www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West 10 Reasons I'm Eastern Catholic

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

A while back, someone had a thread on this forum discussing reasons for being Eastern Catholic. This got my wheels turning. Reflecting on this question I wrote the following. If interested, this is for your perusal, comment, or critique.

from my "Apostolic Tradition" page-
http://www.geocities.com/wmwolfe_48044/apologetics.html

10 Reasons Why I'm Eastern Catholic

1. I have been persuaded by documents of the Catholic Church that I can believe and live the Orthodox Faith and follow the Apostolic Tradition of my own Eastern Church while maintaining Communion with Rome and the other Eastern Catholic Churches.

2. I, like most Eastern Catholics, consider the real differences between our Eastern Theological tradition and that of the Latin West more as complimentary than divisive and justifying schism.

3. I'm already a part of this Catholic Communion. I feel a loyalty to my pastor and a close communion with my fellow parishioners. I think it would be wrong to betray or break this Communion except for the gravest of reasons (e.g. not being able to fulfill #1).

4. I enjoy being in Communion with my Latin brethren of the Roman Church.

5. I, being an Armenian Christian, cherish being in Communion with my Eastern brethren of both the Chalcedonian, non-Chalcedonian and even non-Ephesian traditions (e.g. Byzantine, Antiochian, Syrian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Indian, Chaldean “Church of the East,” etc.). I very much treasure the fact that I can attend anyone of their liturgies on a given Lord's day (as I and my family often do) receive Holy Communion and share our common hope with the members of these Churches.

6. I have a great respect for the authentic Latin Tradition. Like Pope John Paul II has said about the Eastern Churches, I consider the Latins also to be authentic interpreters of the Tradition they have received.

7. I have children named after saints of the Latin Church.

8. I consider it crucial that I am in communion with my "help-mate," my wife, who is Italian and a Latin Catholic.

9. The words of Jesus Christ, “I pray not only for [my apostles], but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” (St. John 17:20-21).

10. I believe, based on #9, that all the ancient, Apostolic Churches, should be in Communion with one another in order to manifest the fact that there is only one Catholic and Apostolic, Holy Church as our Symbol of Faith confesses. I, like many Catholics and Orthodox, pray for this unity to someday be accomplished.

Trusting In Christ's Light,
Wm. DerGhazarian
Looys Kreesdosee
www.geocities.com/derghazar [geocities.com]

10. I believe, based on #9, that all the ancient, Apostolic Churches, should be in Communion with one another in order to manifest the fact that there is only one Catholic and Apostolic, Holy Church as our Symbol of Faith confesses. I, like many Catholics and Orthodox, pray for this unity to someday be accomplished.


Dear William,

I believe as you do. As a Latin Catholic, I am grateful for the communion of the 22 Churches. I rejoice in the honor of sharing the Eucharist and Mysteries with you and the many other posters from Churches which hold communion with the Servant of the Churches who is the Bishop of Rome.

I pray as you do that soon we all may be one with our Orthodox brothers and sisters in a united communion of all of God's Churches.

Thank you for sharing your reasons for being an Eastern Catholic with us.

Steve

Dear Ghazar,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us!

Certainly, your point number 8 is quite crucial

Although there is nothing in what you've listed that I would disagree with, I would offer these points as to why I believe the Union of Brest-Litovsk of 1596 was a mistake by our forefathers:

1) It divided our Church into two warring factions, weakening the nation and resulting in ill-feelings that persist to this day.

2) It was essentially concocted by foreign secular powers as a vehicle by which to subdue the Orthodox people and make them true vassals of RC Kingdoms.

3) It was a form of "poaching" by one Church (RC) of another (Orthodox) at a time when the latter was weak, even though the former always recognized the Apostolic nature of the latter as a true Church of Christ.

4) The pro-Eastern spirit of the 33 articles of the Union soon proved it wasn't worth the paper it was written on as Rome proved quite powerless to defend the Eastern Catholic Churches against the Latinizing onslaught of the RC secular powers.

5) The Union led to the rapid Latinization of the secular and religious leadership of our people with all the negative impact that this resulted in.

6) The Union itself developed the conception among Eastern Catholics that they were somehow "more" than what the Orthodox were - it resulted in the view that Orthodox were substandard Christians, without the fullness of grace, their saints and ceremonies were held in disdain (St Basil Velichkovsky in his memoirs).

7) Far from promoting an appreciation of Eastern Christianity, this led to a paranoid fear of most things Eastern and Orthodox among religious Orders and Hierarchs of the UGCC. There were, of course, exceptions to the rule.

8) It led to a "uniate" mentality which considered itself a type of second-class Catholic, an "almost there" member of the Latin Catholic Church, the font of "true Christianity."

9) It placed our Church under a yoke of jurisdictional control by Rome that cannot be easily shaken off, even with the best of intentions and even with the "threat" of the establishment of a patriarchate (although we shouldn't hold our breath).

10) Ultimately, the Union of Brest-Litovsk was a failed experiment on the back of the Kyivan Church by which Rome could determine strategy with respect to its truly desired geopolitical goal - Moscow.

Today, if all Ukies could unite in one Autocephalous Orthodox Ukrainian Patriarchate, I would think twice about joining it - before I actually joined it . . .

Such a Church could have communion with the Churches of the world, Catholic, Orthodox, what have you.

But it would no longer be "under" any See. It would be an equal to an equal with respect to all.

Alex

Alex,

Thank you for paraphrasing 'The Balamand Statement.'

Will this apply to the Antiochian Orthodox and their Western Vicariate? How about Latin Catholic Churches that establish Byzantine Catholic missions?

On both sides I can hear the words to a song that goes, "Anything you can do I can do better."

Joe

I think all of Alex's points are true. HOWEVER, the Eastern Catholic Churches are returning to their own theological and liturgical traditions, proving that this type of union CAN work, although it may take centuries. I truly believe that if the Eastern Catholic Churches were to separate from Rome that:

1) Many EC's would simply become RC, and,
2) Misunderstandings between East and West would be heightened and multiplied tenfold.

It would be absolutely disastrous. I also believe the ECCs to be a gift from God, and that those who attempt to steal this divine gift should be ashamed.

Praise God for the Union of Brest-Litovsk and all other unions which have put Eastern Christians in full communion with the Eternal City and Servant of the Servants of Christ.

Pax Domini and Slava Isusu Chrystu,
Logos Teen

If individual Eastern Catholics by their searching and praying return to Orthodoxy which is the Mother Church, then I can't see that as disastrous.

These are wonderful reasons and you are the man whose glass is half full actually, more than half full. Way more. These 10 reasons can also be boiled down into one reason from which all ten joys flow.

1. God himself desires the full union of his church - and we like to do what God desires. It is our cooperation with Providence. It is perhaps the main directive of the gospel... to do His will... and He has clearly expressed his will that the church be as one. Within you, Ghazar, it is One - and that is all that matters to God on that subject.

There exists many reasons not to do his will - thousands I suppose and all very legitimate in the estimation of the history and logic of men. It all comes down to a free will choice on our part. And since you are already doing His will in this matter - the Kingdom of God, which you let govern yourself by, is already upon you. And I note that all your reasons given contain some kind of joy and peace for you.

There is a thought which just came to me just now.

God wishes our cooperation to do his will. If it were easy - that would not really be any cooperation on our part because we would be simply swept up in the currents of the common way. This would not build any virtue. Nor does it display a motivation of any love for Him. So right now, it makes all the sense in the world to me that God himself prayed that the church would be One and desires the church to be One in us - and in the world it is not fully One. In fact - it makes no difference to God if the church is socially divided. What do I mean by that? It makes no difference to God what documents say - it makes no difference to God if documents exist or do not exist declaring the unity of His church - he is not interested in documents and written agreements - He has one interest only, and that is, what is in a man�s heart. At the judgment He will not be reading documents to determine if the church was ONE - he will be examining hearts to see if within our heart - the church was One - did WE as individuals - do his will in this matter?? Did we overcome the resistance of the world that the church may be one in our hearts?

In order that He may examine our hearts on this matter - the church MUST be in something of a division in the world!! If - in the world - the Church WERE - One - then what effort would it be on our part? None. None at all. We would simply be going the easy way of the crowd. So - in order for God to judge us on this matter - the church MUST be somehow and in some way divided in the world - a division which we - must overcome within our hearts - so that God may judge us individually - as to our cooperation with his expressed will in this matter.

The question will be - not if the church became One in the world (God can do that in one second if he so wished to do - no plans of man caould possible foil him or make things hard for Him)so the one question we need to concern ourselves with is - was the church One in my heart? Did I love all of her as One? Did I seek to find the spiritual unity that binds her together? Did I trust Him on this matter? Did I have faith in His guarantee on this matter? Did I honor her and respect her in my heart and with my words?

Wow!

I thank you angels for that whisper.


-ray

Well it's tough to decisively disagree (or to agree) with your analysis, Alex, as the control experiment of no-Unia has not been done.

It is easy to argue, however, that the Unia did have a number of positive results, even within the largely secular sphere of nationalism and geopolitics on which you focus. The union brought a legitimacy, whatever the "class", to Eastern Christianity, ultimately even to the advantage of the Orthodox within the Polish kingdom. Considering the spirit of the times, namely, that the church of the prince was the church of the realm, the pressure on Eastern Christians to become RC would have been enormously greater without the union than with it. The Union put a limit on the pressure. Without this limit, the pressure might have been irresitable, especially in light of the excitement of Western culture in that era. I hazzard a guess that Polonization, and real Latinization and real "poaching", i.e. "conversion" to RC would, have been more effective - like Isalmization in North Africa - without the Union than with it.

I think it is also fair to say that without it there would be no independent Ukraine. The idea of unia also played an important role in the development of nationalism in other states of the region and a direct role in the development of autocephaly for national Orhtodox churches especially in Bulgaria and Romania (too late for the Macedonians).

Some other comments.

This analysis is diametrically opposed to the analysis of Fr. Taft. Intervention of the Pope against efforts to assimilate Easterners utterly into the RC kingdoms like Poland (or Hungary) is not at all what these kingdoms wanted.

I don't know. We lived at the Western frontier, and now in the West, not in the East. There are many aspects of Western culture and technology that we may have accepted in the same manner that the Great Russians ultimately did years later. If this is what you mean by Latinization, then let's stipulate that Orthodoxy in the US (and Western Europe) has similarly sustained an onslaught of Latinization.

Who on earth are you talking about, Alex? I understand that unfriendly people might suggest this idea to bait the "uniates"; they are easily dismissed. But the idea that this concept exists among us is totally and utterly foreign to my experience. I'm not buying this slander.

:rolleyes: If in 1596, Rome had the foresight to attach such profund significance to Moscow (while it was still not even a threat to Sweden)- seeing Ukraine primarily as a weapon again rather than having its own intrinsic importance - then maybe the Pope does get direct revelation.

Dear Brian,

This strikes me as a funny turn of phrase. I, like the vast majority of Eastern Catholics, have not left the Orthodox church; thus I as an individual cannot "return" it, in any fair sense of "return". As a church? Perhaps, but I thought that the Orthodox at Balamand had finally accepted our legitimacy as a church?

I'm sure that you don't mean it this way, but ISTM that this "return" stuff has a nasty undercurrent.

Djs,

No, I did not mean any harm by this but was just reacting to Teen's post thanking God for the Union of Brest. I think Balamand had much to say about that form of union, that neither Eastern Catholics or Orthodox can thank God for it, the effects of which are seen today in the struggle of Eastern Catholic Churches to deLatinize.

I was just saying that individual Eastern Catholics in their Spiritual Journeys have found and continue to find that they come to the Orthodox Church which is the Mother Church of Eastern Catholics as is admitted by those Eastern Caths who consider themselves "Orthodox in Communion with Rome"

Dear Cantor Joseph,

The difference being, of course, is that the Unia was something that had political forces behind it and was imposed on the people.

I didn't know the Antiochians were imposing Western Rite Orthodoxy on anyone.

Alex

Dear djs,

You raise many good points of conversation that reflect a wide and deep reading as well as consideration of this fascinating subject! I salute you!

The arguments you raise have been written about and discussed among Ukrainians in the patriarchal movement and in general, especially since the release of Patriarch Joseph from Siberia etc.

Fr. Taft is someone who has great respect among Ukrainian Catholics and rightly so - he is not afraid to stand up in defence of the UGCC.

And we are talking here not about the persecution of the UGCC in the twentieth century, but about the Unia of the 16th.

Rome truly did defend the Eastern Catholics and maintained, throughout, the need to keep our liturgy pure and Eastern "nec plus, nec minus, nec aliter."

As Fr. Bohdan Lypsky (Spirituality of our Rite) said, we received not one Latinization from Rome, but from Poland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire only.

But Rome's cajolings and orders notwithstanding, as Fr. Lypsky and others note, the ideals of those who entered into the Union of Brest failed miserably with the onslaught of Latinization and other negative impacts. That wasn't their fault, nevertheless.

Fr. Taft's point, although well taken, simply means that Rome protested much, but to no avail in this respect.

The Unia, as the Catholic Encyclopaedia itself admits, divided our nation and weakened it severely.

Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox fuelled time and resources in attacking one another in print and in fighting over churches and property.

The entire literature of that period such as Palinodia, Trenos etc. especially that written by Meletius Smotritsky was just rife with anger and nastiness.

How this contributed to the building up of Ukrainian nationhood and independence - not even our standard Ukrainian school textbooks, written for the most part by Greek Catholics, would make that contention.

Prof. Radkevych, for example, simply says that the virulent literary pieces of the time "contributed to the development of modern Ukrainian literature."

Others simply make the suggestion that we could all have done without such "literature."

You are more than correct with respect to Latinization affecting both Ukrainian Catholic AND Orthodox Churches.

One could argue it affected the Orthodox Church even more simply because the Kyivan Baroque period Orthodox hierarchs and leaders studied Western theology very closely to try and learn about the Church that was powerfully taking hold of the imagination of their aristocracy and society.

But when we talk of Latinization, we are implying, for Ukrainian history, something more than the introduction of Latin practices into the Eastern liturgical tradition.

We are implying "denationalization" or Polonization at the same time. And while Orthodoxy was Latinized most assuredly, to remain Orthodox was to remain as a Ruthenian/Ukrainian/Belorusyan/Great Russian.

The later acceptance of European forms of nationalism by Galicians was something that would have occurred with or without the Unia.

But the cherished Galician notions that Eastern Catholicism led to the development of the guerrilla resistance of the forties in this century is simply nonsense. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army first developed in Orthodox Volyn and it was there and in other areas where Ukrainians suffered for their faith and tradition as Orthodox (and Greek Catholics were also often seen as "Orthodox" by their RC enemies) that strong Ukrainian nationalism developed.

"Uniate mentality" is not something that others take us to task on - it is something that we have in and of ourselves.

It is a form of self-perception as second-class citizens in the Catholic Church that Ukrainians have protested against when they've encountered this in their bishops and religious orders - and still do.

We are concerned that Rome keeps appointing bishops for us with such a mentality and from religious orders known for it. But that is another topic.

Certainly, no one is arguing that the UGCC today, whatever its past struggles, is not very much "our Church" - with its martyrs and confessors and "nashness."

But I think our people today are not the Greek Catholics of yesteryear, people Rome can push around etc.

That too is another topic.

Rome's target of Moscow via Ukraine is what has informed its policy of Ostpolitik, a policy that has been roundly opposed by Patriarch Slipyj and Ukrainian Catholics for years now.

Rome is free to carry on its ecumenical plans with Moscow - it will do so without our permission in any event.

But we have always seen Rome's denial of what we consider to be our rights as a Particular Church as making the Ukrainian Church a 'sacrificial lamb' on the altar of Rome's ecumenism with Moscow.

We will continue to defend our Church.

And if anyone today believes Rome is at all concerned with the Ukrainian Church, I really do think a greater injection of historical perspective is needed.

In any event, Rome itself has distanced itself from the policy of "unions" and her theologians have characterized them much as I have - I'm not saying anything new here after all, either from Rome's perspective or from that of Ukrainians from the patriarchal perspective.

Ultimately, I go where the UGCC goes, but that won't prevent me from reflecting on the direction that we are taking and suggesting other directions we could take in conjunction with my Ukie brothers and sisters.

I won't defend the Union of Brest come hell or high water.

Even Rome doesn't do that any more.

Alex

Dear Ray,

I think we all here desire the union of God's Church.

But the unions that brought Eastern Catholics into communion with Rome are the point of contention.

To say that there can be much better foundations for such unity is not to betray the ideal of unity.

Alex

Dear Brian,

I don't know if Eastern Catholics want to return to their Mother Church when they question the historical validity of the Union of Brest.

I think that what they want to do is to express their issues with the kind of communion with Rome that Union has led them to.

Make no mistake about it - the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is "OUR" Church as Ukrainians see it.

They see Andrew Sheptytsky and Josef Slipyj as their great Saints and Fathers - and I just don't see them discarding them by becoming Orthodox not in communion with Rome.

As djs rightly notes, we Eastern Catholics have a better sense of our Orthodox heritage today than ever before. We may not be "Orthodox" by the standards of Orthodoxy, but we think we are .

So just because people like me whine and complain about the Union of Brest - that is all it is.

Yes, we want one Church.

But given the way world Orthodoxy views the "uncanonical" Ukrainian Orthodox, I wouldn't be surprised if the Ukie Orthodox look to the UGCC itself for leadership in this time of crisis and struggle.

Alex

Brian,
That Constantinople is the ultimate Mother church of Byzantine, Eastern Catholics is a simple historical fact. It is not something "admitted" by some propoer subset of them.

Balamand does have much to say about the form of Union. And since it is often suggested on this forum that the statement is simply saying that Uniatism is "wrong" and by extension, that Eastern Catholic Churches are somehow illegitimate, I like, again to review, what it does say.

First it re-affirms that Eastern Catholic Churches... have the right to exist and to act in response to the spritual needs of their faithful, but that "uniatism" as method for the search for unity is rejected. Father Taft had pointed out the poor craftmanship of such a statement, inasmuch, as the method was so different in each locale. Therefore it is important to read what the Balamand signatories considered as important negative aspects of the method:

The statement notes took unions took place "not without the interference of extra-ecclesial interests", just as "attempts to bring Eastern Catholics back to the Church of their fathers..did not hesitate, when the occasion was given, to use unacceptable means". It stipulates that "that the re-establishment of unity between the Church of the East and the Church of the West was not achieved and that the division remains, embittered by these attempts." It recognizes "Catholic Churches and the Orthodox Churches ... as Sister Churches" and thus concludes that "the search for perfect and total communion which is neither absorption nor fusion but a meeting in truth and love (cf. Slavorum Apostoli, n. 27)". It rejects prosyletism, a missionary apostolate aimed at "conversion":

What is "wrong" about the concept, then is that it had political overtones (as always), was ultimately unsucessful and, in fact, can be assessed as having made matters worse, at the universal level. At the local level, as I suggested to Alex, there are indeed positive aspects as well, and there are things to be thankful for. Most importantly, its spirit is contrary to how we say we view each other, as Sisters, which would not seek this missionary apostolate. This "sister church" concept has its detractors among the hardcore (and it has an as yet unreciprocated significance within Catholicism in accepting Orthodox Christians for Holy Communion); but to the extent that it has any remaining life, ISTM, that the "return" phraseology contradicts its spirit.

Huh? I guess this is a thought unrelated to Balamand. This idea of a "struggle" is very intriguing. Could you elaborate?