Isaiah53IsMessiah
Elder
Curious to know, how many Western Rite Orthodox are there in the Orthodox Church? Has there been any surveys?
IMO this makes even less sense than opposing WRO altogether. If WR is somehow wrong why to allow it at all.their parishes should only exist as a "stepping stone" to Byzantine/Slavonic liturgy, if they do at all.
See also:In 2011, the ROCOR established a special Vicariate in the USA for such parishes, headed by Bishop Jerome of Manhattan. Fr Georgi said, “Unfortunately, it became apparent that this form of mission didn’t bring the desired results, often, it was an obstacle to believers who adhere to the ancient Orthodox liturgical tradition”. Besides that, he pointed up that the ROCOR isn’t the only group that practised this kind of concession in Orthodoxy. Until now, most of such parishes in the USA were under the omophor of the Local Church of Antioch and all the East. Fr Georgi stated, “However, in the case of the vicariate under the ROCOR, ordained priests were permitted to use Western formularies, that is, these converts perceived the Western Rite not as a vehicle for the confession of Orthodoxy using their familiar liturgical order, but as something self-contained, having a legal right to existence and development within the Orthodox tradition. Naturally, that caused confusion on the part of believers”. Due to this, the ROCOR Holy Synod decided, in his words, “to use a very strict interpretation [of the concession]”. As a result, it removed Bishop Jerome from the post of vicar overseeing parishes of the Western liturgical tradition.
18 July 2013
Interfax-Religion
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=51999
Support for the Western Rite has always been a minority position on the ROCOR synod of bishops. St John Maximovitch was barely cold in his tomb before they tried to undo his work - and this was Archbishop Vitaly, the future Metropolitan Vitaly.Indeed. I've always been curious about Bishop Jerome's fate with respect to the WR. It's worth noting that St. John Maximovitch was a staunch proponent of the WR and celebrated the WR mass in France. I wonder how ROCOR reconciles that history with their current ambivalence.