About Eastern Catholics, their Orthodox counterparts and those who have remained in UNION with the Holy Father

We all know Sui Iuris Eastern Catholic Churches has its trace on their sister Churches in the Orthodoxy of whom they decide to break to be once more united with the Holy Mother Church. But it is known that there is still a strife between the Eastern Catholic Churches alongside with their Sister counterparts. Below is the Sui Iuris Eastern Catholic Churches and their Sister Churches from other Eastern Christian Churches

• Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church (Albanian Orthodox Church)
• Bulgarian Byzantine Catholic Church (Bulgarian Orthodox Church)
• Greek  Catholic Church (Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople/Orthodox Church of Greece)
• Melkite Catholic Church (Antiochian Orthodox Church)
• Croatian Byzantine Catholic Church (Serbian Orthodox Church)
• Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church (Americo-Carpatho Orthodox Church)
• Slovak Greek Catholic Church (Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church)
• Macedonian Byzantine Catholic Church (Macedonian Orthodox Church)
• Romanian Greek Catholic Church (Romanian Orthodox)
• Russian Byzantine Catholic Church (Russian Orthodox Church)
• Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate or Moscow Patriachate)
• Armenian Catholic Church (Armenian Apostolic Church)
• Chaldean Catholic Church (Assyrian Church of the East)
• Coptic Catholic Church (Coptic Church)
• Ethiopian Catholic Church (Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church)
• Syrian Catholic Church (Syriac Orthodox Church)
• Syro-Malankara Catholic Church (Malankara Jacobite Orthodox Church)

With the Exemption of the Maronite Catholics, Syro Malabar Catholics, The Italo Albanese Byzantine Catholics of Italy and the Hungarian Byzantine Catholics, because the original Ancestors are Hungarian Protestants, not Orthodox, and some Orthodox Christians who have choose Byzantine Rite under the then Greek Catholic Eparchy of Presov, now Slovak Greek Catholic Metropolia, most of the Sui Iuris Churches has Counterparts from other Churches.

And you will that their Sister Churches from other Eastern Christian Denominations of accusation that their supposed "Union" is a abnormal one, being brought in times of conflict and as a short of protection only from the Pope in Rome, to avoid the supremacy of Orthodox Churches which they belong once. Honestly it is also been notice that some Eastern Catholic Churches adopted some practices from the Latin Church, which has become to be known as Latinization, though i will not emphasized to make more explanation such cause some Sui Iuris Churches are bringing their Identity back as they were to be truly Eastern in Nature. The main problem that arose is the Misunderstanding of the Dominant Latin Church regarding their Eastern Counterpart, besides its conflicts with the Orthodox sisters Churches. For centuries since the reunification of some Churches, they have suffered a lot because of confusion and the malignment of their Custom,. Discipline and Liturgy amongst the Latin, but since Informations is disseminated very well, most of us came to accept them not as confusing or divisive, but a decisive factor of making Christian Unity,  them as bridges to the other Eastern Christian Brethren.

Speaking of those who have remained in UNIA, of which they claimed not separating at all with the Supreme Pontiff, it is already questioned the claimed of the Maronites Catholic and the Syro Malabar Catholic because of some Circumstances that make their claims being put into debate by Church Historians. But it is a fact that the most genuine of these claims is the Italo Greek Catholic Church, which has never separated even at the time of the Great Schism of 1054. Though i have say anything here, it does not mean that i have say already everything i have known, but i have just write here everything i learned not just on reading but on talking on Eastern Catholics, how do i understand and appreciate their Ancient Heritage of Liturgical Tradition, Devotion and Theological patrimony. There will be more Articles regarding Eastern Catholicism soon.

PRESVJATA BOGORODICE, SPASI NAS (MOST HOLY THEOTOKOS, PROTECT US)
GOSPODE ISUSE KRISTI, SINE BOZJI, POMILUJ GRJESNOGA
(LORD JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD, HAVE MERCY ON ME A SINNER)

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Sermon of His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, on his Enthronement

Your Beatitudes, Eminences, Excellencies,

Most Reverend Bishops, Members of the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC,

Beloved Brothers in Priesthood, Venerable Monks and Nuns,

Very Honorable Representatives of the Ukrainian Government and the Diplomatic Corps,

Beloved in Christ Brothers and Sisters!

Glory to Jesus Christ!

“Before Your Cross we bow down in worship, O Master, and Your holy resurrection we glorify!”

With these words, the Church of Christ focuses today on the Precious and Life-Giving Cross. It is namely today, as we pass the halfway point of our Lenten journey, that this Life-Giving Tree is given to us that we may get strengthened by it, may find a source of strength therein as well as the courage to go on to Christ’s Resurrection in order to put this Sign of the Cross at the center of our lives.

St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Philippians, has left us a unique early Christian hymn, which the young, newly born through the Holy Spirit Church perhaps solemnly sang in its Liturgy. The Apostle of the Gentiles addresses us in this way:

“Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, something to be grasped. Rather, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (2:6-11).

In these words, the word about the Cross has a central meaning. On the one hand, we see here an icon of the earthly life of Jesus Christ, Who, having become man, was heading every day towards His death on the cross. The Cross is the moment of His greatest humiliation, extreme humility and divine descent. In the second part of this hymn, however, we see Christ, Who is glorified by the Father Himself. It is namely from the moment of the death on the Cross that we have the beginning of the ascent, glorification and triumphant discovery of His divine glory, which is the glory of the Father.

Every Christian, who, as a disciple of Christ, follows his Lord, must discover also in his personal life the effectiveness of His paschal mystery. There is only one door through which one can enter into the heavenly glory of the Resurrection – His Precious and Life-Giving Cross. Our vocation is to follow the Savior to the end, even unto death on the cross. The mystery of His Life-Giving Cross lies in the fact that this lowest degree of humility and obedient disgrace is exactly the place, from which the Heavenly Father proceeds to raise, lift up and exalt us by His divine glory, before which will bend a knee everything that is in heaven, on earth and under the earth.

“Before Your Cross, we bow down in worship, O Master, and Your holy resurrection we glorify!”

These words sound in a special way to us today – to us, the martyr Church, which, as a true heir of the faith of the apostles, sings them in this Patriarchal Cathedral of the Lord’s Resurrection! Is this not an eloquent sign of God for all of us, who today, when bowing down before the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, are doing it in the Resurrection Cathedral?

Our Church in the twentieth century has walked with our Savior to the end – until the total destruction on its native land and a seeming death. However, this death of hundreds of thousands of our laity, priests, monks and nuns, led by our bishops, was the death on the cross and therefore the life-giving one! Our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents thus made known to us, their descendants, and through us – to free Ukraine – the strength and invincibility of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. In its disgrace, humiliation and descent, our Church has stood on this place – the place of resurrection, when the Heavenly Father glorifies it risen with His imperishable glory, before which every knee will bend, and every tongue, through the power of this Church’s testimony in the Holy Spirit, will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father.

“Before Your Cross, we bow down in worship, O Master, and Your holy resurrection we glorify!”

For me, the young Father and Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, these words are the result of its past, the meaning of its present and the guidance for its future.

Today, we, the heirs of Volodymyr’s Baptism, feel the unity and continuity with our history and tradition, adopting the precious heritage of our great predecessors: Servant of God Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskyi, Patriarch Josyf [Slipyi], Myroslav Ivan [Lubachivskyi] and Lubomyr [Husar]. Today, these men, through the warm hand of [His Beatitude] Lubomyr, bless us and make this treasure an alive, eloquent and illuminating one for a modern Ukrainian. “Holiness of the united People of God" is and will be the development strategy of our Church. She lives and acts as one body in the whole world as the Church on a universal scale, she is and will be the soul of the Ukrainian people in order to sanctify it, to open its heart to its brother and neighbor to preserve our nation as the people of God and lead it to salvation and life eternal.

Today we are experiencing the spring of our Church, which in her resurrection is beginning to get younger by the Holy Spirit and smile to the world with the light of Christ’s Gospel. It is about her, ancient and eternally new, the psalmist sings, saying: she “fills your days with good things and renews your youth as the eagle’s” (Ps. 102:5). Today, especially on this festive day, we realize that we are the renewed and rejuvenated Church. Hence, I want to make a special appeal to our, mostly still young clergy, religious, and to all of the Ukrainian youth! Today Christ calls us, the young, to take responsibility for His Church! Let us get preoccupied with her, let us put the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of our Savior in the center of our lives and He will sweeten it as Moses’ rod had sweetened the sour waters of Marah in the desert! Let us accept and courageously carry out our Christian vocation in the contemporary world, for together we can renew the face of our people and its nation.

“We praise Your passion, O Christ! Reveal also to us Your glorious resurrection!”

Amen.

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Enthronement of the Romanian Greek Catholic Major Archbishop His Beatitude Lucian Muresan

Of the Four (4) Eastern Catholic Major Archiepiscopates, the Romanian Greek Catholic Church is the 2nd Church in the Byzantine Catholic Rite to be elevated, alongside Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The first Major Archbishop is His Beatitude Lucian Muresan, and Concelebrating with him is His Eminence Cardinal Ignace Moussa I Daoud, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Eastern Catholic Churches and different Greek Catholic Hierarchs, including His Beatitude Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Major Archbishop Emeritus of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The Church is headed by the Major Archdiocese of Fagaras si Alba Iulia and composed of four Diocese inside Romania ( Maramures, Oradea, Cluj-Gherla and Lugoj) and one outside, directly subject to Holy See, the Romanian Greek Catholic Eparchy of St. George in Canton, Ohio in the United States. It has a 800,000 Adherents

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Staying connected with God

Everyday I travel 1.5 hours in the morning and 1.5 hours in the afternoon to get to work and to come back home.  Its a long commute.  I see many people with their electronic music players, cellphones, smartphones, tablets, using these handheld devices to pass the time and make the grind of the commute bearable.  It is great to stay connected.  You have the time to stay in touch with friends and family and even read news to stay in touch with the world.  You can read books to grow in knowledge or for entertainment.  And speaking of entertainment, there are a lot of games you can play on these devices.
But as Catholics, have we forgotten that the Church has invented the original handheld device to stay connected?  It has excellent reception anywhere, full bars of signal.  You never have to recharge it, in fact it even recharges you!  It never goes out of style and forces you to upgrade every 6 months.  You never have to sign up for 3-year contracts, although a lifetime commitment is ideal.  Have you caught on to what I am talking about?
This past week I finally received my very first prayer rope.  The prayer rope is similar to a rosary wherein its used to count the number of times a prayer is recited.  On the prayer rope we pray the Jesus Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.
Its simple, short and meaningful.  Also the objective of repetitive prayer is not merely trying to petition God over and over again.  Being that Eastern Spirituality is more contemplative, the objective of the Jesus Prayer is to transcend from an oral prayer, to a mental prayer, to a prayer of the heart where you live the prayer in your life and you become the prayer.
What does this all mean?  The first level is just what we would do now, say the prayer over and over again.  At this point its a chore, the words are said and it seems its a shallow activity.  But its shallow because our hearts and souls are hardened to let Christ take root in our souls.  So we repeat over and over again, the same way a jackhammer would pound the pavement over and over again to break it open and get beneath the surface.
Level two is prayer of the mind.  When we get to this level we are more conscious of the prayer now.  Even though the words were not something we made, it is made our own.  Have you ever shopped around for greeting cards (or e-cards for you young, hip ones out there)?  There are dozens of greeting cards in the bookstore to choose from, words written by many several authors.  We don't get the first one we come across, we find the one that speak for us.  That is how the Jesus Prayer is at this point.  We relate to the prayer and understand it deeply.  When we speak the words, we understand what every word means.  Oftentimes, every single time we say the prayer, it means something a little different to us.  We beg for mercy for our sins.  We beg for mercy for acknowledging that we are prone to sin.  We can even pin point exact actions in the day as we meditate that would show the times we sinned and how sorry we are for them.  On the surface its repeated, recited prayer.  But now it carries a deeper meaning.

The third level is prayer of the heart.  We now live the prayer.  Our lives are transformed, we don't pray the Jesus Prayer anymore, we are the Jesus Prayer.  Through our every thought and action, we live a life consistent with the meaning of the prayer.
So, with all that time commuting to and from work, we know there's a lot of time to enrich ourselves.  Do we do so with earthly knowledge and entertainment?  Do we do so with brief conversations with friends?  Or do we stay connected with God with the most awesome handheld device given to man?  When in conversation with others, do we not say that commuting is wasting a lot of time?  Why not avoid waste and use that time to connect with God?

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Hymns from the Italo Albanese Byzantine Catholic Monastery of Grottaferratta

From the Greek Abbey of St. Nilus, known as the Monastery of Santa Maria de Grottaferratta, from the Chants of its founder,. St. Nilus, the Spirituality of the Ancient Antiquity of the Byzantine Rite. Just as His Holiness Leo XIII refer them: "An oriental gem set in the pontifical tiara"

Here is the Link of the Monastery which the Chants are being sung

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EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF BOSCO PUTHUR, SYRO MALABAR CATHOLIC CHURCH

Ordination to Episcopacy of Most. Rev. Bosco Puthur as Bishop of Curia of the Syro Malabar Catholic Major Archiepiscopate of Ernakulam-Angamaly, His Principal Co-Consecrators are His Excellencies Archbishop Andrews Thazhath and Archbishop George Valiamattam and his Principal Consecrator is the Major Archbishop Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, C.SS.R. this took place in 2010, a year before the Major Archbishops demise in 2011, of which Bishop Bosco Puthur becomes the Apostolic Administrator of the Major Archiepiscopate until the Election of His Beatitude George Alencherry.

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Hierarchial Holy Qurbana of St, James of the first Syro Malankara Catholic Major Archbishop

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Video Clips of the Hierarchial Divine Liturgy taken in the St. Mary's Cathedral, Pattom in Trivandrum, of he first Major Archbishop Catholicos Cyril Mar Baselios Malancharuvil, O.I.C. Below are some links of other part of the Holy Qurbana, which is the continuation of the 3rd clip

Syro Malankara Catholic Hierarchial Holy Qurbana 1

Syro Malankara Catholic Hierarchial Holy Qurbana 2

Syro Malankara Catholic Hierarchial Holy Qurbana 3

Syro Malankara Catholic Hierarchial Holy Qurbana 4

Syro Malankara Catholic Hierarchial Holy Qurbana 5

This are more Video  clips of this Holy Qurbana of St. James celebrated by the Major Archbishop Catholicos of the Syro Malankara Catholic Church

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EPISCOPAL ORDINATION OF PETER RUSNAK, SLOVAK GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH

The Episcopal Ordination of Most. Rev Peter Rusnak took place after the Erection of the new Eparchy of Bratislava, and his Ordination as the new Bishop, alongside the Elevation of Kosice as Eparchy from Apostolic Exarchate and Eparchy of Presov into a Archdiocese. His Principal Consecrator is His Eminence Jozef Cardinal Tomko, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Evangelization of the People, a Latin Rite Hierarch with Biritual faculty, also in the Episcopal Ordination and Hierarchial Divine Liturgy is His Eminence Leonardo Cardinal Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation of Eastern Catholic Churches.

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