Alaska's "Old Believers" Frozen In Time

[winoblue1]

With the enslaught of secularism, believers have taken two paths in reaction.

One is to reject the modern world, as these people seem to be doing, or have done, and which the SSPX and the Amish are trying to do to different degrees.

The other path is to embrace and adapt to secularism, and you end up with the Novus Ordo religion, where you have a constant hammering of tradition, and constant morphing of what should be held unchangeable into new and disturbing forms.

I think that one has to realize that secularism, is ultimately not something that can be reconciled or peacefully co-exist with religion because it ultimately claims that one can live one's life without God. If we have learned anything over the centuries, it is that man has a religious dimension to his personality, because he is a rational being that seeks answers.

Communism ultimately failed because it was a system based on a misunderstanding of human nature. Communists thought that people were ultimately good and were therefore not fundamentally self-interested. Well we all know that you can't deny original sin and still have an accurate understanding of the human person.

So too I think secularism misunderstands human nature as it claims that God is irrelevant to mankind's psychology and therefore can be ignored.

We'll see the results of this theory in time.

[AnimaChristi]

Thank God I belong to the Catholic Church which is ever ancient yet ever new.  These people seem to belong to a Russian version of the Amish.  There disdain for change and desire to cling to such arcane things as 17th century Russian dialect and customs are proof that they are not universal but a sect.

On a side note, I have heard that there are Old Believers who are in union with Rome?  Do any such exist in America (or anywhere else for that matter)?

Bob

True, but from some of the descriptions I've heard of St. Mary's, KS, it doesn't sound much different from this! 

[AnimaChristi]

Wow, that was awesome!  I don't see that they were living in exclusion from the world, their secular lives seemed to be pretty much fully incorporated into American life.  They just have some traditions that are no different than various cultural customs all Americans keep from their ancestry.  I see no difference between them wanting to preserve pre-Nikonian Russian Orthodoxy and the SSPX wanting to preserve pre-Pauline Roman Catholicism.

The two are not comparable, at all.  The traditional Latin Mass vs. Novus Ordo isn't a simple matter of whether to cross oneself with two fingers or three--which is the reason the Old Believers split.

[Melkite]

"The two are not comparable, at all.  The traditional Latin Mass vs. Novus Ordo isn't a simple matter of whether to cross oneself with two fingers or three--which is the reason the Old Believers split."

This isn't accurate.  The split was over much more than whether to cross oneself with two or three fingers.  It was over all of the reforms Patriarch Nikon was forcing onto the Russian Orthodox Church in an effort to make it match the Greek.  Russian Orthodoxy had developed its own expressions, organically from the Greek Orthodoxy that came there in 988.  Greek Orthodoxy developed in its own way as well.  What Patriarch Nikon wanted to do was completely shut down the pre-schism Russian way of doing things and take the Greek way of doing things at the time and place it on the Russian church, inorganically, in an effort to make the Russian church "accurately Orthodox."  The analogy to the SSPX probably isn't perfect, but the schism was certainly over far more than how one crosses themself.

[Catholic777]

 

The analogy to the SSPX probably isn't perfect, but the schism was certainly over far more than how one crosses themself.

Well...the external changes they split over were much, much less substantial than the changes from Old Roman Rite to New...but the point is, they didnt just split over externals (though that was the flashpoint)...what they resented was the Hellenizing attitudes of the Nikonian regime that those external changes represented. Similar to the Protestantizing/modernizing attitudes the Novus Ordo represents.

[HMiS]

Well, Greek Byzantine customs are as legitimate in our eyes as our (traditional) Roman Rite ones.

It is regionalistic particularism to split over some changes in Litanies and the sign of the cross, and adaptation to the Greek (Orthodox) rites.

I would never have split "off" because of the traditional Roman Rite being replaced by a (vernacular) Divine Liturgy according to the perfect (or even shortened) form of the Byzantine Rite. It would have been the same for me.

But the "shift" to the Novus Ordo Missae, represented the definitive step of a break with Roman Catholic Tradition on doctrinal matters, denying thereby implicitly teachings on the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the fact that the Roman Catholic Church (the authentic, traditional one) and the Mystical Body of Christ are one and the same thing, that only ecumenism of return is possible, and that heresy exists indeed.

But I very much respect and feel sympathy for the Russian Old Rite Orthodox, the Russian Old Believers. I like their Russian Slavic Use of the Byzantine Rite and their conservation of beautiful Medieval Byzantine Russian Chant (from the 10th century), and their brave and stubborn rejection of especially the impious aspects of Modernity.

And I sadly have seen even many of us traditionalist Roman Catholics being tired or 'bored' in the Church, if a sermon lasted for half an hour, or if the Solemn Pontifical Mass took 3 hours. Well, the Old Believers from Russia and Alaska and Ukrainian swamps, have a 3 hr Divine Liturgy every Sunday. I admire their fidelity to their traditions, and I wish like Pope Saint Pius X, that they come into unity with the Apostolic and Primatial See of Rome, which will respect their heritage, while enriching them with the real, purest orthodoxy of Catholic dogmas and the many Ecumenical Councils holy teaching proclaimed after the 7th Ecumenical Council.

[Catholicmilkman]

Well, Greek Byzantine customs are as legitimate in our eyes as our (traditional) Roman Rite ones.

As are Russian Bzyantine traditions.

It is regionalistic particularism to split over some changes in Litanies and the sign of the cross, and adaptation to the Greek (Orthodox) rites.

Come on. This is just not so if it's for love of God and Catholic tradition. It was a crime to do what the Russian Church did and cause such a schism which formed a heretic sect.

I would never have split "off" because of the traditional Roman Rite being replaced by a (vernacular) Divine Liturgy according to the perfect (or even shortened) form of the Byzantine Rite. It would have been the same for me.

I would, because we as Romans have the divine right and duty to preserve the venerable traditions of our Latin Fathers. You cannot just abolish an orthodox rite of the Church even if you replace it with another nonetheless Catholic rite. You're still destroying one of God's traditions and that cannot and should not be tolerated.

[Melkite]

"I would, because we as Romans have the divine right and duty to preserve the venerable traditions of our Latin Fathers. You cannot just abolish an orthodox rite of the Church even if you replace it with another nonetheless Catholic rite. You're still destroying one of God's traditions and that cannot and should not be tolerated. "

So, are you then saying that the ancestors of the current OCA and Carpatho-Russian Orthodox diocese were right to break communion with Rome because the Latin bishops of the time were trying to abolish an orthodox rite of the Church within North America?  I know that probably sounds trite, I don't mean it to.  But from reading some of your other posts, I never would have thought you would say that preservation of a venerable tradition justifies schism.

[Robb]

The Latin rite bishops of North America were not trying to abolish the Greek rite when they crossed swords with eastern priest.  They were merely confused about the place of such married Catholic clergy in the USA and Canada at the time.  Needles to say after the confusion cleared up the Byzantine rite was quickly established on this continent and there was a Greek rite bishop in America by the first decade of the 20th century.

I can understand the confusion and distress that prevailed among Greek rite faithful when they were given the cold shoulder by the Roman rite bishops at the time.  But this misunderstanding was no reason for massive defections to occur to orthodoxy as they did.  I strongly believe that there must have been some type of underhanded dealings between some of these dissident uniate priest such as Alexis Toth and the Russian orthodox bishops they turned to for assistance.  Toth was immediately made an arch priest (the orthodox equivalent to Msgr) when he converted with his parish of St Marys in Minneapolis in 1891. There was much treasure from the Czars coffers that was given over to this schismatic priest so that they could build churches and steal more uniates away from Rome.  Had he not died in 1904 the Czar surely would have made him bishop of all Carpatho-Russians in the USA.

God bless those true suffering souls like Fr Ivan Volansky, the first Greek rite priest in America.  He came to this country in 1884 and he too was rejected by the Roman rite bishop of Philadelphia.  What did this courageous priest do?  Did he betray the faith of his fathers and go over to the Russian schismatics?  NO, he went to Shenandoah PA and built St Michael's Greek rite parish without the Latin rite bishops permission.  He then used the principle of supplied jurisdiction to serve his faithful until his situation with Rome could be straitened out.  It eventually was and Fr was cleared of all charges against him by the Holy Roman Rota.  FR Volansky was a true saint who served his Greek rite faithful not by leading them into schism but be keeping them faithful to Rome and consoling them that, though they may suffer from misunderstanding, the truth of their Catholicity would eventually prevail, and it did too!

So much for misunderstandings and the schism of the dissident Toth and his wiley band of rogues.

Bob

[HMiS]

God bless those true suffering souls like Fr Ivan Volansky, the first Greek rite priest in America.  He came to this country in 1884 and he too was rejected by the Roman rite bishop of Philadelphia.  What did this courageous priest do?  Did he betray the faith of his fathers and go over to the Russian schismatics?  NO, he went to Shenandoah PA and built St Michael's Greek rite parish without the Latin rite bishops permission.  He then used the principle of supplied jurisdiction to serve his faithful until his situation with Rome could be straitened out.  It eventually was and Fr was cleared of all charges against him by the Holy Roman Rota.  FR Volansky was a true saint who served his Greek rite faithful not by leading them into schism but be keeping them faithful to Rome and consoling them that, though they may suffer from misunderstanding, the truth of their Catholicity would eventually prevail, and it did too!

So true. A real saint. Supplied jurisdiction was legitimate in that case too, I think.

And about the defection to the schismatic Russian Orthodox Church (back then still ruled by the Czar of the Russian Empire, as after 1721 Czar Peter the Great had abolished the Moscow Patriarchate and created a 'Holy Synod of the Russian Church'): Fr. Tóth indeed may have been offered money etc., but I think he was just too emotional and too desillusioned to think rationally. Of course he later on sold his soul to the schismatics, and really hurt the Catholic Church as a whole, incl. faithful Ukrainian Byzantine (Greek) Catholics in other places. But still, the Latin Rite bishops made huge mistakes.

It was also still the silly time of the Roman Rite and the Latin Church being considered the "ritus praestantior", the "primary and first [best] Rite" in the universal Church. That is where the sometimes extreme Latinizations of Eastern Rite Catholic parishes came from.

Fortunately Pope Leo XIII, but especially Pope Pius XII in his Omnes orientales ecclesias (1945) did away with that, and restored the equal status and equal dignity of all apostolic, Catholic, orthodox Rite in the Church.