The Rites of the Eastern Catholic Church The following is intended only as the barest outline of the basic data of the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church. It has omitted a few small groups of Slavs who have returned to the Catholic Church. All these groups are in communion with Rome, and are at one with her in their profession of faith, including the Immaculate Conception and Infallibility of the Pope. Each has its own Calendar of Saints, and its own cycle of Sunday Gospels. (For example, the Byzantines calculation for Lent differs from the Romans, begins Lent on the Monday before Ash Wednesday. Most of these rites celebrate Easter on the same day as do the Latin rites. Easily one of the best of discussions of the Eastern Churches (the Catholic Churches in volume one, the dissident churches in volume two) is Donald Attwaters CHURCHES OF THE CHRISTIAN EAST (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1935-1937-1947). (1a) The Syrian Rite of Antioch (West Syrians) PEOPLES SERVED: Syrians DATE OF SEPARATION: 451 DATE OF REUNION: 1656 WHERE FOUND: Near East, Africa, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Syriac, Arabic DEPENDENT UPON: Syrian Patriarch of Antioch PEOPLES SERVED: Maronites [NEVER SEPARATED FROM ROME] WHERE FOUND: Near East, Africa, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Syriac, Arabic DEPENDENT UPON: Maronite Patriarch of Antioch [Maronites insist that they have never been separated from the Holy See, only isolated. They are fond of relating how, when the Crusaders came upon them in the desert their first question was, Who is the Pope? so that they might include his name in their intercessions. This is the only Eastern-Rite body not to have a corresponding body in the Orthodox Church.] PEOPLES SERVED: Malankarese DATE OF SEPARATION: 1663 DATE OF REUNION: 1930 WHERE FOUND: India LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Syriac, Malayalam DEPENDENT UPON: Malankarese Metropolitan of Trivandrum (1b) The Syrian Rite of Antioch (West Syrians) PEOPLES SERVED: Chaldeans DATE OF SEPARATION: 431 DATE OF REUNION: 1551 WHERE FOUND: Middle East, Indian, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Syriac, Arabic DEPENDENT UPON: Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon PEOPLES SERVED: Malabarese DATE OF SEPARATION: 1653 DATE OF REUNION: 1662 WHERE FOUND: India LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Syriac DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome COMMENTS: The date of separation is contested by some scholars. (2) The Coptic (Egyptian) Rite of Alexandria PEOPLES SERVED: Copts DATE OF SEPARATION: 451 DATE OF REUNION: 1741 WHERE FOUND: Egypt, Palestine (Jerusalem) LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Coptic, Arabic DEPENDENT UPON: Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria PEOPLES SERVED: Ethiopians DATE OF SEPARATION: 550 DATE OF REUNION: 1839 WHERE FOUND: Ethiopia, Palestine (Jerusalem), the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Geez DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome (3) The Greek Rite of Byzantium (Byzantine Rite) PEOPLES SERVED: Greeks DATE OF SEPARATION: 1054 DATE OF REUNION: 1860 WHERE FOUND: Greece, Turkey, Near East, Africa, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Greek of the Fathers DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome PEOPLES SERVED: Melkites DATE OF SEPARATION: 1054 DATE OF REUNION: 1724 WHERE FOUND: Near East, Africa, the Americas, Australia LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Greek with Arabic (parts in English, Spanish, & Portuguese) DEPENDENT UPON: Melkite Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, of Alexandria, and Jerusalem COMMENTS: This is one of the most disaffected groups among the Eastern Rite Catholics. Unlike other Byzantine Catholics, this group is headed by a patriarch who is accustomed to seeing himself as one of the equals among whom the Pope of Rome (the Patriarch of the West) is agreed to be the first. The current patriarch provides them with strong leadership in objecting to what they see as Romes violations of the terms of the Union. Chief among these is the ordaining of married men. While no Eastern Rite permits or has ever permitted the marriage of ordained men, the tradition among them (as with the Orthodox) is to permit the ordaining of men who have already been married, although they favor a celibate episcopate. (The marriage of ordained clergy appears to have been a Protestant innovation in Christendom.) Rome understands her acquiescence in this tradition to apply only in the homeland of the Rite; most Eastern Rite Catholics rather expected to be allowed to carry all their traditions, including this one, to the lands to which they were immigrating. Disputes among the indigenous clergy and the immigrant Byzantine clergy have often resulted in whole parishes leaving the Catholic communion to be received back into Orthodox folds. (See the COMMENTS for the Carpatho-Ruthenians below.) Other sources of disagreement are the Immaculate Conception, Papal Supremacy and Infallibility, Purgatory, and the Filioque, and to a lesser extent remarriage after divorce; in short, all the matters that remain primary points of disagreement between Orthodox and Catholics. The terms of the original agreement are clear that agreement with Rome on these matters is expected. PEOPLES SERVED: Italo-Greeks DATE OF SEPARATION: Never separated DATE OF REUNION: Never separated WHERE FOUND: South Italy, Sicily, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Greek, Italian DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome COMMENTS: As with the Maronites, there is no corresponding Orthodox body. PEOPLES SERVED: Albanians DATE OF SEPARATION: 1054 DATE OF REUNION: 1701 WHERE FOUND: Albania, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Greek, Albanian DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome COMMENTS: The date of separation is contested by some scholars. PEOPLES SERVED: Rumanians DATE OF SEPARATION: 1054 DATE OF REUNION: 1701 WHERE FOUND: Rumania, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Rumanian DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome COMMENTS: The date of separation is contested by some scholars. PEOPLES SERVED: Russians DATE OF SEPARATION: 13th century DATE OF REUNION: 1905 WHERE FOUND: The Russias, the Americas, the Far East LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Old Church Slavonic DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome PEOPLES SERVED: Carpatho-Ruthenians DATE OF SEPARATION: 1054 DATE OF REUNION: 1600 WHERE FOUND: From the Balkans to Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Americas (particularly New Jersey and around Pittsburgh) LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Old Church Slavonic, Ruthenian, English, DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation COMMENTS: This date of separation is conjecture. Their observance of the feast of the Translation of the Relics of St. Nicholas to Bari [Italy] (May 9) suggests that their union with Rome was not broken even thirty years after the Schism of 1054, as this event did not occur until 1087. This is probably the most numerous of the Eastern Rite Churches in the United States, and many of the Russian Orthodox congregations (including St. Vladimirs Seminary) can be traced back to Ruthenian Eastern Catholic congregations that were lost to the Holy See as a result of altercations with Jesuits and other Latin Rite officials in the United States. PEOPLES SERVED: Hungarians DATE OF SEPARATION: 1054 DATE OF REUNION: 1652 WHERE FOUND: From the Balkans to Hungary, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Magyar DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome PEOPLES SERVED: Ukrainians DATE OF SEPARATION: 1054 DATE OF REUNION: 1652 WHERE FOUND: Ukraine, the Soviet Union, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Old Church Slavonic with English, Ukrainian DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome COMMENTS: This is the group that by right is celebrating the 1000 Year Millennium of Christianity. In part with the support of the Patriarch of Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church, the Soviet government continues to suppress this body as an illegal church and they are persecuted accordingly. PEOPLES SERVED: Yugoslavs/Serbians DATE OF SEPARATION: 1261 DATE OF REUNION: 1611 WHERE FOUND: From the Balkans to Yugoslavia, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Old Church Slavonic with Croat DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome PEOPLES SERVED: Bulgarians DATE OF SEPARATION: 1054 DATE OF REUNION: 1860 WHERE FOUND: From the Balkans to Bulgaria, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Old Church Slavonic with Bulgarian DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome PEOPLES SERVED: Georgians DATE OF SEPARATION: 13th Century DATE OF REUNION: 1920 WHERE FOUND: Georgia S. S. R. LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Georgian DEPENDENT UPON: Sacred Oriental Congregation, Rome COMMENTS: There is some doubt surrounding this date of reunion. (4) The Armenian Rite of Sis (Cilicia) DATE OF SEPARATION: 525 DATE OF REUNION: 1742 WHERE FOUND: Near East, Africa, Parts of Europe, Soviet Union, the Americas LITURGICAL LANGUAGE: Classical Armenian DEPENDENT UPON: Armenian Patriarch of Cilicia Data (comments excepted, in most cases) taken from EASTERN RITES OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH by Rev. Allen Maloof (Our Sunday Visitor; no date). A word must be said concerning the recurring date of separation 1054, when Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Humbert, Cardinal- Bishop of Silva Candida and papal legate of Leo IX, are said to have excommunicated each other. This date is the one most scholars use for the final separation of East and West, but it must be viewed merely as a convenience. After all, the Second Council of Lyons (1274) and the Council of Florence (1438-1445) both accomplished reconciliations of limited duration, without the famous mutual excommunications of 1054 being real issues. Other historians look to the Crusaders sacking of Constantinople in 1204 as a more serious matter dividing East and West. It is important, however, to see this attack as one in which the Venetians were essentially taking advantage of yet another of the myriad restorations of unseated emperors, that they were but taking part in an act of treacherous politics so common in this city that it has given its adjectival name (Byzantine) to convoluted schemes ever since. And again, the existence of a Latin empire from 1204 to 1261, seems not to have been a real issue at either of the two councils mentioned previously. The Excommunications of 1054 are best seen as simply another of the many disruptions of communion, disruptions that were by no means uncommon between Rome and Constantinople throughout their years of rivalry, but which were never regarded as final in any way. The more important break between Rome and Constantinople is certainly that that came when Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453. Since that time, the Turks have exercised the privilege of naming the patriarch, a privilege not interrupted by the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, for the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) still recognized Turkish interest in Constantinople, and the Patriarch is still typically chosen only from Turkish citizens. It seems unlikely that the Ottoman Empire should ever have permitted a Patriarch to remain on the throne who was interested in union with Rome, for it was just such patriarchs who had brought the Crusaders to the East in the first place. That the selection of 1453 as the date of more or less permanent separation is at least sensible is borne out by the fact that all of the dates of reunion given above postdate it. Also arguing for 1453 is the fact that the last Divine Liturgy said in the great basilica Hagia Sophia was said in union with the Pope of Rome, and that the last Emperor Constantine XI Paleologus, when he died on the battlements on May 29, 1453, died a Catholic.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 10:14:10 +0000
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