An Introduction to Eastern Christianity

Foreword

I continue to find myself writing "letters" and have just recently realized an issue I have when writing: I am making them too large. I keep doing this thing where I see (and I believe this is correct) a topic that requires a lot of writing and so place the burden upon myself to tackle a huge task, and inevitably it gets pushed off to the side as I discover just how much needs to be written and how little is actually completed of the document. I have other things come up in life, priorities shift, and I leave something that I have poured many hours into in the writing bin, perhaps to be reviewed again in a few years.

As I recently realized how much of a problem this is, I recognized the solution which I've heard so many others bring up; the solution being, I need to work on chunks and share those, and then perhaps I can at some point consolidate all the work into a singular piece. But at the moment it would be more wise to simply share pieces of what's been written, and write more as it comes, so that is what I shall do.

Introduction

In each work I write now I make it addressed as a letter, as I find that it flows better and I communicate ideas better when I imagine speaking to another person. Here, this letter is addressed to my mother, so that she may understand better my love for the east and find comfort in understanding my journey. As well I write this as a Christian memento for any discovering the East or rediscovering it, for those who realize that there is more to our Christian faith than what you may witness on a regular Sunday at a Mass.

The expression of Christianity has never been simple or uniform, though many may think it was so long ago. At the very founding of our religion by Christ there were disagreements between the Apostles on certain parts of the faith - proper expression, holdovers from Judaism, different ways to express the faith between the Jerusalem-dwelling Jews and those living outside the region. Quickly the expression of faith diverged even more as the faith spread and the Apostles traveled across the land and shared the faith with the other peoples and nations. Being that there was no singular standard for how the Sunday service was to be expressed there arose different types of Eucharistic celebrations, faith traditions, perspectives on the divine and the material, and more - which is why you’re reading this today, to understand the unfamiliar (to those of us westerners) expressions and practices of Eastern Christianity.

For the most part this is just a brief summary of the differences of the East from a Western perspective. My mother will already know these things about me, but for those who may come later to read this I will make an introduction of myself so others may understand the perspective I have. Growing up my family was Protestant, we were members of and regular attendees of the United Brethren denomination for Sundays and other ministry-related events. Just before I reached my teenage years the whole family came into the Roman Catholic Church, and each of us have continued to go to Sunday Mass on the weekend as the family has grown up and moved away. I’ve now been Catholic longer than I was Protestant, and would like to think I have good knowledge of both groups. A while ago I started attending Divine Liturgy at a Catholic church (the Sunday service for Eastern Christians, similar but different to the Mass) and have done a lot of investigating into the Eastern expression of the Christian faith. And now, I am an Eastern Catholic, I have officially joined Byzantine Catholicism, having joined the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. And now here I am writing this, equally a quick explanation for others of Eastern Christians as it is a journal for the things I’ve learned about the East.

Orthodox vs. Byzantine

The first thing to address for other Roman Catholics, or for a curious Protestant, is the difference between these two groups, seeing as many are easily confused at the differences and why they are not the same thing. An Eastern Catholic is not an Eastern Orthodox Christian, let me be clear on that. When speaking about a Byzantine church, that person is referring to a Byzantine Catholic church, which is a Church that outwardly and inwardly expresses its faith in an Eastern style and has unified itself under the authority of Rome. These Christians are just as Catholic as the Roman Catholics, they just have a different service on Sundays, and follow some different rules. Once again, to emphasize this point, they are equally as Catholic as the Roman churches many Americans go to, and this is affirmed by many past councils and Popes.

To go a little further into Byzantine Catholics, that is more of a broad brush used to describe those Catholics who practice the Byzantine liturgy and maintain the practices that they can trace back to the Byzantine Empire. Under the Byzantine umbrella you’ll find fourteen different Churches. In the sense that the Romans are one Church, these others are also individual Churches though much smaller in size. For example, in Catholicism the largest Church after the Roman one is the Ukrainian Catholic Church, which is under the Byzantine umbrella. In the Catholic Church there are other faith traditions that lead to us being divided into different “families” due to our history and traditions. The largest “family” will be the Roman Latin one, then there’s the Byzantine, and there are several more traditions after these. To avoid getting lost in the weeds and risk forgetting to discuss eastern Christianity, I will leave these other parts of the Catholic Church to rest for now.

Orthodox Christians, similar in many ways to Byzantine Catholics, are not what we would call “Catholics”. We use the label of “Catholic” to identify ourselves while they use the label “Orthodox”. Both groups use these other words to describe themselves, but use it in the lower-case sense of “catholic” and “orthodox” individuals. The word “catholic” comes from the Greek and means “universal”, and “orthodox” means a person or practice adhering to the accepted or traditional and established faith - meaning right-practice, right-faith, or right-worship. Orthodox Christians are as separated from the Catholic Church as the Protestants are. There are many things that will be familiar to Westerners in Orthodoxy, such as the Priesthood, the Sacraments, religious orders, holy days, the saints, and much of the theology, but they are a separate entity from the Catholic Church. All of their Sacraments are valid since they have maintained Apostolic succession, which is different from the Anglicans for example who do not possess valid Sacraments due to several factors. But, among the things that separated us years ago the one major item that still remains is the issue of Papal supremacy, something which they refuse to acknowledge, and therefore we remain separated. 

Often-cited as the date of the separation of our two groups is 1054, when the Byzantine and Roman empires split and the “Catholics” and the “Orthodox” Christians each excommunicated each other. Many things lead to this split, but among the most significant disagreements were the issues of married priests, graven images and icons, the authority of the Pope as mentioned already, the form of the bread for the Eucharist, and perhaps most importantly at the time was the Filioque which the Romans placed into the Nicean Creed.

Since the split, each of these differences have been reconciled either directly or indirectly (in the Catholic Church, at least). Today the issue of the Filioque comes down to semantics, and once you clearly define terms you see that there is no disagreement. For married priests we recognize that they have a different tradition, the Eucharist is just as valid in different “species” of bread, and each other issue can be summed up the same - we are talking about the same things but using different words to describe them. The conflict surrounding the Papacy remains, but depending on the Orthodox Christian it can either be a major or minor hurdle to overcome.

In the rest of this document when I will be speaking of eastern Christians it will be the Eastern Catholics that I’m speaking of unless I specifically mention that something is in regards to the Orthodox. With the Catholics it is understood that it’s not a disagreement on theology when we speak differently about a thing, it’s just different perspectives and language. With Orthodox there is still bad blood there, so while you will have some Orthodox that acknowledge that the “disagreements” we have are over language and perspective, but there are still many who are happy to maintain a division between us.

This is just the introduction that I intend to have on a series of articles written for Eastern Christian practices and theology. There is much to come, as well as many other things about the Catholic faith as a whole. But for now this serves as an introduction to Eastern Catholics, that those who may not be aware of us will come to know us and realize that we are not part of the Orthodox Churches, but are united with Christ's Church. This is the start of a long series to come, so stay tuned.

Written for VME Catholic, by Ethan Hall