Talk:Eastern Catholic Churches

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Question of Latin terminology

The quote from the Vatican web page uses the phrase "ad quiquennium" in describing the Congregation of the Oriental Churches. Is this a misspelling of quinquennium (meaning a period of five years)? And if so, shouldn't the article say that the appointments are for a five year term rather than using a Latin term few general readers are familiar with? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.196.22.166 (talk) 01:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

"Byzantine Rite Catholic" in Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol says "Warhol was a practicing Byzantine Rite Catholic ". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol#Religious_beliefs

I'd like to link Byzantine Rite Catholic, but I'm not sure where it should direct. Anybody? Thanks. (Crossposted to Talk:Byzantine Rite ) -- Writtenonsand 15:36, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I presume he belonged to the Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh, part of the Ruthenian Catholic Church. Lima 15:47, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Unlikely, since his parish is said to be St. Vincent's and there is no St. Vincent's in that eparchy in New York City. This says he went to St. Vincent Ferrer, a Latin rite parish on Lexington Avenue. It seems this was simply his neighborhood parish, and he didn't go out of his way to find one of his own rite. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:09, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

However, frequenting a Latin church or receiving the sacraments in the rite of the Latin Church would not make him a Latin Catholic, if he was not one, no matter how long he kept it up (cf. canon 112 §2 of the Code of Canon Law - I presume there is a corresponding canon of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches). But I have absolutely no way of knowing whether what is reported of him (that he was a Byzantine-Rite Catholic) is true or not. Perhaps someone else has. Lima 04:42, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Warhol was in fact a Lemko/Rusyn/Ruthenian by ethnicity (his original name was "Warhola") and grew up in that rite, which has been variously styled Ruthenian, Carpatho-Rusyn and Byzantine over the years (most congregations under the jurisdiction now simply call themselves, for instance, "St. Michael's Byzantine Catholic Church," though around the block there may be an "Assumption Ukrainian Catholic Church," also by ritual "byzantine," but by jusrisdiction under Philadelphia rather than Pitssburgh). Warhol is buried in a Ruthenian cemetery with an Eastern style cross on the stone. However, he did attend St. Vincent Ferrer (I actually saw him there, sometimes in the middle of the day when the church was otherwise empty, all alone in the in prayer). As mentioned above, his technical rite would have remained Byzantine/Ruthenian, had he chosen to become a priest for instance or had children to be baptized. However, Catholic is Catholic and any Catholic can actually worship in any parish. The technicality of ritual jurisdiction would not have been an issue in his daily worship life.HarvardOxon 04:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

In this case, it would probably be best to use the pipe trick, linking to [[Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh|Byzantine Catholic]]. The redirect from Byzantine Catholic should point here, as I don't believe we have an article on just the Eastern Churches of the Byzantine tradition. Gentgeen 08:50, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

(To HarvardOxon) You need not provide to the present company a précis of Warhol's ethnicity. To those of Lemko descent such as myself, it's well-known.

Regardless of his "technical rite" (which I cannot agree is not an issue in one's prayer life) he chose to worship in a Latin rite parish. It therefore seems somewhat misleading to say he was a "practicing Byzantine Catholic" and leave it at that. TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry that I must confess that, though I am of the present company, I knew nothing about Andy Warhol's ethnicity. At any rate, it appears to be undoubted that he was a Byzantine (Ruthenian) Catholic. It is not so certain that someone who is canonically a Latin Catholic cannot find Byzantine forms of worship more conducive to prayer - or vice versa. But Csernica is certainly right in saying that calling Warhol "a practicing Byzantine Catholic" is easily misinterpreted. How about "a Byzantine Catholic and a person who practiced his faith" or something like that? Lima 09:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

As the OP on this one, I too found this interesting and informative, and (A) I think some of this could be added to Andy Warhol, and (B) I'd still like to see some kind of decision on the correct link for Byzantine Rite Catholic. Thanks to all! -- Writtenonsand 17:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I think there are several solutions. But I think that, in view of the observations above, you should first edit the text so that it no longer says "a practicing Byzantine Rite Catholic". Then you can link "Byzantine Rite Catholic" or "Byzantine Catholic" with Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh or Ruthenian Catholic Church, whichever you prefer. Or you can add an explanatory footnote/reference and put as many links into that as you wish. Others may give you better advice than I can. Lima 17:34, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

How about saying that he was raised a Byzantine Rite (Ruthenian) Catholic, and that he remained a practicing Catholic throughout his life? john k 18:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Look I attended many countries and places in the mid east. I have never seen any practicing Eastern Catholic churches. Also you guys used the term in communication with the Pope of Rome far too many times. The Pope of Rome is not a recognised Church see anymore, his regime is called a Papacy and his order are the papists. The term Kotholikon as is typically in the East describes their cathedrals that practice Byzantine or Hellenic Liturgy not Latin.

I'm glad to see the crazy people have joined us. john k 18:17, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Someone may want to remind User:Ephestion that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches recognize one another. And I'm more than happy to recommend any number of Eastern Catholic churches to visit while in the Middle East -- or most any other place. Majoreditor 19:51, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Since your article has no proof or evidence to the existance of an Eastern Catholic church. I have reverted and will continue to do so. The moment the Katholik church split it formed the Orthodox and Papal Church. There never was an Eastern Catholic church nor do they exist. Yes even Orthodoxy is in communion with the Papacy, the monks of Athos are and always will be in protest for the communion because the Pope of Rome is not the authentic and legitimate appointed bishop of that see. The Bishop of Constantinople must send Three Bishops with acknowledgment from teh other sees before nominating the new Bishop. The process has not been conducted for centuaries leaving the see of Rome unoccupied till today. Do not confuse Catholic faith with Papal faith.

The following post was brought to you by Trolls "R" Us. But seriously -- the vast majority of the Orthodox communion disagrees with your fringe view. 'Nuf said, we don't need to feed this one any more. Majoreditor 02:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

East-West Schism causes

Let us cooperate in improving the text. Here are some of my difficulties with Jonathan Tweet's version. I am sure he will modify it in view of them.

1. The over-simplified date of 1054. The schism is conventionally dated to 1054, when the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Papal Legate Humbert of Mourmoutiers issued mutual excommunications. In spite of that event, "both Churches continued for many years to maintain friendly relations and seemed to be unaware of any formal or final rupture" (Milton V. Anastos, Constantinople and Rome).
2. The schism, Jonathan says, "occurred when the four Patriarchs of the East and the Bishop of Rome disagreed about the Bishop of Rome's primacy". This seems perhaps to be a Western POV, although I admit it can be interpreted more evenly. The Eastern POV would be that it occurred when the Bishop of Rome began to claim a novel primacy of jurisdiction, not just of honour, a change that occurred in the West, not in the East.
3. "The split reflected the division between Greek and Latin that goes back to the early church but that had gotten worse with the fall of the Roman Empire." "Back to the early Church"? Some early Popes were Greeks. For a long time, Rome celebrated the liturgy in Greek. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, France wrote in Greek. "... the fall of the Roman Empire" For the Byzantines, the Roman Empire still existed in 1054, in spite of having lost its western provinces. The Emperor styled himself Emperor of the Romans.
4. "discipline concerning marriage and divorce". There was no controversy about this. At the reunion councils of Lyon and Florence it was not mentioned, and in the decrees for the Greeks no particular discipline was imposed.
5. Jonathan's version suggests that the quarrel, which seems to have been initially a power struggle more than anything else, was basically about doctrine. Lima 05:26, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, cooperating to improve the text instead of fighting! I love this page!

1. 1054 is simple but better than nothing. It's a conventional anchor point and valuable in that regard. If it goes away, I'd like to see it replaced by something helpful rather than vague.
2. I tried to write the disagreement neutrally, but a touchy issue is difficult. Any neutral wording is fine.
3. The beginning of the Greek-Latin split, when is that? Wasn't there a Latin-writing pope from Africa? Can we use his papacy as a landmark for the start of the split? As for the fall of the Roman Empire, fixing this is fine. It's important that the decline of civilization in the West meant the decline of Greek-language instruction and all that went with it. The fall of the western provinces led to increased division within the church. See Early Middle Ages.
4. Ditch marriage/divorce. It was there when I got here, and I am slow to delete material even if I can't verify it myself.
5. There were real doctrinal differences. Those go back centuries. Augustine's original sin is contrary to the Greek tradition, for example. And of course the filioque clause. Were the doctrinal differences exaggerated to serve political ends? Could we refer to political and doctrinal differences and not take a stand on which was the cart and which the horse? Or is there actually consensus that it was a power play?

Jonathan Tweet 13:45, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

The African pope would have been Pope Victor I, who was bishop of Rome at the end of the 2nd century. It was about 150 more years before the Latin-language mass became widespread, though. That's obviously far to early to be talking about a split. The popes no longer knew Greek by the time of Pope Gregory I at the end of the 6th century, if not earlier. I think that's when we see the first hint of a split, with that pope's exercise of temporal power, his vision of a larger role for the bishop of Rome within the Church, and teachings on Purgatory. There had been schisms earlier, when some Eastern patriarchates adopted heretical doctrines, but they were always quickly healed when Orthodoxy reasserted itself, but these would persist in the West and remain contentious issues to this day. At the time, these did not cause a schism and didn't elicit any objections from the East, if it was even noticed, and I don't think it had much to do with the language. (It does seem to me that events in Italy forced St. Gregory's hand in many ways here. I simply note it gave impetus to several trends that ultimately contributed to the Schism.)

A better marker for the beginning of the Great Schism is perhaps the Photian schism, which is when some of these matters, with the filioque thrown in for good measure, first became issues in a division of the Churches. The final nail in the coffin of unity would almost certainly be the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. So it could be regarded as a gradual process that took place over a period of 335 years, with a "pivot point" in 1054. Even then it wasn't entirely final, as the Council of Florence did achieve a kind of limited unity for a brief time. I don't recall any specific sources for this; perhaps there's something in Ware. I have a few volumes of Pelikan, and perhaps there's something there too.

It's only fair to note that the Catholics only expressed their doctrine on Original Sin as dogma at the Council of Trent, over 1,000 years after Augustine wrote. [1] It does not seem to me that they adopted his position without alteration, but I'll leave explanation of that to those who understand Catholic dogma better than I do.

I think you have a valid point about genuine doctrinal differences being put to political ends, thereby magnifying them. That's something that needs to be explored, although perhaps the details should be confined to the article on the Schism. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Just to pipe in, officially, according to the history of the church accepted by Rome, the church of Constantinople was in communion with Rome for only 600 of the first 1000 years of Christianity. They were also in Communion for a total of 200 years after the so called 1054 split. In all of it, the splits were almost entirely due to pandering and politics. The original theological reasons for the split have actually been done away with for a very long time (leavened bread), only to find that people just didn't want the churches to get back together so they made up some a new controversy (filioque). Perhaps a timeline and a percentage could be used if you really want to deal with the 1054 split but shouldn't this page deal more with giving facts about what the Eastern Catholic churches are and deal less with the split since the Great Schism (that lasted only 60 years but was re-instated) already has its own page? I say give a link to that page and a very brief description but let the current fact have room. What this seems like to me is that you want to stamp "1054 INVALID" on every fact about these churches and that certainly isn't fair or neutral. Regards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.36.194.188 (talk) 07:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Official Name of the Catholic Church

The official name is not The Roman Catholic Church, it is The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. It is composed of Roman Catholics (or 'Latins'), Greek Catholics (including Melkites, Uniates), Maronites, Syrian Catholics, Chaldean Catholics et cetera.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.1.229.15 (talk • contribs)

Source of this statement about the (only) official name, please. Lima 13:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The question of the title of the Communion of Christians in union with the Bishop of Rome is a vexed one in Wikipedia. As a Catholic myself I can understand that some Catholics might object to the term Roman Catholic Church. Catholics do not generally use the term; historically it was used by Christian denominations (principally Anglican in the English-speaking world)) who also called themselves Catholic (catholic in the sense of universal).For Catholics, to say Roman Catholic Church makes as much sense as saying the Washingtonian United States or the Londonian United Kingdom. However, it seems that this is the convention used in Wikipedia. It is convenient, and distinguishes Catholics in communion with the Bishop of Rome, of whatever liturgical observance, from other Christians calling themselves Catholic. The term 'One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church' comes from the Apostles' Creed and theNicene Creed. Many Christian communions use this phrase, and so is not exclusively a title of the Catholic Church.--Gazzster 22:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. To put another spin on this ...

In a general sense any group has a right to name itself and Wikipedia should be respectful of this. However, there are limitations. Specifically a group does not have the right to unilaterally choose an identity for itself that denies the identity of other groups regardless of its size and power.

The term "Catholic" Church (or the "one holy catholic and apostolic Church") was originally applied to the entire Church of the Roman Empire. As that Church has split and splintered over time many of the resulting churches have claimed to be the unique descendant of the Roman Church. The churches that have the clearest historic claim, of course, are those headed by bishops succeeding directly from the original Pentarchy.

The fact that the churches in communion with Rome tend to today be most strongly associated with the term Catholic in the West has to do with the relative power of the Church of Rome in the last several centuries, but this association has never been formally accepted across the Christian world (indeed it has been formally rejected throughout the Christian history).

The point is that power is not legitimacy and it is not fair to argue that because the Church of Rome has good PR that it has earned the exclusive right to the term. It would be one thing if the other patriarchs had long ago yielded this term to Rome. That would be entirely different. But this has never been the case.

Regardless of what any group considers its official name Wikipedia should not "take sides" and that sometimes means, for the sake of neutrality, using naming conventions for a group that the group does not consider official.

--Mcorazao 05:20, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church did not have an entry to this point. I made it a redirect to Roman Catholic Church. If someone wants to protest it, we can sort it out when there's an actual objection. TMLutas 18:04, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

The Church refers to itself by several different terms depending on who we are having talks with. Internally, Catholic Church seems to be most prevalent but so too is Church of God, Church of Christ, or the Church of the Saints (in that all Saints in Heaven are considered members). Legally, the word Ecclesia is all that need be used and is all that is used in Cannon Law as well as how the Church describes itself in the legal code of other countries. The other "names" are then really just descriptions or agreed upon local language lingo. Officially, this Latin word consist of the name of the Church (and is translated as The Church) and even the Eastern Catholic Churches are legally described with this. The Greek word of same meaning and origin is not held to be propiatary by the Church. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.36.194.188 (talk) 07:42, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Dr Mindbender's reversion

Perhaps Dr M will accept at least some of my variations, if I explain them.

1. First the least controversial: Is it not usual to put the reference footnote after, not before, the semicolon punctuation? The reference footnote is put after the punctuation at the end of the paragraph in question, at the end of the preceding paragraph, and, I think, everywhere else in the article.
2. "Roman Catholic Church" seems necessary early in this paragraph, to prepare for the immediately following statement: "they are not 'Roman Catholics' in the narrower sense(s)"
3. One can be a "Roman" Catholic in more than two senses: a) a member of the Church that is in fact called Roman Catholic, even by its highest authorities; b) a Catholic belonging to the local Catholic Church in Rome, as a Catholic belonging to the local Catholic Church in Warsaw can be called a Warsaw Catholic; c) a member of the Latin particular Church, which some call the "Roman" Catholic Church. The latter two senses are narrower than the first. Accordingly, after a mention of the first sense you cannot just speak in the singular of "the narrower sense of that term".
4. To speak in the context of membership of the Eastern Catholic Churches, and so of membership of the (Roman) Catholic Church, of "the Patriarchate of the West" goes against the still recent decision of that Church that "le titre de « Patriarche d’Occident », peu clair depuis les origines, devenait obsolète dans l’évolution de l’histoire et pratiquement inutilisable. Continuer à l’utiliser n’a donc plus de sens"[2] (the title of "Patriarch of the West", unclear since the beginning, became obsolete in the course of history and practically unusable. So, to continue using it no longer has any sense). Lima 14:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer to refer to the Communion as the "Catholic Church", but I realize that there are larger issues with the terminology. Suffice it to say that the term "Roman Catholic Church" is the normal reference used within WP for the moment.

The term "Patriarch of the West" should be used only under very specific circumstances, usually as an historic reference. The term is most likely not needed is this article. Majoreditor 14:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Eastern Catholic Martyrs?

I don't understand why this section is here, and if it ought to be here why there is only one listed, and this fairly recently. It seems very odd to have it here the way it is. Orpheus42 08:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Excellent point. The section should be developed or removed. In its present form it's not suitable for inclusion. Majoreditor 14:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Modern Reforms

I think that a section on the Vatican II and post-Vatican II reforms as applied to the Eastern Catholic Churches would be quite useful. We are actually living in very heady times. In order to avoid unseemly fights, I'm starting a sandbox for the page and invite the community that visits here to stop by and contribute. TMLutas 19:41, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. Majoreditor 19:51, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't seem to be getting much contribution over there. What's a reasonable time to leave this stuff in the sandbox before moving it to the article if there's no correcting edits? TMLutas 18:44, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I made some comments. Sorry that I am too sluggish today to do any more. Majoreditor 00:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

• • NOTE**

I think that 11/1 would be a reasonable day to take this out of the sandbox. TMLutas 18:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

% comment

The statement that refers to the number of Eastern Christians that are Eastern Rite Catholics seems very out of place, POV and insulting. Maybe you think that I am being too thin skinned here but there has to be a better way of putting it. The statement only holds true if you count all the different protestants who live in the East as Eastern Christians. If this were not bad enough, it also seems as if your numbers are based on Latin Rite Catholics who live in the East as well, which seem wrong; using Catholic numbers to make a seemingly derogatory statement against Eastern Catholics. On top of that, we must consider the huge population of Russia, and the fact that all Russians are said to belong to the Church of Russia, even if they are not baptized and never go to Liturgy!

What would be a much fairer way to handle this, besides just not making the insulting statement AT ALL, would be to separate it out by rite or location or even by local church. It certainly is true that Byzantine Catholics are vastly out numbered by Byzantine non Catholics. It is also true that Coptic as well as Ethiopian Catholics are aswell vastly outnumbered. The same could be said for Armenian Catholics but then our definition of what an Armenian Catholic is must be clarified. Outside of the country of Armenia, there are more Armenian Catholics then Armenian Rite non Catholics. So it depends on how you want to define your groups. If we refer to Syrian Rite Catholics, we all have to admit that they outnumber the Syrian Rite non Catholics. If we speak of Byzantine Rite in the Middle East but not in Europe, Catholics again are in the majority. If we talk about Byzantine Rite in Italy, again, the Catholics are the majority. Now, it is true that there are more Non Catholic Christians in India then Catholic Christians, and that is without counting the protestants who most Indian Christians do not count as Christians. However, just one of the Catholic Catholic Churches in Idia is larger then any other when compared church to church.

These kind of remarks, stating that ONLY 10% of Easter Christians are Catholic, is the kind of double standard of discrimination that is always heeped on Catholics. You want to make Eastern Catholics seem like the small, weak and out of place group. Considering that most of this number is hugely affected by the population of Russia and the trumped up number of Church enrollment there, I really feel like the statement needs to be said a different way or excluded from the article all together. This kind of statement is only really used, not for informational purposes but to try to discredit the validity of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

On this last point we could also point out a number of different things. In the cases of the Ukrainian Catholics Church, Melkite Catholic Church, Syrian Catholic Church, Maronite Catholic Church, Syro-Malabar Catholic Churc, Chaldean Catholic Church, Armenian Catholic ChurchIt, Italo-Greek Catholic Church, Hungarian Greek Catholic Church was the Church leadership of these churches that established communion with the Catholic Church and thus these Churches are the true legitimate continuation of the original deposit of faith in the area for these churches. The other Churches in the area that do not have communion with the Catholic Church but have communion with other churches represent a schism from the original Church. This status could also be said to exist in several other of the Catholic Churches but not all of course. In some cases the information is very hazy as to exactly how certain elections came about but the Belerusian Catholic Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church are certainly in the grey area. Now it is true that the Coptic Catholic, Byzantine Greek Catholic, Ethiopian Catholic, and Russian Catholic Churches represent certain bishops, priest and lay faithful that went into schism with their local Church leadership in order to establish communion with Rome. I find it interesting that in all of the articles about the churches listed on this site, great pains were made to point out that they are just in schism with the original Church leadership but no mention is made of the cases where the original church leadership joined into communion with Rome and the mirror Churches of `orthodoxy` are the ones in schism, leaving the church in protest of the rightful decision of the true church leadership. I suspect a sutle conspiracy is involved in this.

I see a lot non factual Anti-East, anti-Catholic information on this site and I am not the only one to complain about it. I understand that writers get things wrong and that this site is limited to the knowledge of its apperantly amatuer, non professional staff but still, if you did not know that this was an issue before, please take this into consideration now and make some changes to be fair and respectful to all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.127.251.137 (talk) 04:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Defunct Easten Catholic Churches

What's about Slavonic Eastern Catholic Church or Catholic Church of Eastern Slavonic rite (pol. Kośćioł Katolicki obrzędku wschodniosłowianskiego. ukr. Католицька церква східнословянського обряду), so called Neouniates? In Kostomloty one parish is exists and today.Anyway, we need a chapter about defunct churches (Byzantine Catholic CHurch of Constantinople, Grek Catholic church of Cyprus (in Kingdom of Cyprus)etc). Another question: Armenian Catholic Church in Eastern Europe (under archbishop of Leopolis) is part of common Armenian Catholic Church or separate church of Armenian rite like there are many churches of Byzantine rite. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.86.230.114 (talk) 14:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Defunct Easten Catholic Churches

What's about Slavonic Eastern Catholic Church or Catholic Church of Eastern Slavonic rite (pol. Kośćioł Katolicki obrzędku wschodniosłowianskiego. ukr. Католицька церква східнословянського обряду), so called Neouniates? In Kostomloty one parish is exists and today.Anyway, we need a chapter about defunct churches (Byzantine Catholic CHurch of Constantinople, Grek Catholic church of Cyprus (in Kingdom of Cyprus)etc). Another question: Armenian Catholic Church in Eastern Europe (under archbishop of Leopolis) is part of common Armenian Catholic Church or separate church of Armenian rite like there are many churches of Byzantine rite. And where are offical names of these churches used by Vatican? For example, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is called Catholic Church of Byzantine-Ukrainian rite (Ecclesia Catholica Ritu Byzantino-Ukrainensis)/