Wednesday 25 November 2009

Divine Beauty: The Byzantine Liturgy - The Blessing

Nope, they aren't 'Orthodox' - they are as Catholic as anyone, but merely follow their own distinctive (and gorgeous) liturgical and other traditions. These so-called Eastern Catholics also elect their own Bishops and follow their own legal code, all in perfect harmony with the Patriarch of Rome (that's the Pope for you). Here, some of their Bishops are seen blessing the congregation with the dikirion and trikirion, candlesticks with two and three candles, respectively, with which he makes the sign of the cross:


The trikirion symbolizes the Holy Trinity and the dikirion the dual nature of Christ: God and man.

On a related note: this evening I will be attending the annual meeting of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius in Copenhagen. The fellowship exists to promote unity between Eastern and Western Christians - mostly Orthodox and Anglicans/other traditional Protestants, respectively, but I'll try to have some Catholic viewpoint thrown in. In fact, the unity which the fellowship seeks is already effected in the Catholic Church, where Eastern and Western Christians are even now under the same roof, united in doctrine and with equal rights and dignity - but unfortunately most of those involved in the fellowship don't realize that that unity is already there and just waiting for them to join in.

4 comments:

  1. "they are as Catholic as anyone, but merely follow their own distinctive (and gorgeous) liturgical and other traditions. These so-called Eastern Catholics also elect their own Bishops and follow their own legal code, all in perfect harmony with the Patriarch of Rome"

    Well, that's theory. Many of them are virtually of Orthodox mind, even claiming that all the Councils after the Great Schism were just local synods of the Western Church, and they're not bound by the papal infallibility etc.

    See for example:
    http://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/337907/Are%20you%20a%20Zoghbyist?#Post337907
    http://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/337809/Ecumenical%20Councils#Post337809
    http://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/338027/The%20East%20and%20the%20West#Post338027

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful! Too bad even the Ambrosian rite was wrecked by Pope Paul VI after Vatican II (he vernacularized not just the Traditional Latin Mass, but EVERY rite--ironic that the Byzantine Church has been treated more gently by Rome than her native sons.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. (I apologize for the off-topic comment. Gideon, I'm a fellow "conservative" commenter at Pray Tell, and I'd be interested in knowing what your recent censored comments were. One can tell a great deal -- for better or for worse -- about a person or organization by what he censors. If you care to share, you can email me... email address in my profile.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete