Posted on 02/05/2016 4:17:51 PM PST by NRx
Over the past several months, the leader of an independent church movement called the "Catholic Church of the East," the former Archbishop Ramzi Mussalam, has begun a remarkable transition: to bring his entire movement, of over 60 parishes, into the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). The former archbishop was received into the Orthodox Church and ordained a deacon and priest with the encouragement and blessing and by the hand of Metropolitan Hilarion, ROCOR’s First Hierarch. The former archbishop is now Hieromonk Elias. Father Elias grew up in the Scranton area of Pennsylvania as a communicant of the Polish National Catholic Church, in which he was ordained to the priesthood.
The process of Orthodox catechization has now commenced, with the gradual reception of the former clergy and faithful of the "Catholic Church of the East" into Orthodoxy, with their regularization within the canonical embrace of the Orthodox Church. It is expected that this will be a long and complex process but one of that will bear an abundant spiritual harvest. A number of parishes have already been received: St. Irene Church in Pittston, PA; St. Ann Church in Pottsville, PA and St. Mark Church in Milford, CT.
Let us welcome these people with joy and do all that we can to help them integrate into the Orthodox community. Let us give thanks to God that He has led Fr. Elias and his faithful people into Orthodoxy.
Sounds like they have had enough of Frances.
This is a so called “independent” catholic group. They were not under Rome.
Something caused them to change their status, and the change wasn’t toward Rome.
If they weren’t Orthodox and they weren’t Roman, what were they?
True. They were searching for The Church, as opposed to a church. Logically they had two choices. I do not know what made them conclude that Rome wasn’t it, but I can guess at some of the reasons.
They were part of a movement broadly described as “independent catholics.” Their bishops are considered episcopi vagantes by Rome.
Apparently, the Polish National Church obtained and maintains valid apostolic succession through the Old Catholic Church. Its bishops are validly but unlawfully consecrated (like SSPX schismatics) and therefore its priests are validly but unlawfully ordained but enjoy no sacramental faculties from Catholic diocesan bishops. Their Masses are valid as is their Eucharist. It appears that their religious beliefs are largely the same as those of Roman Catholics except that they allow artificial birth control as being up to the individual. They share with Eastern Rite Catholics the allowance that priests may be married.
“...and therefore its priests are validly but unlawfully ordained but enjoy no sacramental faculties from Catholic diocesan bishops.”
The Orthodox position is different. There are no sacraments outside the Church. If they are being received via ROCOR their clergy are almost certainly being ordained from scratch. It is entirely possible that they are all being baptized.
I would also have had differences with Orthodoxy. While the differences over the Filioque did not appeal to me one way or the other (however God chose to arrange the Incarnation was fine by me and did not need my interpretation, I do believe in papal infallibility as closely limited by the First Vatican Council under Pope Pius IX and a few other things.
When Paul VI died and then Pope John Paul I and Pope St. John Paul II were elected as successors, there no longer seemed to me to be a sufficient reason for seeking acceptance into the Orthodox Church.
May God bless you and yours!
And thank you for your efforts here to patiently explain the Orthodox Church to many here (myself included) who do not understand your Church as well as we ought to understand it.
“If they weren’t Orthodox and they weren’t Roman, what were they?”
They were vagante: http://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/360599/
“Something caused them to change their status, and the change wasn’t toward Rome.”
“Rome” probably could not have taken them because it would have caused too much trouble for the legitimate Catholic Churches of the East because - as the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said 4 years ago - the group was attempting to attract Arab Catholics and lead them away from the Roman Catholic Church.
They aren’t comparable to the SSPX. The PNC is outside the Church, whereas the difficulties surrounding the SSPX are all internal.
I don’t know a whole lot about these split-off groups, but it’s interesting that David V. Barrett, in Encyclopedia of new religious movements, specifies that now episcopi vagantes are “those independent bishops who collect several different lines of transmission of apostolic succession, and who will happily (and sometimes for a fee) consecrate anyone who requests it.”
The reversal of the excommunications seemed to be a prudential error of B-XVI based on a naive belief that it might trigger their submission to legitimate authority rather than becoming blood in the water to justify ever more determined defiance and disobedience by the Econe Four. B-XVI showed them kindness and mercy and they pissed all over him with their incredibly nervy "demands" that the Church conform to the schismatics rather than the schismatics submitting to authority.
Up until sometime just before Pius IX, the Papal States employed a headsman to deliver capital punishment. It is a shame that that salutary office was abolished when it could have come in so handy in terminating the Econe Four for cause.
It is certainly true that the "Polish National Church" is outside the Church. Their original problem seems to be that about 20,000 immigrants from Poland could not understand English and wished to have Polish speaking priests as their preachers. The largely Irish-American and German-American hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the US at that time showed no sympathy and insisted on a pig-headed approach to what was bound to be a very temporary and absolutely non-doctrinal problem. Later on, the PNC decided that artificial birth control was OK and that their priests could marry (which is allowed in Eastern Rite Catholicism). The Polish Americans should have approached Pope Leo XIII respectfully on this and he likely would have smacked the American hierarchy for them since he had devoted an entire Encyclical to his being fed up with the liberal Americanist American hierarchy, condemning "Americanism" (the Church variety) as a heresy.
SSPX apparently imagines that someone died and left them God to dictate terms to the pope. Not the way it works or ever will. Think: Martin Luther, John Calvin, Zwingli, et al. Ours is a hierarchical Church and not an anarchy.
I think BlackElk was pointing out that both groups have illicit but valid orders. I think he realizes one group received those orders from a Catholic bishop (SSPX) and the other is vagante. Hey, I’m just saying . . .
God bless!
Precisely, although the Utrecht schismatics who apparently got bent out of shape over Vatican I’s decree on papal infallibility, HAVE carefully maintained apostolic succession.
Yes, but it should be said that Utrecht - as a schismatic Church - dates back to 1723: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Catholic_Church_of_the_Netherlands Later, in the 19th century German priests who objected to Vatican I went to it and received illicit episcopal orders from it.
I know the Old Catholic Churches of Europe - at least in a few countries - ordain women. I assume this means they will not have valid orders forever. http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-01-021-f
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