Orthodox under Austro-Hungarian rule (such as the Romanians) were under severe civil disabilities because it was state policy to force Orthodox into the Unia. The same with Orthodox under Polish rule. This is basic history.
No back tracking, you said now. What Eastern Catholic Church continues to exist for political reason Now?
The diaspora existence and re-constitution of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was a major Cold-War era political project.
So conspiracy theory nonsense.
If you're not familiar with the Cold War history of the UGCC, read a little. Likewise for Vatican politics in the Middle East.
I am familiar. I am not willing to reduce the lived experience of the UGCC to the action/inaction of the Vatican diplomatic corps.
Not just the Vatican's, by any means. But lived experience or not, it's a political project throughout it's entire history, just like the other Eastern Catholic Churches.
Why are Greek Catholic clergy responsible to violate their consciences to leave the fullness of faith within Catholicism?
I'm speaking here from an Orthodox perspective, obviously. Our consciences don't always align with our actual responsibilities, that's normal.
This is such a weird rule. It privileges a very made-up North American sensitivity over the language used in most academic discourse in western languages. For an example of Ukrainian Catholic academics themselves using it in English this past week: http://kyiv-christ.ucu.edu.ua/en/ev...e-bogoslov-ya-ta-kulturno-religijna-programa/
A couple years ago, I was at an academic conference frequented by many Ukrainian Catholics from Canada who tried to get the other Catholic academics to stop using the U-word about them (in discussions about the Balamand Declaration, where the term is kind of officially enshrined). Everyone just sort of politely ignored them.
Personally, the "U" word doesn't bother me, though I'm aware that in some contexts it might be used pejoratively. However, the rule on this board currently is to not use it. Why should that be so difficult to adhere to? It's just as easy to type "Eastern Catholics" even if there are a few more letters. If that's too difficult, just shorten it to "EC's" or "ByzCath's" or whatever.
I adhere to it here, I just find it hilarious that there's a random taboo that requires circumlocutions to avoid saying something I don't think twice about putting in a conference abstract in a Catholic context.
They still use it today. Just apparently not in North America.
That sounds like an opinion to me, which of course you're certainly entitled to. Love the use of the word "they", as if all (or even many) EC's are "re-imagining" ourselves as you portray us.
I mean, there was a systematic re-imaginging of the history to portray themselves as permanant victims of Russia rather than having been the persecutors of Orthodoxy in Austrian and Polish territory. (To say nothing of the Ukrainian diaspora re-imagining of their Nazi dalliances as freedom-fighting).
Rather than get onto that merry-go-round I'd say that at some point or other, somewhere or other, each group or, more accurately, members of each group, i.e. Catholc & Orthodox, has been both victimized and victimizer. Each group has blood on their hands and there's plenty of guilt to go around. Like the old saying goes, "when you point your finger at someone, there are three more pointing back at you." The blame game gets exceedingly tiresome and rarely, if ever, has any positive outcome.
But the very existence of the Greek Catholic Churches is due to persecution. They have no reason to exist outside of that and no way to exist outside of these political games. While Orthodox persecution of Greek Catholics was wrong and it's unfortunate when the Orthodox don't know how to be the bigger people, the Catholics themselves have no right to complain about experiencing their own methods.
I don't think that in 2021 A.D. we Eastern Catholics need to "justify" our existence. We're here. Deal with it. Most EC's that I know (admittedly that's not a lot) don't even discuss these kinds of things, except maybe on internet discussion boards, which I'm pretty sure is a pretty tiny sub-group, either of EC's or O'dox.
As I've said before, the continued existence of the Eastern Catholic Churches especially in the Middle East and India is incredibly damaging for the long-term prospects of Christianity in those regions. There's enormous damage with zero good done.
And there's no real reason to talk about that sort of thing in everyday life. But it is a constant subject of conversation at other levels of church life for EC's.
Do you have real evidence of this or are you just speculating?
Well, thankfully the vast majority of EC's don't live at those "other levels".
I have a fair bit of personal experience with them and I've read as much of the Middle Eastern Catholic literature available in languages I read as I can. In the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, recognition of the harm done by their very existence is a basic part of much of their literature over the past century and a quarter. In other communities,there's a range of views, some of which amount to quite noxious lust-for-power. But the basic historical fact, which I've seen on the ground and is obvious from history, is that the Eastern Catholics have fragmented local Christian communities and caused many of what would've been their most capable elements live in a fantasy-land of thinking they're Westerners, either totally disengaged from or hostile to their surroundings (there's a political element to this) and disengaged from their own heritage in a way somewhat more insidious than the category of lituregical 'latinizations-- for example, I've had UGCC and Melkite Catholic clergy separately complain to me that their mostly Jesuit-run education for priests deliberately avoids teaching any sort of liturgical theology.
Eastern Catholicism = started by forced political unions of faithful Orthodox to Rome and a convenient way to proselytize to Orthodox laity by claiming they can hold to the faith of their fathers while in practice they have to deny it or at least hold serious cognitive dissonance. Subsequentially until VII Rome treated them as second class citizens, just barely not heretics. I can't find the source but one historical pope in the 1500s or 1600s celebrated a divine liturgy and afterwards called it barbaric. Needless to say the theology and liturgy of the Byzantine rite Catholics was marginalized and in some cases heavily Latinized.
I don't doubt your experience, whatever that might consist of (you didn't really specify), but what you say above doesn't really constitute evidence. And you only mention the Middle East not India which you mentioned earlier, let alone anywhere else EC's might be.
)? (Why don't the UGCC and Melkites grab the bull by the horns and educate their priests themselves? I know...Rome. Yeah, Rome has MUCH to answer for regarding EC's.)), but I'm genuinely interested. However, meaning no disrespect, you can't really expect me to take just your word for this, hence my asking for other sources and documentation.
Not a big fan. I don’t buy essentialist notions of ‘Easternness’ and ‘Westernness’. I came from a Lutheran background that I was happy with as a child but as an adult have no nostalgia. As long as the Orthodox service is in English I’m at home in it.
At this point Gregorian chant and medieval/Renaissance polyphony is probably more alien to the average (at least American) Westerner than a Russian cherubic hymn by Tchaikovsky.
Dude, you're asking for a monograph in a comment box. I'm not going to footnote everything I say here, take it or leave it. The very existence of EC's the an act of fragmentation of Orthodox communities, that's obvious. They're created by a split in Orthodox communities and spent centuries prosletyzing (mostly with offers of money and education) to further split these communities. This is documented in any history book about them. In terms of education, at least in the case of the Melkite Catholics, after they started acting more independently, Rome made it such that the higher education of all priests is done jointly for all Catholics in Lebanon. These aren't independent churches in the way that their apologists in the US like to pretend-- just a couple months ago, a Melkite Catholic bishop was removed and his locum tenens selected completely on Rome's initiative.Just what does the harm or damage consist of? How widespread is it? Is it solely the result of the presence of EC's, or are other factors involved? Is the fragmentation of Christian communities you refer to directly and unquestionably attributable to the presence of EC's? If so, how has that been determined? Is any of this documented in sources publicly available to readers of English? Is it common (and documented) that UGCC and Melkite clergy complain about the Jesuits (Hah! I'd complain about them, too, if they were teaching me!!
Only from 1700-1760 and then only in the Transylvanian counties proper. The Romanians living west of Transylvania., in Hungary proper, such as those that n the counties of Bihor, Zarand, Arad and in Banat weren’t pressured into union, they even enjoyed some of the Illyrian privileges.
Abp Michel Abrass of Tyre. He's actually a quite competent scholar of Christian Arabic literature. The Vatican's announcement was... laconic:
The history of Eastern Catholic origins is less than stellar. I don't think you'd find many Eastern Catholics, or even Roman Catholics nowadays, that would disagree with you on that point. But at the time, Rome viewed the Orthodox the way the Orthodox still view Rome today - as heterodox. Evangelization is how you deal with that problem. If a Christian state backs, finances and encourages evangelization through political means to their form of Christianity, is that really something to be offended by?
Yes, if the methods used to evangelize are by governmental force and deception.
Sure. Everyone views the other side as sheep stealing. But there's a clear difference here. Eastern Catholicism was set up to mislead Orthodox people into joining Rome. The Western rite makes no such pretentions as like "Roman Catholics in communion with Orthodoxy" and Rome's failed promises that Eastern Catholics can keep their own theology. The Western rite is *only* a rite - an allowable system of worship that appeals to some people who voluntarily joined the Orthodox. The Eastern Catholic rite was kept so that Eastern European peasants joined Rome but were fooled into thinking nothing had happened as their worship didn't change all that much.
Russian missionaries to pagan Alaskan natives in a Russian colony is the same as dressing up Catholicism in the Byzantine rite and forcing uneducated brother Christians to join Rome by deception?
Is st. Vladimir not a saint equal to the apostles in the Catholic Church? There was, again, no pretension that Russian pagans could keep the same beliefs so long as they kept their outward form of worship. It was a complete societal change. Nothing even close.
Yeah, not pot-kettle. Orthodox rites or evangelization tactics don't pretend that one can keep their beliefs and then come into communion with Orthodoxy. Voluntary repentance and conversion is preached and *if* heritage can be baptized into it, then it has the blessing of the Church. Eastern Catholicism is the opposite. External heritage first, beliefs subjugated forceably to political maneuvering and deception.
Dude...(Dude??)
What was the mislead and who specifically did it? Rome, or someone lower down the chain who happened to be part of the Latin church? If it was lower down, then it's misdirected blame to hold Rome and the entire Latin church responsible. There are a number of popes who directed Eastern Catholics to maintain their traditions and theology. My parish wouldn't exist the way it does if we were not allowed to retain everything about Orthodox practice that distinguishes it as Orthodox.
I was comparing the political aspect of it. In that light, yes. Russian missionaries evangelizing pagan Alaskan natives on Russian territory is the same thing as Austro-Hungarian and Polish missionaries evangelizing non-Catholic Christians on Austro-Hungarian and Polish territory.
Church is not a museum of past religions and therefore Tridentine and Sarum liturgies should not be promoted for any reason. I read the Charter of the Western Ritualists (ROCOR) from their website and found it full of antiquarian references seeking to justify or contextualize their pursuit of an expression of Christian worship that suits them ‘just so’. I find it embarrassing.
This is the whole point. If Catholics stopped acting like Orthodox were unreasonable for considering them heterodox and stopped pretending like the Eastern Catholic Churches were in any meaningful sense autonomous or "Eastern", then ironically there'd be a lot less bad blood.