You may be rejoicing, others are weeping. Unity is not unilateral ecumenism.
Posted on 12/18/2003 8:48:02 PM PST by Land of the Irish
The Fraternity of St. Josaphat, founded three years ago, gathers Catholic priests of the Slavonic rite(1), who wish to fight for the Tradition of the Church. This community has a seminary and a female religious branch. Priests of the Society St. Pius X provide a large number of courses for the seminarians, who currently are 17. Their superior, Fr. Basil is responsible for two parishes of several thousand faithful.
About a year ago, the persecutions started: one of the priests was suspended from his office and another excommunicated. Several months ago cardinal Husar, head of the Uniate Church in the Ukraine, well-know, for his extreme ecumenism, started an enquiry into the Fraternity. His suspicions were directed at Fr. Basil. However, it must be said that the latter demonstrated a remarkable pugnacity. In his defense, he published a dynamic book, which tells the persecution of the Slavonic tradition in the Ukraine, as well as the story of the defense of Tradition in the Latin-rite Church, by Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPx, and the action of Bishop De Castro-Mayer and of Bishop Lazo. He vigorously justifies his action by the state of necessity. Furthermore, he organized a day of adoration and atonement in his parish. He asked his parishioners to support him by a collection of signatures. He received 6,300 in the first collection and 1,830 more in the second. The Holy Synod, the highest local authority in the Eastern Churches, united under the presidency of cardinal Husar, came to a decision during the month of November. But so far, it has not been made public.
In anticipation of these difficulties, the Fraternity St. Josaphat had undertaken the construction of a church, dedicated to Christ the King, with a seating capacity of 250, in order to enable the excommunicated priest already expelled from his parish to continue his apostolate. The superior blessed it last October 26, on the feast of Christ the King.
In addition, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais carried out the ordination of the first priest ordained for this Fraternity on November 27. The ceremony took place at the priory in Warsaw.
Finally, in spite of the threats and the conflicts, the Fraternity St. Josaphat is attracting priests who wish to fight the good fight.
Such news are encouraging and give us hope of abundant fruit for this Fraternity.
We have opened a new gallery on Ukraine and the Fraternity St. Josaphat. Click here to visit.
The old Slavonic is the language in which Sts Cyril and Method evangelized the Slavs. Upon their request, the popes Adrian II and then John VIII approved a liturgy in the Slavonic language which is still being used today. It is used especially by the Orthodox of the Slavic countries but also by the Uniate, whether of the Greek or Latin rite. The Fraternity St. Josaphat gathers priests of the Greek rite.
I don't know. I dare not say, "Yes", for I fear that those good, young seminarians yearning to learn the true faith would be excommunicated for the "occasional sin of association with tradition".
You may be rejoicing, others are weeping. Unity is not unilateral ecumenism.
that God loves us all
Reform? Many of the jui suris churches in the Eastern Rite, instead of having strengthening bonds with Rome, are having their bonds BROKEN by the current policies of the Curia. Seminarians in some of the Eastern Rite, in particular the Melkite rite, are being educated in Orthodox semniaries, and are being exposed to the anti-papal viewpoints of the Orthodox hierarchy. Also, the only thing that is keeping Novus Ordo-style liturgical changes from being implemented in the Eastern Rite, is the resistance of lay people. All of this is chronicled in Charles Coulombe's article in the December 2003 issue of the New Oxford Review.
St. Josaphat
Feast Day: November 12, 2007
(1580?-1623)
In 1967, newspaper photos of Pope Paul VI embracing Athenagoras I, the Orthodox patriarch of 
Constantinople, marked a significant step toward the healing of a division in Christendom that has spanned nine centuries.
In 1595, when today’s saint was a boy, the Orthodox bishop of Brest-Litovsk (famous in World War I) in Belarus and five other bishops representing millions of Ruthenians, sought reunion with Rome. John Kunsevich (Josaphat became his name in religious life) was to dedicate his life and suffer his death in the same cause. Born in what was then Poland, he went to work in Wilno and was influenced by clergy adhering to the Union of Brest (1596). He became a Basilian monk, then a priest, and soon was well known as a preacher and as an ascetic.
He became bishop of Vitebsk (now in Russia) at a relatively young age, and faced a difficult situation. Most monks, fearing interference in liturgy and customs, did not want union with Rome. By synods, catechetical instruction, reform of the clergy and personal example, however, Josaphat was successful in winning the greater part of the Orthodox in that area to the union.
But the next year a dissident hierarchy was set up, and his opposite number spread the accusation that Josaphat had "gone Latin" and that all his people would have to do the same. He was not enthusiastically supported by the Latin bishops of Poland.
Despite warnings, he went to Vitebsk, still a hotbed of trouble. Attempts were made to foment trouble and drive him from the diocese: A priest was sent to shout insults to him from his own courtyard. When Josaphat had him removed and shut up in his house, the opposition rang the town hall bell, and a mob assembled. The priest was released, but members of the mob broke into the bishop’s home. He was struck with a halberd, then shot and his body thrown into the river. It was later recovered and is now buried at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. He was the first saint of the Eastern Church to be canonized by Rome.
His death brought a movement toward Catholicism and unity, but the controversy continued, and the dissidents, too, had their martyr. After the partition of Poland, the Russians forced most Ruthenians to join the Russian Orthodox Church.
Comment:
The seeds of separation were sown in the fourth century when the Roman Empire was divided into East and West. The actual split came over relatively unimportant customs (unleavened bread, Saturday fasting, celibacy). No doubt the political involvement of religious leaders on both sides was a large factor, and doctrinal disagreement was present. But no reason was enough to justify the present tragic division in Christendom, which is 64 percent Roman Catholic, 13 percent Eastern Churches (mostly Orthodox) and 23 percent Protestant, and this when the 71 percent of the world that is not Christian should be getting the witness of unity and Christlike charity from Christians!
| Reading | Pope Pius XI's encyclical "Ecclesiam Dei" |
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| He gave his life for the unity of the Church | |
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In designing his Church God worked with such skill that in the fullness of time it would resemble a single great family embracing all men. It can be identified, as we know, by certain distinctive characteristics, notably its universality and unity.
Christ the Lord passed on to his apostles the task he had received from the Father: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. He wanted the apostles as a body to be intimately bound together, first by the inner tie of the same faith and love which flows into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and, second, by the external tie of authority exercised by one apostle over the others. For this he assigned the primacy to Peter, the source and visible basis of their unity for all time. So that the unity and agreement among them would endure, God wisely stamped them, one might say, with the mark of holiness and martyrdom.
Both these distinctions fell to Josaphat, archbishop of Polock of the Slavonic rite of the Eastern Church. He is rightly looked upon as the great glory and strength of the Eastern Rite Slavs. Few have brought them greater honour or contributed more to their spiritual welfare than Josaphat, their pastor and apostle, especially when he gave his life as a martyr for the unity of the Church. He felt, in fact, that God had inspired him to restore world-wide unity to the Church and he realised that his greatest chance of success lay in preserving the Slavonic rite and Saint Basil’s rule of monastic life within the one universal Church.
Concerned mainly with seeing his own people reunited to the See of Peter, he sought out every available argument which would foster and maintain Church unity. His best arguments were drawn from liturgical books, sanctioned by the Fathers of the Church, which were in common use among Eastern Christians, including the dissidents. Thus thoroughly prepared, he set out to restore the unity of the Church. A forceful man of fine sensibilities, he met with such success that his opponents dubbed him “the thief of souls.”
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I have never heard of this group. As a Byzantine Rite Catholic, am I not correct in asserting that receiving Holy Communion while standing has been the continual custom of Churches in the East?
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