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The small group of Eastern-rite Catholics who gather each week in Sacred Heart Parish’s former church building in Wasilla now belong to a bona fide church community of their own. Blessed Theodore Romzha Byzantine Catholic Mission was established Feb. 16 by Byzantine Catholic Bishop Most Reverend William Skurla. The new "mission" — a precursor to a parish — is associated with the only Byzantine Catholic parish in Alaska: St. Nicholas of Myra in Anchorage, founded in 1958.So, what is a Byzantine Catholic?The Catholic Church contains 23 rites, or liturgical expressions. The vast majority of people who call themselves Catholic...

Much of my teenage years were spent in the San Fernando Valley of California, at that time (the mid-70s) a religious and cultural wasteland. Apart from the outlets described in that article, another appeared; I discovered the Eastern Rites of the Church, and the Orthodox Churches. My father, Guy, first stimulated my interest in this area, as in so many others. His tales of valiant Christians maintaining their faith and traditions under Muslim and Communist domination fired the imagination. My freshman year at Daniel Murphy High School (during our last year in Hollywood, before the move north to suburbia)...

Byzantine Lent & Easter The 10 weeks before Easter are called the Triodion, or the Three Odes because during that time no more than 3 odes are sung at the Canon of Matins. It includes the Time Before Lent, or Prophonisimon, the 40 days of Lent, and the Holy and Great Week. 2 weeks before Lent are called the Prophonisimon, or Herald of Lent. They prepare us for the proper mood of penance and self-denial. They include the Week of the Pharisee and Publican and the Week of the Prodigal Son. The 2 weeks before Lent is Meat-Fare Week during...

In this war freedom should come first not after! In New Hampshire the Motto is Live free or Die! I don't need Bush spying on law abiding americans and taking our freedoms. Anyone who surrenders a square inch of freedom to the government in the name of saftey is a traitor and should be treated like one! Let the Bush Fashists all drop dead! Filthy Commys! LET FREEDOM RING!

Byzantine underground city and cistern unearthed in Talas Tuesday, January 3, 2006 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News An underground city and cistern dating to the Byzantine era have been discovered at the foot of Mt. Ali in the Talas district of Kayseri. Talas Mayor Rýfat Yýldrým said archaeologists have so far unearthed 300 meters of the underground city and that the cistern is estimated to be 60 meters in length and 5 meters wide. Noting that they had initiated excavations following reports of the existence of a city and cistern, Yýldýrým said: “We have unearthed parts of the underground city...

Bush’s giant Right Wing Noise Machine (RWNM) loves to preach about the Bush economic miracle. In fact, the RWNM’s current thinking is Bush doesn’t spend enough time talking about his economic triumphs. If only he did, then everyone would fall in line and believe in the great Bush economic miracle. There is one problem with this argument: it’s a lie. Any way you look at the Bush economy, it comes up short. Today, I want to compare Bush’s job creation record with other economic recoveries. As usual, Bush comes up way short. The national Bureau of Economic Research has identified...

Every Christmas, my thoughts turn to my friend Raymond Levesque. Along with our friends Dan, Jan, and Suzanne, Raymond and I have a long-standing conversation about “the gifts that are not under the tree.” This expression goes back to an article that appeared one December in New Covenant. While the magazine is no longer in print, during its run, New Covenant offered a fresh orthodox perspective on Catholic spirituality. Struggling to Discover a Catholic Identity Raymond and I first met through our local Latin Mass community. I was a teenager who had been catechized during the late seventies and early...

During this time of Phillip's Fast we celebrate the feasts of saints about whom we know a lot more than we do about Nicholas of Myra; saints whose service to the Church seems to have been far more outstanding than his: for example, the Apostle Phillip, after whom we have named this Little Lent, and his brother Andrew, about whom we read in the Gospels; or St. John of Damascus and St. Ambrose of Milan, whose theological writings helped to form and guide the early Church. And yet, their feast days are not celebrated with nearly as much solemnity as...

It is generally known, that, since Vatican II, much has changed in the Catholic Church with regard to this veneration of the Host (whic means "sacrificial gift" in Latin). Most of the forms of reverence I have described [such as kneeling for Communion] have disappeared. The liturgical reformers succeeded in convincing the faithful that reverence for the Host, worship of the Host as the real physical appearance of Jesus Christ, has been unknown in the Church of the Apostles and their early successors. This veneration of the Host was medieval, they said. The word "medieval" has an even more pejorative...

PEORIA - About 1,100 Catholics at St. Mary's Cathedral on Sunday had to be given instruction in how to take Communion. "Tilt your head back," said J. Michael Thompson, director of the choir which would sing at that morning's Byzantine liturgy. "Don't stick out your tongue. And don't try to say 'Amen' or you might choke." The procedure for taking Communion is part of the Byzantine liturgy, foreign to most of the Roman Catholics of the Catholic Diocese of Peoria who were at the cathedral for one of the events being held on the final day of the diocese's "Solemn...

An interesting Newsweek story this week – that references CT Blog among its sources – claims scoring a point against what it paints as a “questionable” Bush administration portrayal of Abu Azzam. In short, the authors of the article, Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball claim the Administration’s leaders aggrandized the real importance of the killed al Qaida commander basing their conclusion on a number of non-identified U.S. counter-terrorism officials and a report posted by our colleague Evan Kohlman on the blog. The “charge” by Newsweek is about the hierarchy of the man. Was he or was he not the “number...

CAESAREA, Israel -- Israeli archaeologists on Monday unveiled a Byzantine mosaic that had been buried under sand dunes for 50 years, along with a newly discovered, highly rare table dating from the same era. The so-called mosaic "carpet" measuring 16 meters (53 feet) by 14.5 meters, was uncovered in the Israeli coastal resort of Caesarea and has been dated by archaeologists to the fifth and sixth centuries. Bordered by a frieze of running animals, including lions, panthers, wild boars, antelope, elephant, dog and bull, interspersed with fruit trees, remains of the floor were first found during military exercises in 1950....

I’m sure all of us have been profoundly effected by the news -- you’d have to be a cold-hearted person indeed not to be. But at the risk of sounding callous, such events do present us with a fascinating kind of laboratory of human behavior. If anything, it certainly testifies to how different people can be. Watching television you can see two people facing the same dire circumstances -- they’ve lost their homes, their jobs, everything they have -- and one person reacts with anger and despair while the other reacts with gratitude for whatever help is given him and...

When I personally think of the word “catechism” I immediately associate it with a sister asking me prepared questions about God. All of us have probably gone through this routine because, until the last 20-30 years not much changed in our church from the days of St. Josephat and that was 500 hundred years ago. The History Actually it is more or less the same in the Roman Catholic Church. In 1566, St Charles Borromeo, at the wish of the Council of Trent, published a Catholic Catechism. This was divided into four sections – faith, sacraments, the Commandments and prayer....

A Novena of Fasting and Prayers This may be appropriate when keeping a fasting novena before the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, Mother of God Prayer of Consecration In union with all mankind, in communion with the entire Church, and with our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, we address to you O Father, this supplication especially for our country, through the heart and the hands of the Virgin Mary. Father, send your Holy Spirit, so that each one of us might become an instrument of your peace, From hunger and war, deliver us! From nuclear war, from incalculable...

Solidarity among Christians must go beyond national boundaries, Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) said as he met on June 23 with representatives of groups involved with aid to the Eastern churches. The Holy Father met with 70 people from ROACO (Reunion of Organizations for Aid to the Oriental Churches)in the Clementine Hall of the apostolic palace. ROACO is holding its annual meeting at the Vatican this week. From the beginning of Christianity, needy communities of believers have enjoyed the support of their wealthier brethren, the Pope observed. At a time when individualism and consumerism are so powerful, he continued,...

ORDINATION OF MARRIED MENIN THE EASTERN CHURCH MARRIAGE FEAST AT CANA ...Giant steps forward in the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church toward recognizing and honoring the practice of a married clergy in the Eastern Churches occurred in the decade of the 90's. Two documents, in particular, are significant for the Byzantine Catholic Metropolia in the United States, namely the promulgation of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches by John Paul II on Oct. 18, 1990 and the promulgation of the Particular Law for the Metropolia of Pittsburgh in 1999. (20) The crucial statement in the Eastern Code...

ROME, MAY 3, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University. Q: I would like to know the present teaching of the Church, with documentary evidence, on fixing relics of the saints at the altar of Holy Mass. -- K.S., Nagapattinam, India A: The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, No. 302, contains the following statement: "The practice of placing relics of Saints, even those not Martyrs, under the altar to be dedicated is fittingly retained. Care should be taken, however, to ensure the authenticity of such relics." This statement summarizes the...

Click on the link above the watch and hear the Prayers by the Eastern Churches at the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

For the past several years I have witnessed an ongoing crisis of identity within the Roman Catholic Church, which is evident even on the campus of Franciscan University. Often reduced to the battle between "Conservatives" versus "Progressives" or "Traditionalists" versus "Charismatics," the issues involved are multifaceted and complex. I have tried to make my own contribution to this debate, with varying degrees of success. Now I'd like to address it from a new perspective, i.e. as a kind of outsider, for that is indeed what I have become. I am an Eastern Christian. While gladly submitting to the authority of...