvard University.

Dear Dmitri,

I think the Administrator's explanation comes closest to a Byzantine Catholic rendering of indulgences and purgatory that we can have.

We certainly cannot know "how much" of God's mercy is extended to us for prayer, good works, fasting etc.

This is also why Rome dropped the "toties-quoties" and the "300 days, 7 years etc."

We believe, in accordance with our Orthodox tradition, that our prayer for the dead can help bring the reposed closer to God and our Church, both Catholic and Orthodox prays long and hard for them, to be sure!

If we can understand indulgences as sacramental ways of communicating God's special graces and pardon for our sins, then we can pray these for ourselves and for the reposed that "they may be loosed from their sins."

What is, as the Gospel says, loosened by the Church on earth, will be loosened in Heaven etc.

I see no problem with this understanding of indulgences-odpusts.

It is NOT simply a pilgrimage - that is a weak attempt at giving it "Eastern justification.

Actually, the idea of indulgence is more bound up with the idea of "temporal punishment due to sin."

There are Eastern corollaries for this, the penances and struggles we are called to participate in in this life - take a look at the penitential lives lived by the great Saints of the East.

They are less "juridical" and "accountant-like" in this respect, but the idea that we struggle and pray to combat the ill effects of sin in our lives is a true Eastern spiritual perspective.

But, to be fair, St Seraphim of Sarov was quoted as comparing heaven to a "bank account" to which we can make "deposits" bearing "eternal rewards."

I just make this point for those who want to be more Orthodox than the Orthodox.

I really don't hope that the odpust as indulgence will go away.

I think that it can be understood in a way that is integral to our tradition, even though it is beyond the scope of current Orthodox practice, although not universally, as Poselianin relates.

Fr. Serge Keleher and I were once talking about the devotion of the Sacred Heart.

He had nothing good to say about it. When I told him about how I used the image for the prayer of the heart, he jumped on it immediately, said that was a great idea and that perhaps the devotion could be "reconstructed!"

In fact, St Nicholas Cabasilas' book on the Divine LIturgy, published by St Vladimir's Press has a commentary on the "Orthodox devotion to the Heart of Christ."

And, it states, that this devotion is a sharp contrast to that of the "Sacred Heart of Jesus" in the West.

Yeah, right!

Alex

Dear Jose,

What a find indeed!

Such a document would bring no end of grief for our friends like Bob King!

Where did you say it was?

In actual fact, I had a bag of earth with a note signed by the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem that seems awfully similar to an indulgence that a Latin bishop might give.

I'll have to dig it up . . .

Alex

Bishop John Elya, the Eparch for Melkite Greek Catholics in the United States was asked if
Eastern Catholics are to believe in indulgences. You may read his response at:

www.melkite.org/bishopQA.htm#Indulgences: [melkite.org]

[ 08-20-2002: Message edited by: griego catolico ]

Dear Griego,

Finally - a believable Eastern Catholic Bishop who knows what he's talking about!

And he's Melkite to boot! How can we not accept the teaching of a Melkite.

If he were Ukrainian Catholic, well, O.K., I can understand . . .

But a Melkite?

Great post, Big Guy!

Alex