What happend to Whiting …
Posted by JohnS (November 17, 2007 at 3:08 pm)
Recently the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma hosted “All Things New.” It was promoted as an effort to renew the church. It made me recall another effort to renew the Byzantine Catholic Church that was held in Whiting, Ind., in August of 2005. Laity, clergy and monastics gathered to seek ways to renew the Church and inspire some vital evangelical fervor to the mix. The brainstorming of the day yielded some wonderful ideas to recover our patrimony and bring it to the world.
In business we often benchmark ourselves against other companies. This enables a company to check its course against that of another “similar” ship. Interesting ideas often emerge that can propel a company forward and bring a new sense of excitement and purpose to the journey.
I find the Antiochian Orthodox Church (AOC) fascinating on multiple fronts. Almost a dozen years ago, I picked up Becoming Orthodox by Father Peter Gilchrist. (I must confess that Father Peter is now my scripture professor). The book relates the tale of how thousands of evangelicals turned to Holy Orthodoxy. The AOC has been especially welcoming to the evangelicals; in fact more than 80% of their clergy are now converts.
As John G’s witty post above notes, the AOC has established 54 full parishes, 37 new missions, and 13 mission projects since 1988. Glory to God for all good things! Now why is the AOC growing, evangelizing and executing their mission to bring Orthodoxy to America? Clearly His Grace, Sayidna PHILIP (Saliba) has been an excellent shepherd of his flock. His charisma reminds me of St. John Paul II of blessed memory. John Paul II often spoke of the New Evangelization. I believe that Sayidna PHILIP has been engaged in the New Evangelization since his consecration as Metroplitan of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America in 1966. For more than fourty years the Holy Spirit has been steering his episcopate. And the results … well, let’s just say they are mosting inspiring. More on that in my next post.
What has happened to Whiting in mostly missed opportunity as far as I can tell. Father Deacon Tim travels to Whiting every other Sunday to assist in Divine Liturgy but that is all that I can see.
Annunciation spread itself out to try to help establish a mission in Peoria but there were no priests available to help advance the work. There is no comprehensive vision of Church growth unless no one is to be allowed to know it outside of Pittsburgh or Parma. There is no plan to assist growing Churches to continue to grow and to plant new missions, unless it’s being kept a secret. There is no plan to make sense of our seminary system. There is nothing being done to reintroduce the minor orders. We’ve closed some churches but it is not clear that there is any plan to help plant new missions from these resources. We’ve broken relations with the last monastery with which we had connection.
The Metropolia is dying for positive direction. Then again perhaps our death is what the Lord desires.
CDL
Comment posted November 18th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Ok, I’m posting on this blog, called BEMA. How do I join? Where is your wiki so I can do document dumps of my materials and take your materials and spread them through my Church? You’re not a priest, but that doesn’t make you helpless any more than it makes me helpless. So, you want your diocese to become active? Work! Very quickly you will find that other isolated cells of frustrated activists will join you.
Here I am. What will you do with me?
Comment posted November 19th, 2007 at 11:38 am
TM,
I’m very encouraged by your enthusiasm. I know very little about computers so I hope the owner of this board or John S who does know something about computers will respond.
BTW What’s a wiki?
CDL
Comment posted November 28th, 2007 at 6:37 am
In the above post I meant “John G” knows something about computers. What happened to the editing capacity? I seem to have forgotten my password or something. Anyway I don’t seem to be able to post an article anymore.
CDL
Comment posted November 28th, 2007 at 6:39 am
I have extensive experience with West Coast Orthodox mission work among the OCA, Antiochian, and Greek Orthodox Churches, as well as some Greek Catholic Eparchies. As a Greek Catholic, I seek to share in evangelism through Patristic studies of St Ephrem, ecumenism, and through renewing parishes and starting missions. But having seen the dark underside of things, I wince when statements are made extolling the AOC missions and decrying our paucity of similar work. True, we need to find our voice and the Gospel imperative to evangelize and in this we are behind. But let us find our own way to do so that is more stable and less divisive than what happens in Orthodox circles.
Our communion with Rome should give us a bigger and deeper vision. Rome is both a center of good organization and of scholarly study. Some of our priests and parishes have built on this, for instance, the mission parish in Ukiah California led by Fr David Anderson, and the Chicago parish led by Fr Thomas J. Loya, to name only two.
In my eyes the biggest things we lack are:
–an appreciation of patristic scholarship (typically led by Catholic historians and theologians.)
–an appreciation of our common identity as Greek Catholics and struggle to adapt our faith to the needs of North America.
–maturity in patience, humility, and hope so that we can work together as Greek Catholics in North America and together build bridges with our Latin, Oriental, and various Byzantine Orthodox brethren in Christ.
In this light, none of us have “lost” our monastics, they have simply found a bishop who supports them in their work for the renewal of all the Greek Catholic Churches. Nor have we lost the battle for survival, but simply lost track of our strengths and our friends.
Little is gained by striking fear (as in pushing evangelism through fear of demographic collapse.) Rather, go to the perogie crew in your parish and those near by and encourage them as a community of faith and charity. And when they put on a Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter meal, be there to tell them it was great food and great evangelism to their neighbors… then it will be easier for them to invite people to join in their parish family and less controversial when a new mission starts up near by.
Please pray for me a sinner and would-be missionary,
Stranger to the Kingdom
Comment posted December 13th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Wiki is a shortening of the hawaiian term wiki wiki which means fast. It’s a way to quickly collaborate on a document, never quite finishing it but always improving it. An example is here:
http://byzevan.pbwiki.com/?full_access=H2bJIDAXHw&l=S
StrangerToTheKingdom - I would welcome your perspectives and contributions. I disagree about your thoughts on fear. I would think the parable of the talents would be scary enough. Demographic collapse is merely the cherry on top of the real problem, going to Hell because we bury our talents and so rarely do what we are supposed to do, preach the Gospel to the world.
Comment posted December 24th, 2007 at 11:38 pm