from the editor

NEWSLETTER OF THE YOUNGSTOWN-WARREN CHAPTER OF THE SOCIETY OF SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
VOLUME 14, NUMBER 4, JULY-AUGUST, 2015
VITO R. CARCHEDI, EDITOR, 35 SCHENLEY AVE. STRUTHERS, OH 44471, PHONE: 330-755-5635
EMAIL: [email protected] WEBSITE: www.byzcath.org/stjohnchrysostom/
FROM THE EDITOR...
Dear Members and Friends, Our
next regular chapter meeting will
be Tuesday, September 15, 7pm at
St. Christine Catholic Church,
3165 S. Schenley Ave.
Youngstown, 44511. Our speaker
will be Father Christiaan Kappes a
priest of the Archdiocese of
Indianapolis, ordained in 2002. He
formerly served in his home
diocese in both Anglo and
Hispanic ministry. Also he was variously
assigned to aid missions in Ecuador and Mexico
and more recently finished doctoral studies in
Italy and Greece. He was granted bi-ritual
faculties in 2007 and currently is full-time
professor of Patristics and Liturgy at SS Cyril
and Methodius Seminary in Pittsburgh. He has
written on a variety of topics, especially the
Theotokos. His topic will be "Reading the
Fathers without denominational prejudices: The
Immaculate Conception in Orthodox theology as
a case study for overcoming other assumed
disagreements between the Roman and
Orthodox Churches."
Chapter dues 2015 paid: Demiduk, Fr.
Conoboy, Fr. Rohan , Br. Calabro, Br. Scalise,
Sleever, Tavolario, Billcheck, Sarantopoulos,
Limbert, Fr. Gage, Carchedi, Fr. Hilinski, Joan
Binsley, Jenna Binsley, Fr.
Schmidt, Chorbishop Kail,
Msgr. Spinosa, Fr. Bleahu,
Jim Dershaw, Esther
Dershaw, Beri Berardi,
Chris Berardi, Kolitsos,
Basista, Jacquet, Borak,
Msgr. Siffrin, Fr. Manning,
Fr. Feicht, Fr.
Witmer,Mattiussi, Fr.
Rudjak, Perantinides,
Benedictine Sisters, Hudak,
Comichista, Chiu, Fr. Fiala, Fr. Loveless,
Vasilchek, Nakley, Katz, Democko, Deckant, Fr.
Ettinger.
*WE WILL HAVE CHAPTER MEETINGS IN
OCTOBER & NOVEMBER--SYROMALABAR PRIEST IN NOVEMBER.*
PRAYER OF SOUFANIEH
UNITY OF HEARTS!
UNITY OF CHRISTIANS!
UNITY OF THE FEAST OF EASTER!
BRING A FRIEND TO OUR MEETING.
Lessons From the
Christian East
July 02, 2015
The twentieth anniversary of St.
Pope John Paul II apostolic letter
"Orientale Lumen" is an
occasion to reflect on what can
be learned from Eastern
Catholics
Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of KievHalych, major archbishop of the Ukrainian
Catholic Church, gives the homily during a
Divine Liturgy for Ukrianian expatriates at the
Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome Feb. 19,
2015. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Twenty years ago, in his apostolic
letter Orientale Lumen (May 2, 1995), the late
St. Pope John Paul II called on Roman Catholics
to deepen their knowledge of and love for the
Christian East. I was thinking of his exhortation
as I recently returned from a colloquium in
Canada on the future of the Ukrainian GrecoCatholic Church (UGCC) in North America.
Many, perhaps most, Catholics in North
America are unaware of the UGCC and the other
nearly two-dozen Eastern Churches in
communion with the bishop of Rome and
therefore with the much larger Latin or Roman
Catholic Church.
Though collectively Eastern Catholics are tiny—
perhaps 20 million around the world compared
to well over a billion Latins—it occurs to me
that we may have learned some over-sized
lessons of immediate relevance to Roman
Catholics today. Here are three of those lessons.
I. Persecution
Some people, including the recently deceased
cardinal-archbishop of Chicago, Francis George
of blessed memory, have begun to think
seriously about the increasing pressure on and
outright persecution of Catholics in North
America, not least at the hands of the LGBT
crowd and their friends in media, academia, and
government. Whether their machinations
portend a sustained and systematic campaign of
increasing persecution of the entire Church
cannot be said just now, although plenty of
learned commentators fear the worst. But if it
comes to it, Eastern Catholics, especially those
in the UGCC, have long and painful experience
here of refusing to buckle to ideological
enemies.
Until 1990, the UGCC was the largest banned
religious body in the world. Existing in the
underground in Ukraine after having been
officially eliminated by Stalin in 1946, this
church saw most of her bishops sent to the
Gulag or shot outright, along with many of her
clergy and religious. (Dozens of these were
beatified as martyrs by Pope John Paul II in
Ukraine in 2001.) Those who remained had to
meet secretly in apartments and houses for
liturgy, baptize at night in ponds in remote
forests, hear confessions while hewing rocks in a
labor camp, and catechize children and train
priests in covert ways.
Every such act—liturgical, sacramental,
catechetical, prayerful—was enormously risky
and could result in the infamous 3:00 a.m. knock
on the door as people were arrested and never
seen again. It was a brutal, bloody time, with
millions killed, but Ukrainian Catholics
persevered. Why? Because of their loyalty to the
Gospel and to the (Continue next page)
2
bishop of Rome as an embodiment of the
Church’s refusal to be compliant to any worldly
tyrant.
Other Eastern Christians—especially today in
Syria, Egypt, and Iraq—have more recent
experience of persecution and execution, as
many of us are aware from ISIS-inspired
headlines of the past year. Collectively these
churches have learned costly lessons after
surviving for decades (in the case of Ukraine
under communism) and centuries (in the Middle
East under Islam) as persecuted minorities.
Christians in North America, please God, will
face nothing nearly as serious and lethal as
communism or Islam, but today’s increasing
pressure and persecution, even in more
attenuated forms, is an unfamiliar experience for
many of us on this continent. Eastern Catholics,
however, have learned important and costly
lessons about how to survive persecution in
many forms. What are those lessons?
Catechesis
Nobody is willing to die—or be hounded out of
a job by gangs on Twitter and Facebook—for a
question mark. If Christians today are facing
increasing pressure and persecution, they can
only survive by knowing the faith deeply and
living it daily. “Sunday Christians” are
Monday’s apostates. Shoddy catechesis, in short,
will be deadly: in difficult times, there is a great
winnowing that happens as Christians who are
lukewarm, ignorant, or otherwise non-committal
fall away. It is much easier to deny Christ,
whom one does not see, than to defy the bullies
whom one does see and who threaten one’s job
or family or life.
Those who are willing to remain and suffer do
so because they have a deep understanding of
the faith and a deep formation through frequent
reception of the sacraments. For them, Jesus is
not a sunbeam but the suffering servant and
tortured Son of God who is with them intimately
even as they are being starved or water-boarded.
For them Jesus is the very model par
excellence of someone falsely and unjustly
arrested, tortured, and executed. God himself has
experienced all these horrors before and in
person, and thus he shows Christians not only
how to persevere, but how the story ends: with
the death of death itself.
Community and Communication
When the UGCC emerged twenty-five years ago
it did so not with a few dozen or few hundred or
even few thousand surviving members. When it
began pouring out of the underground,
nobody—not the KGB, CIA, or the Vatican
even—could foresee the hundreds of thousands
and eventually millions who would emerge.
Today the UGCC has about 5 million members,
mostly in Ukraine but also many in North and
South America, Western Europe, and Australia.
How could so many survive in Ukraine under
the many-eyed totalitarian monster of
communism? They did so frequently in very
small, tight-knit communities. With no visible
hierarchy (though bishops in the underground
took great pains always to ensure at least one
man with apostolic succession in Ukraine
survived), and no way to receive direction from
a pope of Rome (in an era before cell phones,
Twitter, e-mail, and Facebook), they had only
themselves for direction. Having been deeply
grounded in the faith, and availing themselves of
the sacraments—especially Confession and the
Eucharist—whenever and wherever they could
find them, they were given the strength to
persevere.
Today we have advantages those in the Soviet
Union did not, especially in the realm of
communication: it is easier to stay in touch with
people whose help and support we need. But we
must not make the mistake of relying only on
technology. As embodied worshippers of an
incarnate God, we cannot baptize, ordain, or
commune by texts or tweets. We need to gather
in person for support and sacramental grace.
I have often thought that Catholics have much to
learn from the Amish in living a life of deep
faith and personal accountability in a local,
tight-knit community that is largely selfsustaining economically. The Amish deliberately
keep their communities both small in size and
close to the earth through farming. That is no
small advantage: as the UGCC priest-theologian
Andriy Chirovsky likes to point out, when you
are very small and humble (a word whose root
means “on the ground” or “close to the earth”),
not only do you please God, but you make
yourself a much harder target for the giants to
hit!
Some Catholics already understand the need for
such community.(Continue next page)
3
I think of organizations such as local
associations of home-schooling Catholic
families. Or more clearly organized groups like
Opus Dei or “third-order” associations. Or even
groups like the City of the Lord in Arizona and
California: a group of “charismatic” Catholics
who live in the same neighborhood and have a
deep community life together. We need groups
like this who will keep their structures very low
and simple, their reach very local, but their roots
very deep.
II. Liturgy and Beauty
Though I support many of the reforms of the
Second Vatican Council, I share the critiques of
many—e.g., Joseph Ratzinger, Jonathan
Robinson, Aidan Nichols, Louis Bouyer, and
Catherine Pickstock—that things were done that
ought not to have been done in changing the
Latin liturgy. Here I share Pickstock’s critique
(see her brilliant 1997 book After Writing: On
the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy)
about the structural defects in the Novus Ordo.
As she has put it, the Vatican II reforms, far
from being “progressive” or “liberal” in fact
“participated in an entirely more sinister
conservatism. For they failed to challenge those
structures of the modern secular world which are
wholly inimical to liturgical purpose: those
structures, indeed, which perpetuate a separation
of everyday life from liturgical enactment.” The
particular aspects of anti-ritual modernity that
need challenging, according to Pickstock,
include “such anachronistic structural concepts
as ‘argument,’ ‘linear order,’ ‘segmentation,’
‘discrete stages,’ and the notion of ‘new
information’ outside ‘linguistic redundancy’ or
repetition” (After Writing, 171-75).
Eastern liturgies of all traditions—the
Byzantine, Armenian, Alexandrian, and Syrian
traditions—have never undergone a massive
revision at the hands of experts the way the
Latin tradition did in the 1960s. Eastern liturgy
today remains stable, traditional, and
conservative, with inbuilt structural repetitions
that are in fact welcome, healthy, and
necessary for they correspond to how real
people really pray—by stuttering, stumbling,
and starting again and again and again. It was
precisely these rich, elaborate, conservative, and
repetitive liturgies that were so deeply sustaining
to Christians in the catacombs of Ukraine, and
elsewhere in the Middle East. As the Catholic
anthropologist Mary Douglas has shown in her
1970 book Natural Symbols, “thin” rituals have
no staying power and no power to transform
peoples and cultures; only “thick” traditions can
do that.
For Latin Catholics still struggling to repristinate their liturgical life, the East has gifts to
offer. The very liturgical culture and ethos of the
East offers much that the West has often lost but
needs to find again: a culture of transcendence,
awe, and staggering beauty such that, as with the
embassy of Grand Prince Vladimir in Hagia
Sophia, we may say of the liturgy in all our
churches: “We knew not whether we were in
heaven or on earth; but we know that God
dwells there among men. For we cannot forget
that beauty!”
Calendar and Fasting
The East also has much to offer about related
matters, including a liturgical calendar not
pockmarked by such bizarre inventions as
Ascension ThurSunday; and retention of a cycle
of four major fasts each year. The loss of fasting
in the West has, in itself, been a source of untold
damage.
III. Married Clergy and Elected Bishops
Last October, many Catholics got an experience
of the messiness of synodality—an experience
that will be repeated this autumn in another
session on marriage, re-marriage, divorce, and
annulments. For those who prefer that all
decisions in the church be made in a tidy, dry,
quick fashion by a pope simply issuing a decree,
this was a rude wake-up call. But, in fact, messy
synods and chaotic councils are the norm, not
the exception. Anyone who knows the slightest
thing about the ecumenical councils of the first
millennium—from Nicaea I in 325 through
Nicaea II in 787—will know that they were not
composed of clubby men sitting around in
scarlet silk sipping sherry and tidily disposing of
all disagreements with a quiet nod of the head
and puff of the cigar. They were fractious,
raucous affairs not excluding outbreaks of
fisticuffs.
Synodality
The Eastern Churches today continue to be
governed by such synods (though fist-fights are,
thankfully, rare). Such synods are a part of their
churches’ more (Continue next page)
4
decentralized structure, a structure that, in part,
allowed them to survive persecution, especially
in case of the Armenians. Synodal structure
allows for things like the local election of
bishops without waiting around for a functionary
in Rome to send the name of someone he’s
never met to the pope for Francis to “promote”
to a diocese he’s never heard of.
As I have been asking, in diverse places, for
more than a decade: if election of bishops is
good enough for Eastern Catholics, why is it not
good enough for Roman Catholics? (For those
who don’t know the history, the papal monopoly
on episcopal appointments is a wholly modern
invention, placed into the 1917 code of canon
law and having no theological warrant
whatsoever.)
Synods and elections do not, of course, in
themselves guarantee any better quality of leader
or process of governance. But they do give
people a much greater sense of ownership over
their own local ecclesial affairs. If the
commission Pope Francis has appointed for
reorganizing the Curia and restructuring the
Church recommends, as seems likely, much
greater decentralization and much more frequent
synodality, Roman Catholics will not have to reinvent the wheel in either case, but have
centuries of Eastern experience to draw on.
Married Clergy
Finally, if Pope Francis—who recently changed
an obscure and unjust rule on this very point—
decides that married men can be ordained priests
more widely in the Latin Church than they
already are, once again Roman Catholics need
not panic and see this as some bizarre or
extraneous tradition: it has been part of the East
(as it was of the West until early in the second
millennium) from the beginning. Where
properly lived and supported it works very well,
though it presents certain challenges at the same
time. (I address these joys and challenges in a
book coming out late next year on married
Catholic priests, including Eastern Catholic
priests and Latin priests in the Anglican
ordinariates.)
Twenty years ago, when he Orientale
Lumen first appeared, some commentators said
that the late Pope John Paul II had written a
“love letter to the Christian East.” In the
intervening two decades, how many of us have
fallen more deeply in love with—or at least
knowledge of—the Christian East? Her liturgies,
synods, married priests, and histories of
persecution are just some of the treasures
Western Christians will find. Eastern Catholics,
to be sure, don’t have all the answers—far from
it. But their lessons from the past may well offer
much wisdom for our shared future today.
Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille is Associate Professor
and Chairman of the Department of TheologyPhilosophy, University of Saint Francis (Fort
Wayne, IN) and author ofOrthodoxy and the
Roman Papacy (University of Notre Dame,
2011).
It’s time to reset our
pastoral strategy:
Ordain married men
The Rev. Jonathan Duncan of St. John
Vianney Catholic Church in Cleburne, Texas
with his wife Elizabeth and children Bennett
(lower right), Alexander, and Lucy. Duncan is
a former Episcopal priest who converted and
was accepted into the Catholic priesthood.
(Photo by Donna Rychaert)
By The Rev. Bernard R. Bonnot
Special to Crux June 16, 2015
Holy Thursday commemorated the day Jesus
“conferred his priesthood on his Apostles”
(Chrism Mass). Most of those apostles were
probably married. (Continue next page)
5
In doing so, Jesus effected a pastoral reset. That
memory suggests the Church in the US could
use a strategic pastoral reset and ordaining
married men needs to be part of it. For our
current strategy seems headed toward
catastrophe — sacramental drought and
Eucharistic starvation.
Observers might reasonably conclude that the
Catholic Church’s pastoral strategy in the US is
bigger is better, so merge/close/megachurch. In
the north, we are merging parishes and closing
churches, disrupting many communities of faith.
Across the south, we are building megachurches or grouping several small parishes,
often separated by large distances, under one
pastor.
This strategy is driven by multiple factors: the
movement of urban Catholic populations in the
north to suburbs or to the south/southwest, the
financial stress of settlements for clergy abuse,
and the declining number of priests available to
pastor parishes.
The rapidly declining number of priests seems to
be the tail that is wagging the dog. It is that
factor this essay addresses. It is that factor that
most needs to be reset, for bigger entails less
engagement by more Church members, more
passivity when we are called to be more
missionary. The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints is growing rapidly, in part
because it limits its base congregations, called
wards, to 25-500 active members and assigns
most members specific responsibilities, with no
full-time, paid clergy!
Mergings and closings
In the 1980s, the late Cardinal Edmund Szoka of
Detroit took the dramatic step of merging and
closing dozens of parishes and churches. That
was four decades ago. Since then, there has been
a steady drumbeat of mergings and closings in
US dioceses from Boston to Cleveland and
beyond. Between 1991 and 2013, the
Archdiocese of New York closed 43 parishes,
then in November 2014 announced the
merging of 112 of its remaining 368 parishes
and the closing of 31. In May, the archdiocese
said it would merge an additional 31 parishes
into 14 new parishes. When the mergers are
completed in August, the total number of
parishes in the New York archdiocese will go
from 368 a year ago to 296. That’s a body blow!
Typically such plans are prepared through
consultation and the reasons for the decisions are
explained to parishioners. Nonetheless, the
strategy nearly always provokes anguish,
consternation, and alienation among clergy and
faithful. Most often these steps are rationalized
on financial or demographic grounds. The
growing shortage of priests is unavoidably
mentioned, but seldom is the truth of the matter
flatly stated: We simply don’t have the priest
personnel available to staff all these churches.
A few statistics may help. As detailed by
Christine Schenk in a Feb. 26 essay for the
National Catholic Reporter, New York’s 1991
numbers reported 2,177 priests serving 2.24
million Catholics (1 priest per 1,030 Catholics)
in 411 parishes (5.3 priests/parish). The 2013
numbers report 1,343 priests serving 2.62
million Catholics (1 priest per 1,950 Catholics)
in 368 parishes (3.7 priests/parish).
The national picture
A March 6 Commonweal essay by CARA’s
Mary Gautier reports that since 2000, just 15
years ago, the number of parishes nationally has
declined 7.1% to 17,800 while the number of
Catholics has risen 17% to 66.6 million. There
are today fewer than 26,265 diocesan priests in
the US, of whom only 17,900 are in “active
ministry.” That means on average 1.006 priests
per parish serving 3,741 people per parish and
3,720 people per diocesan priest. The other
8,365 of today’s diocesan priests are formally
retired. Happily many of them continue to serve
in some way, but it’s about to get much worse:
“half of all priests currently in active ministry
also expect to retire by 2019” according to
an NCR front page story, using CARA statistics.
Half in the next four years! That’s crippling.
Gautier reports that the decline in the number of
priests has been in process since the late 1960s,
but the problem is becoming ever more severe.
“Only about a third of the number needed to
replace priests who are retiring, dying, or
leaving” each year are being ordained. “More
priests die each year than are ordained.” That
means we face a 67% decline in priests available
in the coming decades. Meanwhile, the number
of Catholics keeps growing.
This reality is crushing priests carrying the
growing burden of priestly ministry. They have
hunkered down to carry on,(Continue next page)
6
but many are discouraged, if not panicked. Many
are scandalized that episcopal leadership seems
unalarmed by this situation and uncreative in
responding to it. For 40 years, our hierarchy has
proposed that the solution is to pray for
vocations, increase vocational PR, and trust in
God while they merge/close/mega-church their
parishes. Other steps, if any are being taken, are
not shared or discussed publicly. Priests are
concerned that the Church they care about and
have served faithfully is about to go over a cliff
One favored response is to recruit “international
priests.” Their number has grown from 3,500 in
1999 to nearly 7,000 today (Gautier). That tactic
has brought successes, but also problems and
failures. It also depletes the priests available in
lands where the Catholic population is exploding
or recovering from decades of Communism.
This suggests that the Catholic Church in the
United States has become a mission church
again rather than a missionary church, a
shrinking Church needing outside help rather
than a thriving one sharing with others. Dare we
say a failing Church? We look big and
prosperous, but we are collapsing. Even with
such recruiting, nearly 3,500 of the now 17,800
parishes in the United States are without a
resident priest pastor.
However much this pastoral strategy of
merging/closing/mega-churching may seem to
alleviate the crisis of insufficient priest
personnel, it merely covers a festering wound.
The wound is getting worse, and the patient’s
condition is increasingly critical. However much
our current strategy seems to address the
problem, its de facto impact is to deny laity
everywhere ready access to the sacraments,
especially the Eucharist. It imposes a fast from
our most basic nourishment, forcing laity to
travel further – sometimes much further — to
find celebrations occurring at times available in
their jammed and complicated schedules. It
imposes a crushing burden on priests, forcing
them to spend more time and energy managing
and running from one responsibility and location
to another. It sounds callous, but it in effect says,
“Let the people do without and let the clergy
carry their cross.”
All this is largely due to a lack of strategic
creativity, fear about changing the status quo,
and resistance to alternate pastoral strategies.
Chief among those alternatives is the possibility
of ordaining married men to provide priestly
ministry to local communities of faith, as Jesus
id on that first Holy Thursday.
What can be done?
There are to be sure several factors at play, but I
focus on the declining number of priests
available to serve our growing Catholic
community. That shrinking number is the result
of the shrinking number of candidates. Factors
contributing to that shrinkage include certainly
the smaller number of children in families, the
reduced number of Catholic schools, and the
reduced number of Catholic children attending
those schools. Talented men also have an
increased number of attractive career options in
our society and economy, even in the Church.
Younger Catholics have grown up during an
increased affirmation of marriage as a path to
holiness and the hyper-sexualization of our
culture. Today’s parents look forward to the
time of becoming grandparents, a hope invested
in their few offspring. Some argue that women
have been so offended by various aspects of
Church discipline and behavior toward them and
their daughters that they do not encourage their
sons to become priests — perhaps even
discourage them.
These complex factors result in a hugely reduced
pool of candidates for the priesthood. The
insistence of our leadership on limiting the pool
to men willing to accept celibacy has contributed
greatly to our priest famine. The Vatican’s
hitherto refusal to seriously explore the option of
ordaining married men, silently acquiesced by
our US bishops, dooms our Church to a failing
pastoral strategy. We need a reset.
Fortunately we currently have a Pope whose
mind is not closed to exploring that option. Pope
Francis has stated his readiness to consider
requests from episcopal conferences for
permission to ordain married men of proven
quality to meet pastoral needs. To my
knowledge, no episcopal conference has yet
made such a request. To my knowledge our own
US Conference of Catholic Bishops is not even
talking about the possibility. Their public
strategy remains ‘pray, promote vocations, trust
God, merge, close and mega-church.’ We have
been doing that for 40 years. Perhaps God is
answering our prayers by(Continue next page)
7
inviting us to explore expanded consideration of
whom God might be calling and whom the
Church might ordain.
Ordaining married men is not an outrageous
idea. I need not repeat here the many arguments
for entertaining the idea — the fact of married
priests through several centuries of our Roman
Church’s life, the fact of married priests serving
the Orthodox churches and also many Catholic
Rites other than our Roman tradition from the
beginning to this day, the fact that we already
have married Roman Catholic priests serving
our people as ministers of other traditions ‘turn
to Rome,’ the enrichment of experience and
wisdom a married and celibate clergy could
bring to the service of God’s people,
strengthened credibility of the Church in dealing
with family and sexual matters.
To be sure, instituting such a component of an
alternate pastoral strategy would require
adjustments, bring different challenges, and
introduce new sets of problems. But it can be
done, and it could bring near-term relief.
One immediate avenue could be to call select
men from among married deacons to priesthood.
The Catholic Church in the United States today
has some 18,725 ordained deacons, 94% of them
married men and 12,358 of them in their 50s and
60s, according to CARA’s 2013-14 study for the
USCCB. A few single and/or widowed
permanent deacons have taken additional
training, become priests within a few years, and
are serving well. The same could be done with
select married permanent deacons, individuals of
proven qualities discerned apt to serve as priests,
able and willing to do so.
If just 10% of our 18,725 permanent deacons
were discerned and called to priesthood in the
next few years, the looming disaster of losing
50% of currently active priests to retirement
would be alleviated — not sufficiently, but
somewhat. That could provide breathing space
for the Church to train and prepare many other
married men willing to serve as priests.
Such priests would not have to be full-time
Church employees. Many, if not all, could be
tent-maker clergy, maintaining their careers and
day jobs, as was St. Paul and as are most
permanent deacons today.
The alternative is to continue telling Catholics,
in effect, ‘you will just have to do with less. We
have no solution. Your/our prayers are not being
answered,’ … so we have to close your church
and you’ll just have to travel further to get to
Mass and have a priest available to serve you.
We need a reset. We need at least to look at such
a reset.
Such exploration of a different pastoral strategy
could open still other helpful pastoral avenues. It
would enable communities to identify potential
leaders from within their communities and
propose them for training and ordination,
including women as deacons. It might lead to
restoring to service some of the many men
ordained to celibate priesthood in recent decades
who resigned the priesthood to live the vocation
of marriage. Many of them continue to see
themselves as priests, ordained to serve, and
strive to minister to God’s people to the extent
they can within Church law. They are many.
They are willing. They are waiting to be asked.
The Church in the United States faces a
deepening of the crisis we have been
experiencing for five decades — the declining
number of ordained priests to serve the growing
number of Catholics. Our overall pastoral
strategy has not addressed that situation and our
current pastoral strategy is more destructive than
effective. If continued, it will be increasingly
disastrous. The Church in the United States
needs to reset its pastoral strategy, soon.
Ordaining married men of proven ability and
character would be one step in that direction.
The Rev. Bernard R. Bonnot is a
priest and pastor of the Diocese of
Youngstown ordained in 1967. He
serves also as chairman of the
Leadership Team of the Association
of US Catholic Priests (AUSCP),
which has endorsed this essay.
Father is a member of the
Youngstown-Warren Chapter of the
Society of St. John Chrysostom.
***PLEASE NOTE THAT IN THE INTEREST
OF INQUIRY, OUR NEWSLETTER
SOMETIMES PRESENTS ARTICLES WITH
POINTS OF VIEW WITH WHICH WE DON’T
NECESSARILY AGREE.***
PRAY TO THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR
UNITY!
8
Saint Charbel’s memory, the
future of Lebanon and the
Maronite Church
Fady Noun
Celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the saint’s
beatification will be held between 18 and 25 July. In view
of future tragedies for the Church, Pope Paul VI’s decision
was prophetic. For Abbot Naaman, a new leadership is
needed to protect the Maronite community. The failure to
elect Lebanon’s president “is one of the
symptoms”.Celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the
saint’s beatification will be held between 18 and 25 July. In
view of future tragedies for the Church, Pope Paul VI’s
decision was prophetic. For Abbot Naaman, a new
leadership is needed to protect the Maronite community.
The failure to elect Lebanon’s president “is one of the
symptoms”.
Beirut (AsiaNews) –
The Maronite Church
has decided to
commemorate
officially the 50th
anniversary of the
beatification of Saint Charbel by Pope Paul VI
(1965) by holding a novena of prayers and
various events between 18 and 25 July.
Maronite Patriarch al-Rahi recently described
the saint’s beatification as a prophetic deed
intended to focus the world's attention on the
importance of the Eastern Church, perhaps in
anticipation of the dramatic hours it would later
experience.
Indeed, the fate of this part of the world was
partly sealed by 1965 because the minds behind
the Caliphate and Islamism were already at
work. The devastation of the Lord's vineyard
that we see today was announced through
prophetic messages and supernatural events that
the patriarchs of the East failed to see at the time
or openly mocked.
Events associated with the 50th anniversary will
be held in Bekaa Kafra (Bsharri), Saint
Charbel’s birthplace. They will include
discussions, processions, the launch of a small
business making local products, the procession
of Saint Charbel’s relics in Bsharri, his mother’s
native village, a ceremony attended by the
Apostolic Nuncio, and a patriarchal Mass.
These events are intended to breathe new life
into the Maronite Church, as well as restore its
identity and courage under fire, in light of
everything that is happening in the Middle East.
What challenges does the Maronite Church face
today? In the past two years, some wise
Maronites like Father Michel Awit, the veteran
head of protocol at the patriarchal seat in
Bkerké; Father Boulos Naaman, former Superior
General of the Lebanese Maronite Order; and
Patriarchal Vicar Samir Mazloum have tried
each to answer that question.
All three have written some short pieces about
the Maronite Church, its identity and its mission
for the core matter is short. In their writings,
they have made some recommendations,
confiding their loving thoughts and issuing
priestly warnings.
Basically, all their recommendations come
together and be summarised by John Paul II's
words: "Against the spirit of the world, the
Church takes up anew each day a struggle that is
none other than the struggle for the world’s
soul" (Crossing the Threshold of Hope, p. 62,
from Excerpts of Inri pdf edition).
"The first Maronite elite was educated at the
school in Hawqa, in the heart of the mountain
(Mount Lebanon),” Fr Naaman said. Its
members “were raised in the school of
asceticism, sobriety of life and love of God,” he
added. “From the small seed planted by Saint
Maron, who found refuge in Lebanon, a
homeland for men was born, not only for
Christians but for everyone, for this man was the
message of Christianity."
"Unfortunately,” Fr Naaman went on to say, “we
turned into a nation of interested, opportunistic
people. We have gone backward, to a time
before Emir Bashir, scattered in branches
(joubab) and communities. From farmers linked
to the great feudal lords, we had managed to
bring all communities under one national roof,
Lebanon. At present, because of our selfishness,
inwardness, love of power and money, these
communities have scattered."
Of course, external causes have played a role in
this process of dissolution, the former superior
of the Lebanese Maronite Order said. However,
history has summoned(Continue next page)
9
a new elite. Either our vocation will disappear,
or Providence will entrust it to another people. I
do not want to be pessimistic, but I know that
Providence will find those who will complete
the course of this story. For the history of
humanisation of this part of the world will not
stop with us."
Spirit of exploitation
For Fr Naaman, "the Church, both priests and
monks, universities, and schools are now
animated by a spirit of exploitation. People are
tired, exhausted. External factors are obvious,
but it is high time we realise that we have
something inside that we are neglecting. We
must go to the people, and stop lecturing it. One
of the main qualities of a leader is his capacity to
listen."
For the abbot, like Pope Francis, in the life of
the Church it is necessary to identify and fight
clericalism, careerism and love of money. "In
schools and universities, we need more mercy,
teaching by example, more models,” he said.
“We need to limit gain whilst reinvesting. We
must give to the people what comes from the
people."
Obviously, Fr Naaman is really concerned by
the danger that the Maronite Church, as God's
people, might lose its spiritual identity and the
role it performed through in history as a nation
builder. For him, the great danger facing
Lebanon, its civilisational challenge, is not the
physical disappearance of the Church that saw
the birth of a giant of holiness like Saint
Charbel, but rather its spiritual demise. The
political rivalries that has prevented the election
of a president for more than a year –
traditionally a Maronite - is one of the
symptoms.
By chance, in the convent library, I came across
a book by Father Michel Hayek on "Father
Charbel." Published by La Colombe, the old
edition is now out of print. Since it was by
Michel Hayeck, I borrowed it. What could be
said about St Charbel had been said many times.
However, what Hayeck had to say delighted me.
Describing Annaya in the 1950s, he mentioned
"American Buicks driven by ascetic tourists
seeking a place for a spiritual weekend" and
people "coming together as joyful insurance
companies".
"He took himself away from his family and
village without any fuss or farewell ceremony,”
it said in reference to Charbel Makhlouf’s entry
to the convent.
Let us make sure that the honours we render him
today are not tainted. We may be a people of
ascetics, but let us not become managers of
asceticism, nor turn our monasteries into
supermarkets. Why did Michel Hayeck and
Youakim Mubarak go to live in Paris? Did they
feel stifled in Lebanon?
Newly ordained Fr Marc Khouryhanna, carried
on the shoulders of the faithful in priestly
vestments, at Zgharta, in northern Lebanon.
From the Portuguese-language facebook
page Direto da Sacristia.
Pope Recognizes Heroic Virtues
of Ukrainian Archbishop
Recognition Brings Metropolitan
Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky Closer to
Beatification
Rome, July 17, 2015 (ZENIT.org) Junno Arocho
Esteves
Pope Francis recognized the heroic virtues of
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop Andrey
Sheptytsky. According to a communique
released by the Holy See Press Office, the Holy
Father met this morning with Cardinal Angelo
Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the
Causes of Saints. (Continue next page)
10
The Pope also recognized the heroic virtues of
several religious/lay men and women
en from Italy,
Spain, France & Mexico.
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky is considered
to be one of the most influential 20th century
figures in the history of the Ukrainian Church.
Enthroned as Metropolitan of Lviv in 1901,
Archbishop Sheptytsky was arrested shortly
after the outbreak of World War I in 1914 by the
Russians. After his imprisonment in several
prisons in Russia and the Ukraine, the
Archbishop was released in 1918.
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic prelate was also
an ardent supporter of the Jewish co
community in
Ukraine, going so far as to learn Hebrew to
better communicate with them. He also was a
vocal protestor against atrocities committed by
the Nazis, evidenced in his pastoral letter, "Thou
Shalt Not Kill." He was also known to harbor
thousands of Jews in his residence and in Greek
Catholic monasteries.
Following his death in 1944, his cause for
canonization was opened in 1958
.
Zizioulas in Civilta
Cattolica: Praised
be 'is appealing to
ecumenism
Pope Francis with
Metropolitan Zizioulas - AP
(computer translation)
http://it.radiovaticana.va/
"The Praised be You 'is a call"
ecumenism "existential". It 'as
said the Metropolitan of
Pergamon, Ionannis Zizioulas,
in a long interview with Father Antonio Spadaro,
published in the latest issue of Civilta Cattolica. The
Orthodox bishop, who was among the speakers at the
presentation of the encyclical of Pope Francis - last
June 19 in the New Synod - points out that ""in the
face of great problems of humanity and the planet our
differences and divisions relativize. There's some
issues ecumenism already made. Therefore, the
encyclical is really a call to Christian unity, to
common prayer and the conversion of our hearts and
our lifestyles have become unsustainable. "
Ecological crisis is first and foremost spiritual
problem
"The ecological crisis - continues Zizioulas in the
conversation with the director of the Jesuit magazine
- is essentially
ially a spiritual problem: the encyclical says
so clearly. With original sin the proper relationship
between man and his natural environment is
broken. This break is sin, sin ecological, that is both
individual and social. Those who think of their
salvation
n can not look upon sin ecological result of
human greed. " Metropolitan of Pergamon underlines
the strong commitment of the Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew I on environmental issues and recalls
that back in 2002, along with John Paul II, was
signed a joint
nt document, the Declaration of Venice,
"in which the two leaders of the Church They
declared their concern for the protection of our planet
threatened by the current ecological crisis. " Now, he
adds, "on behalf of the Ecumenical Patriarch, His
Holiness Francis
rancis I expressed the gratitude of the
Orthodox world for having raised its authoritative
voice at this critical time in human history."
Environment and social justice
central
to
ecumenism
"Churches
reiterates
Bishop
Zizioulas - must try their unity not
only with respect to the past, but also
with respect to the current conditions
in which they live. Even the real needs
of humanity must be taken into
account in ecumenism existential, and
this means that issues such as social
justice
stice and the protection of creation
must play a central role in ecumenical
relations. "Moreover, he continues,
"the ecology is not preservation, but
development".Metropolitan
then
returns to revive its proposal so that
Christians can celebrate a common date
da to pray for
the land. "The Ecumenical Patriarchate - he explains decided in 1989 to dedicate the date of September 1
to prayer for the environment", "on this day we pray
for the prayers composed specially created with a
hymn writer of Mount Athos. It would be a sign,
whichever had value for all Christians. " (By
Alessandro Gisotti)
ARE YOU A CHAPTER MEMBER? WHY
NOT?
11
"Does the Council matter
to my mother?”
from: http://www.firstthings.com/
This question was posed at the Orthodox
Theological Society of America’s (OTSA)
conference held last month. It was asked in
reference to the anticipated Holy and Great
Council of the Orthodox Church planned for
Pentecost 2016. It was offered tongue-in-cheek
and was directed at the speculation about
whether anything of substance will come out of
the Council, but it expressed well the hopes and
concerns held by the scholars of the Orthodox
Church.
The ninety or so scholars, including myself,
attending the OTSA conference represented
many Orthodox jurisdictions in America as
well as abroad, were comprised mostly of
laity—but included several priests and two
hierarchs—were made up of a mix of cradle
and convert Orthodox and other Christians, and
included an impressive number of female
scholars. We met in New York City in
conjunction with Fordham’s Orthodox
Christian Studies Center.
OTSA convened to discuss the planned Council
of 2016, visiting many of its proposed agenda
items in papers and open discussions. (The sum
total agenda is, roughly: fasting, canonical
impediments to marriage, calendar issues,
diaspora, relationship of the Orthodox Church
to other Christian Churches, ranking of the
autocephalous churches, autonomy and
autocephaly, manner of granting autocephaly,
presence of the Orthodox Church in the World
Council of Churches, and the contribution of
the Orthodox Church to the realization of
justice, freedom, brotherhood, and love among
peoples.)
Many scholarly conferences are organized
around a topical theme; for example, last year’s
OTSA conference held forth on “The Orthodox
Church in America in a Post-Modern World.”
While this year’s meeting was thematically
focused on the Council of 2016, the tone and
tenor of the conference was markedly different
that a purely thematic conference because
OTSA anticipated what might be a monumental
event in Orthodox Christian history: the first
recognized Council of the Orthodox Church in
over twelve hundred years. The papers, the
questions posed to the presenters, and the open
discussions were duly weighted with hopes and
fears about the Council of 2016.
Though there were different voices in the room
and dissenting opinions (one of the things I find
so refreshing about OTSA is that it is a place
where disagreement is quite comfortable, and
handled in a collegial manner), there seemed to
me to be a few areas of majority accord.
One of those areas was concern around the
degree to which allegiance to nation-states, or
ethno-nationalist tendencies might dominate or
limit the Council. It was noted that the
Orthodox Church’s organization into
autocephalous churches (with a total of
fourteen recognized autocephalous churches
around the world today) initially happened
along the political boundaries of the Empire for
practical, organizational reasons. In more
recent history, however, the political
boundaries aligned with some autocephalous
churches have been closely identified with
ethnicity and nationalism, and often coupled
with a fundamentalist and insular ethos.
Connected with this concern was the
understanding that the Council will be
conducted by consensus rule. This was
assumed to mean that all bishops present (each
autocephalous church can bring up to twentyfour bishops) must unanimously agree on an
item in order for it to stand. The OTSA
attendees were concerned that a consequence of
consensus rule might be that one group, or even
one bishop, could control the outcomes of the
Council. This concern was underscored by the
awareness of the historical anomaly of a
consensus Council—no previous council has
operated under unanimous rule—and by the
realization that a Council so structured will
inevitably be a conservative council, in terms
of both the quality and quantity of what is
accomplished. Some scholars expressed the
hope that consensus rule might be interpreted in
a Quaker fashion; that (Continue next page)
12
as accord grows on a given item, those in
disagreement would respectfully step back and
support the decisions made by the body of the
Council.
An additional concern held at OTSA was the
question: Who else might be present at the
Council, in addition to each church’s allotment
of bishops? Will there be any lay theologians?
Any non-Orthodox? Any women of any kind?
The idea of a Council composed strictly of
bishops did not sit well with the members of
OTSA, and not just because of twenty-first
century notions of representation, but because
of the real awareness that Ecumenical Councils
past always included members of the greater
royal priesthood of believers beyond the
hierarchs. Just as St. Ignatius of Antioch
championed the role of the bishop in the
Church, he also insisted, “Wherever the bishop
shall appear, there let the multitude [of the
people] also be.”
There were three hopes for the Council that
seemed to be universally held by OTSA
members, and that I perceive to be held by
most American Orthodox faithful. The first is
the reorganization of the Orthodox world in
western countries—in the so-called diaspora—
to the theologically and canonically sound
position of one bishop per city. The process for
this would be arduous, but possible, but the
likelihood of it being endorsed by this Council
was questioned. The other two broadly held
hopes for the Council are the hope of restored
communion with the Oriental Churches, and
the hope of the restoration of the female
diaconate. “Restored” is the critical word in
both cases: while both issues contain not
inconsiderable theological and pragmatic
concerns, these concerns can be addressed,
these restorations are attainable, and they
would benefit Orthodox faithful the world over.
Although much of the OTSA discussion was
centered around what will happen at the
Council, what will happen after the Council
was acknowledged as greatly important.
Councils of the Orthodox Church must be
received by the Church; they must be accepted
by the baptized faithful. There is no formal
process for the reception of a council, no canon
or doctrine dictates its acclamation, and nothing
that precedes a council recognizes its truth in
advance. The reception of a council happens on
the schedule of the Holy Spirit, and this
nebulous, unfettered, and spirited process
encapsulates for me all that is good and true
about the Orthodox Church as a body.
One of the strongest hopes of those at OTSA
was that the Council simply come to pass, and
that all the autocephalous churches attend.
While this may seem like a meager hope
indeed, the Orthodox Church, as noted, has not
met in council in over a millennium; it has no
method or manner of worldwide conciliarism,
and this Council of 2016 may be a necessary
pilgrim’s rest on the path to the autocephalous
churches being able to function in a symbiotic
manner. Were a harmonious state of
collaboration among the Orthodox achieved,
the Council of 2016 would strengthen and
illumine the Orthodox Church into its third
millennium, and it might well matter to our
mothers.
Carrie Frederick Frost is a scholar of
Orthodox theology and mother of five living in
Washington state.
on friday, marriage
from:
http://janotec.typepad.com/terra
ce/ June 29, 2015
On Friday -- on a day that the news should have
focused entirely on the funeral of +Rev
Clementa Pinckney (attended by His Eminence
Archbishop Demetrios) -- the Supreme Court
thought it appropriate to announce its decision
on the caseObergefell v. Hodges: the Court
determined that there is now a federallyprotected right of same-sex couples to be
married under civil law.
What does this mean? And what does this mean
for us?
Historically speaking (that is, outside the
Church), this is (Continue next page)
13
something new. In general, cultures across the
world made marriage a “legal” thing between a
man and a woman for the purposes of bearing
children (i.e., “procreation”) and owning
property. That is why society in general has
always been so interested in marriage, and it has
-- across the board -- legislated various laws to
regulate and to support marriage.
This is what is called “civil marriage.”
We should remember that one of the main
reasons why society upheld marriage by law was
for the purpose of procreation. That is why
marriage has been limited, historically and even
outside Christianity, to a relationship
ationship between a
man and a
woman.
As far as
the Church
is
concerned,
marriage
goes far
beyond the
legalized
“civil
union” that
society or
the State is
interested
in
upholding.
Marriage, in
Holy Tradition, is a “sacrament.” It is one of the
seven primaryy “means of grace” that God has
given us for the sake of our salvation. We say
confidently that we can be “saved” through
marriage.
For the first few centuries of the Church (until
about 900 AD), when early Christians got
married, they first went to the city
ty magistrate
(kind of like our “Justice of the Peace”) and
entered into a “civil union.” Then, soon
afterward, they had their marriage blessed in
Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning.
The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony -- or, better,
the “Holy Mystery of Nuptial Union” -- goes far
beyond the interests of society. Marriage, in the
Holy Tradition of Orthodoxy, is an eternal union
of a man and a woman (just like Adam and Eve,
and -- more profoundly -- Christ and His Bride
the Church). Every sacramental marriage is a
part and a beginning of the cosmic reconciliation
of Christ returning all of Creation to the Father
in universal transfiguration. Marriage includes
the possibility of children, but it extends into
love and joy in every moment between the
husband and wife.
We Orthodox have deep and eternal view of
marriage.
And because of that, we venerate and protect it - not just as a civil institution, or as a “contract”
that will cease at the end of life. Marriage, for
us, is forever, always initiating a return to
Paradise,
adise, always transforming a home into a
“Garden of Eden.”
So what do we do
when the Supreme
Court, in a very
poorly written,
poorly argued and
irresponsible
opinion, has changed
the legal definition of
marriage?
(The gaping holes in
this opinion, written
by Reagan-appointee
Reagan
Anthony Kennedy,
are egregious. One
unanswered question
in this statement -- as
if it didn’t matter -- is
whether religious
institutions who choose not to perform such
unions will receive adequate legal protection.)
First of all, we need
ed to remain “courageously
peaceful” and remember that while this decision
is huge for civil law, it does nothing to the
Orthodox definition of marriage.
I doubt that the Church will ever be forced, by
law, to perform same-sex
sex marriages. Such a
thing has not
ot happened once in Massachusetts,
which has legalized such marriages since 2004.
But in the event that everyone who performs the
“civil marriage” within the church ceremony -which I and every other clergy do for the State
in a wedding -- might be required
requi
by law to
perform a same-sex
sex marriage … then I -- and
every other traditional priest -- will stop
performing the civil part (i.e., I would no longer
sign the marriage license).(Continue
(Continue next page)
14
I do not think this is a very big deal in itself. The
“clergy-signed marriage license” was always a
government function, starting around 900 AD
with the hugely significant "Novella 89" of Leo
VI. Historically, I think that any and every
entanglement with the State has turned out to be
a huge mistake.
We need to remember that there have been, for a
long time, many “civil marriages” that the
Church does not recognize as “sacramental”:
“same sex union” is not the only impediment to
Church-blessed sacramental marriage. There are
other “impediments": marriage between too
close of blood relations is prohibited; so also is
habitual adultery and criminality. Age and
consent also factor as significant concerns.
We need to also keep in mind that not only does
the Church warn against homosexual activity,
but it warns -- just as strongly -- against all
sexual behavior outside of sacramental marriage
(like adultery). It is usually overlooked that the
Church warns against all lustful or fetishizing
sex -- even within marriage. The Church warns,
too, against childbearing attempts that take place
outside sacramental marriage: e.g., sperm or egg
donation; in vitro fertilization; surrogate
motherhood; and any and all manipulations of
human life, including DNA modification.
But most importantly, we need to consider that
these warnings are for the conservation of
formal human life and culture, and for the
beautification of human existence for eternity:
so the Church warns against all destructive
passions -- not only sexuality outside Holy
Tradition, but also greed, anger, gluttony, pride
and despair.
We are now in a moment when we need to think
carefully about our response to this cultural
watershed moment. Unfortunately, it is a
watershed: but our response does not need to be
so chaotic or reactionary. It is not the best thing,
surely, to wage another round of "culture wars."
Neither is a retreat from full-on engagement of
from contemporary society (and history): we are
neither Amish, nor are most of us monastic. So
in general, I reject the "Benedict Option." It is
neither robust nor comprehensive as a real
strategy.
Frankly, we should have been thinking about
"responses" to the devolution of contemporary
society a long time ago. Maybe as far back as
when usury was legalized in modern Europe,
and everything became commoditized (even
human labor). Maybe even further back as when
Christendom lost its soul when the western
Church itself began contractualizing the concept
of "covenant" and all relationships, and
secularity was thus invented and set loose upon
human society.
Why do we notice how bad things are only when
our hot buttons are pushed? I think our surprise
and shock about Friday June 26th reveal not so
much the badness of the world, but our
egregious lack of wisdom, and failure to discern.
For now, I will offer only this, in the particular
subject of marriage:
The best thing to do, in response, is this: We
need to understand and reveal the truth of
Orthodox Marriage. Our homes need to be
islands of the joy and peace of the Risen Christ.
Our marriages need to reveal the possibilities of
Trinitarian love in our time. And we need to be
able to talk freely, peacefully and courageously,
about what our marriages mean in Orthodoxy.
When Did the Schism
Actually Occur?
https://ecclesialvigilante.wordpress.com/
The question has been asked elsewhere, but I
thought I’d ask it again and look into a few
striking particulars. While 1054 is commonly
seen as the magic date there
seems to be much in the way
of evidence to contradict it.
The “theological
differences” between
Rome and Constantinople
were nothing new in the
11th century and had been
debated as far back as the
8th. Maximos the Confessor
once wrote back to
Constantinople that the perceived
differences were nothing more than a difference
of expression due to linguistics, and that the two
Romes shared the same doctrines in essence.
Photios would later (Continue next page)
15
– most likely due to ignorance – reject the
“Roman heresies” and later calm down after
being deposed and re-reinstated as patriarch.
Michael Celarius began a cycle wherein
Constantinople would be generally anti-Roman
in its outlook but sometimes swing back to
tolerating or befriending Rome at whim. The
disaster of the Fourth Crusade solidified the antiRoman sentiment that had existed for a few
centuries and guaranteed that there would
always be a strident and loud faction that saw
Rome as the enemy.
In Rome, the Greeks were seen as the brother
who one day decides he hates you and wants
nothing to do with you for no good reason.
When Pope Nicholas intervened in
Constantinople it had nothing to do with
theology, but was a move to restore the rightful
patriarch from an imperial usurper (and Photios
was acknowledged as rightful patriarch when he
was reselected after Isidore’s death). The Fourth
Lateran Council urged the Greeks to calm down
and restore the unity, but interesting to note is
that the council – without precedent – demanded
the Greek submit themselves to the one
Holy Roman Church. This strikes as nothing
more than stepping up the rhetoric as Rome was
in prior centuries often the most reasonable and
reconciliatory of the patriarchates when
differences arose. An overemphasis on
submission probably occurred at Florence and
threw some Greeks into a fit, causing many
Orthodox today to remember it as the time when
they were made to “kiss the Pope’s toe”.
Oft forgotten in the debate is the rest of
Christianity. Outside of the West and Greece,
few knew of this ongoing slap-fight and no one
seems to have cared. Until Florence, the Rusyns
(pre-occupied with surviving the Mongols and
Tartars) do not appear to have involved
themselves in it while the Melkite patriarchates
of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria were too
busy surviving and Byzantinizing. The aftermath
of Florence divided the Rus, but made no impact
on the others. In fact, if one wants to put a date
on the schism they should look to Florence and
the controversy that surrounded it in Byzantium.
Even the Balkans, where Latin and Greek Rite
Christians lived close together, do not seem to
have thrown themselves into the conflict. An
interesting counter-point to the idea of an instant
schism is the Order of the Dragon, an alliance of
the regional monarchs created to unite them
against the enemies of Christianity (usually the
Ottomans, but also “Heretics and Schismatics”).
Its members included: the Prince of Wallachia
(more famously known as Vlad Dracul), the
Prince of Serbia, the King of Hungary, the Tsar
of Bulgaria, the Ban of Croatia, the Duke of
Bosnia, the King of Bohemia, and many Polish
and Hungarian nobles. While not official
members of the order, the kings of Poland and
England and the Grand Duke of Lithuania allied
themselves with the order. If the idea of a 1054
instant schism held any ground, such an alliance
between “Catholic” and “Orthodox” should have
been inconceivable.
ECUMENICAL MOVE
Pope
Francis has instituted a new day of prayer and
celebration for the Church entitled the “World
Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation,” to be
celebrated on September 1 each year.
The day of prayer is in keeping with the theme
of the Holy Father’s newest environmental
encyclical “Laudato Si.” It is also seen as a sign
of unity with the Orthodox Church, which
established September 1 as a day to celebrate
creation in 1989.
“The celebration of this Day, on the same date
as the Orthodox Church, will be a valuable
opportunity to bear witness to our growing
communion with our Orthodox brothers and
sisters,” Pope Francis said. (edited LOE)
Vatican City, Aug 10, 2015 / (CNA/EWTN News).-
This Syriac bishop will be beatified
on the 100th anniversary of
his martyrdom
Bishop Flavien-Michel Malké of the
Syriac Diocese of Gazireh, who was
martyred Aug. 29, 1915, and will be
beatified Aug. 29, 2015. Public
domain photo
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