I thought you may find the following bit of information interesting:
A passion-bearer is one who faces his death in a Christ-like manner. Unlike (outright) martyrs, passion-bearers are not explicitly killed for their Orthodox faith, though they hold to that faith with piety and true love of God.
While the Eastern Orthodox Churches in Russia, Greece, Ukraine, etc. may not be in absolute and perfect communion with Rome, they still have several beautiful facets to their faith. This is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful.
Pray for Christian unity. Pray that the Church may, once again, learn to breathe with both lungs together, not both lungs separately.
What will be the crown of those who, humble within and humiliated without, have imitated the humility of our Savior in all its fullness! – St. Bernadette
We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials. – St. Teresa of Avila
I am ready to die for my Lord, that in my blood the Church may obtain liberty and peace. – St. Thomas Becket
Certain Orthodox Churches are in union with Rome. St. Nicholas the Wonder-Worker (Lebanese)in Gates and St. Josaphat’s Ukrainian Church on Ridge Road East have Pope Benedict XVI as their pope. St. Nicholas has Pope Benedict XVI as pope and Gregory as their bishop.
Fr. Ken Sherman at St. Nicholas was raised Roman Catholic but went to the Melkite Rite when he went into the seminary. Fr. Helfrich is ordained in both the Roman Catholic (Latin Rite) and the Eastern (Melkite Rite). I went to St. Nicholas for the feast of St. Nicholas years ago feeling a little awkward, thinking I was going to be the only Roman Catholic in attendance. To my surprise there were other Roman Catholics there. In fact most of the mass attendance was made up of Roman Catholics and there were relatively few Catholics of the Melkite Rite at that mass. The mass was beautiful and reminded me of high mass in the Latin Rite. Everything was sung. There was a lot of Lord have mercy and asking the saints to pray for us. There were beautiful icons. There was extreme reverence for the Eucharist and the incensor was used. The incensor has bells.
Just pointing out that Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic are different. The Orthodox Church is schismatic. St Josaphat and St Nicholas are Eastern-rite Catholic.
I agree. I’m not sure if they regard themselves as Orthodox, but they definitely are Eastern Rite Catholics. Although I was visiting, there seemed to be a real appeal for the Roman Catholics who went there on a regular basis that I talked to after mass. One of them I knew. They liked the worship and also the fellowship there – the congregation has breakfast together on the grounds of the church in a gathering area (building).
Along with the profound reverence of liturgy of the mass and the wonderful fellowship, I would think another drawing point could be same pope, different bishop.
The lack of Bp. Clark may indeed be the draw for Latin-rite Catholics to the local Eastern-rite parishes. That said, I’m not a huge fan of rite-hopping if I can avoid it…since I’m a Latin-rite Catholic, I ought to be attending Latin-rite Mass.