Byzantine Catholics?

DIscussion and News concerning Orthodox Churches in communion with those who have fallen into the heresies of Ecumenism, Renovationism, Sergianism, and Modernism, or those Traditional Orthodox Churches who are now involved with Name-Worshiping, or vagante jurisdictions. All Forum Rules apply. No polemics. No heated discussions. No name-calling.


Gideon
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Byzantine Catholics?

Post by Gideon »

What's the deal with this group? I often post on the byzantine forum but lately it's been crazy. People denying hell and the return of Christ...am I a heretic? I'm new to the Orthodox Faith but I believe what I read in the different Catechism I've read...call me crazy.

"At the final judgement, man will be presented before Christ as a full person, with a body and soul. For man to be presented like this, his body must be resurrected and be united with the soul. This will happen immediately before the final judgement. Holy Scripture absolutely assures us of this." Metropolitan Archbishop Sotirios

OrthoDoc
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Byzantine Catholics

Post by OrthoDoc »

As some one who used to post on the Byzantine Forum I finally gave up on those people. After 400+ years they are still searching for an identity and trying to figure out WHAT, WHO, and WHY they are. They see their religion in the terms of its ritual and national and political alliances. Rather than its doctrines and beliefs. Very few of them fully understand what they are required to believe just by being 'in communion' with Rome. They think that all they have to do is delatinize their ritual and once again they will become fully Orthodox. Their 400+ separation from Holy Orthodoxy has given them a completely western and false idea about what Orthodoxy is. They can't understand that to an Orthodox, doctrine is of prime importance. Rather than ritual observance (which is the only smiliarities we share). Therefore, they also have to delatinize their latinized doctrine too.

They are so intwined with their Latin overlords that they can't help being affected by what is going on within that Church. With the shortage of priests within their jurisdictions, many of their parishes are being serviced by 'bi-ritual' latin priests which also furthers the influence the latin Church has over them in spite of what they claim.

Orthodoc

Justin Kissel

Post by Justin Kissel »

Gideon

What's the deal with this group? I often post on the byzantine forum but lately it's been crazy. People denying hell and the return of Christ...am I a heretic? I'm new to the Orthodox Faith but I believe what I read in the different Catechism I've read...call me crazy.

Well, I'm not sure what's going on over there, but that seems pretty far out there. I doubt that someone who denies the existence of hell is a Byzantine Catholic... what I mean is, they may or may not be saying that they are, but their Church most definately teaches in the existence of hell, and I don't think that's a point there can be any moving on (it's not permissable to follow some of Gregory of Nyssa's comments on this matter, and definately not the heretic Origen's). Byzantine Catholics are essentially Catholics that have more similarities (outwardly, at least) to the Orthodox than the Latin Catholics (what most Roman Catholics are) do. I think, for instance, that Byzantine Catholics accept the essence/energies distinction concerning God that the Orthodox accept, while Latin Catholics do not. In the end, though, they are Catholics in communion with Rome, and therefore (of their own free-will) joined at the hip with the fallen Church of Rome.

This is probably not the best conversation to be having during Lent, so I'll not be posting on this thread again, but I'm sure others here will be able to clarify/correct what I've said. You also might want to ask this question over at OC.net as they are much more familiar with Byzantine Catholicism.

Gideon
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Post by Gideon »

There has been a little backlash but we will see what happens.

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Seraphim Reeves
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My two cents

Post by Seraphim Reeves »

On one hand, I feel bad for BC's, on the other hand, I find many of them (particularly the "net" variety) to be very obnoxious.

I feel bad, since many suffer from an identity crisis, while others labour under false ideas. None of these groups originated in an honest manner, thus I feel as if they've been robbed (though, perhaps taking things further back, we could say the same of the entire western world.)

On the other hand, I find there is a certain type of "B.C." who is very much an elitist, perceiving themselves to be the "key" to saving both the RCC and the Orthodox Church. In a way, they do not even see themselves strictly as members of either Church, but something of a unique, special hybrid. A particularly displeasing trait of some B.C.'s, is their unprincipled, cafeteria approach to communion with Rome. It's quite apparent that many of them want to believe, and think in an Orthodox manner; yet such is impossible (if one were being consistant) while maintaining ecclessiastical (and supposedly) doctrinal union with Rome. I've noticed that when Latins talk with B.C.'s, there is often a lot of hostitlity; and it's not from the Latins! I think many "conservative"/traditional Latins are shocked to find just how selective some B.C.'s are in their acceptance of RC dogma.

While I don't fault someone for not holding onto some of the west's more peculiar/innovative ideas, I do find it dishonest and unprincipled to maintain communion with those they have so little real respect for.

Seraphim

demetrios karaolanis
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Post by demetrios karaolanis »

I too used to post on the byzantine forum, but I quit when they denied many fundamental doctrines of the faith and other odd occurences began to happen on there. I would be interested to hear more on this subject also.

Serge

Comment

Post by Serge »

I posted on the Byzantine Forum for about four years until a year ago, when a strange change in the political climate there caused me to be purged (ironically, for caring about the Catholic Church - pointing out the contradiction of BCs trying to be traditional while the Roman Rite in practice has become Protestant).

To be fair, Byzantine Catholics dogmatically don't deny the Trinity, the existence of hell, etc. There are heretical posters on that forum but they don't represent the doctrines of the Catholic Church. (The Orthodox get misrepresented there too - by an open homosexual, 'Axios', who apparently fibbed his way into an Orthodox church. I'm sure his bishop would be outraged this fellow is claiming the homosexual lifestyle is an Orthodox option!)

Sincere BCs believe there can be only one Church, even though some outside it, including the groups whence they came, have varying degrees of Churchness, and that the Pope of Rome is its designated earthly head.

I am familiar with the types described here.

Seraphim is right that there is the well-meaning BC who ends up coming off as kind of arrogant, putting himself above the magisterium (teaching authority) of his own Catholic Church but also denying the authority of the Orthodox he otherwise emulates. Such might use the jurisdictional rows among some Orthodox as an excuse - strange, since this hypothetical person (I am not anonymously attacking anybody in particular) loves to rub Catholics' noses in it by siding with the Orthodox against them almost all the time, but when cornered as to why he isn't a member of the church he ostensibly believes in, he falls back on an argument the most anti-Orthodox in his church use.

AFAIK Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that the Orthodox communion is the Church and has grace, and that everything outside that communion is a big unknown. Surely such people realize that.

Such, and the not arrogant, more logical BCs who are working to delatinize their churches and criticize liberal mistakes in the Roman Rite, tend not to be born BCs but rather converts, either former Roman Riters or former something else.

Another annoying view among the BC elite online, including that forum, is sheer contempt for traditionalist Romans, their ostensible brother Catholics who share an orthodox, dogmatic worldview, who come to their churches for refuge, an attitude these BCs cop from the liberal powers-that-be in the Roman Rite. I personally never have met a Roman refugee who tried to force his rite's practices on his hosts like this elite claim happens.

The rank-and-file born BCs are pretty much assimilated into Roman Rite ways in the US and don't really want to be Eastern. Definitely true of Ruthenians. (Given the demographics now, they'll probably all be Roman, Protestant and secular in a generation.) Their Ukrainian Catholic cousins do hold onto a separate, semi-Eastern identity but that's out of nationalism. And that construct of Ukrainian identity can make them deliberately un-Eastern in ways too - they'll adopt Polish Latinisms to show they're not Russian, but brandish Russianisms to show they're not Polish. Melkites OTOH aren't very latinized but the French colonial influence caused a change or two.

Russian Catholics, three tiny US churches actually made up of non-Russians, are sincere - it's just that they believe in 'the Pope thing'.

None of the hybridisms one sees in BC practice ever were supposed to happen. (Russian Catholics are proud of the fact they have very few such compromises - strangely, though, their church in New York uses both the Gregorian calendar and the Western date for Easter.) There is a stack of papal documents telling them to stay just like the Orthodox liturgically but often the BCs latinized themselves.

I don't think the essence-vs.-energies distinction (I'll be honest, much of that stuff goes over my head) is seen as a dogmatic difference by Catholics.

Last edited by Serge on Fri 28 March 2003 2:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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