Alaska's "Old Believers" Frozen In Time

[Melkite]

"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!"

I'm a little bit (ok, alot ;) ) ignorant of canon law, Latin or Byzantine, but what exactly is supplied jurisdiction?  This is the same thing that the SSPX uses as their justification for not obeying Rome on particular things, right?  Are you saying then that it is ok for Byzantine parishes, or even whole eparchies, to disobey Rome for the preservation of their rites, as long as they technically remain within the orbit of Rome and don't flee to another church altogether?  So, for example, if Rome were to forbid married clergy in all the Eastern churches, would you see it as acceptible for, say, the whole Melkite Church to disobey, and just kind of wait just outside of the gates until Rome is thinking clearly again?  I'm not sure exactly what you mean.

[Catholicmilkman]

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?

It would not justify schisming from ecclesiastical communion with the Bishop of Rome and the Catholic and Apostolic Church and Faith, but it surely would have justified going on with their Eastern ecclesiastical traditions and ignoring the Latin bishops.

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.

No, No. It does not justify real formal and evil schism for unjust reasons. A certain material separation, absolutely. If one were to have a heterodox priest as one's parish priest, you would be justified in not going to that priest ever again (if his superiors aren't doing anything about it) and going to another priest who is orthodox. Someone else's heterodoxy and/or schism doesn't justify you going heterodox and/or into schism.

[Robb]

Supplied jurisdiction means that a priest has a divinely ordained duty to say mass and administer the sacrament to Catholics if, for some grave reason, a higher authority either stands in the way of his doing so or is not present to sanction it. This is the same argument that independent trad priest and the SSPX make as to their legal standing to do what they do in light of not having authorization from the Church.  Fr Volansky did not go against Rome but only briefly against the wishes of the Latin rite archbishop of Philadelphia.  He knew that his Ruthenian rite faithful would not go to the Latin rite priest for mas and sacraments and thus their immortal souls were in danger if he did not act to thus save them.  He also believed that Catholics of the Greek rite were not subject to Latin rite bishops even when residing on their canonical territory (if an eastern eparchy was not established parallel to the Latin one such as in Lemberg/Lviv. 

Rome had not yet (i believe) ruled that Greek rite Catholics were subject to the Latin rite bishop when no eastern eparchy existed on the territory of that diocese.  Thus this ruling would mean that Fr Volansky was technically wrong in his assertion of rights for his Ruthenian faithful although he acted in good faith and obviously did not have all the facts on the matter ( since they were not given by the Vatican at that time).  God bless good priest like Fr Volansky.  The Ukrainian Greek Catholic church should seek to have him canonized to counterbalance that schemer Toth and all his trouble making.

Bob

[TradCathYouth]

The priest in the video...did he even get ordained validly? All they said was that he was asked to be their priest...unless I missed something. Note: I do not doubt the validity of the Russian Orthodox Orders, but I was wondering if he even got an ordination period.

[HMiS]

The priest in the video...did he even get ordained validly? All they said was that he was asked to be their priest...unless I missed something. Note: I do not doubt the validity of the Russian Orthodox Orders, but I was wondering if he even got an ordination period.

Of course he was ordained. These are the priestist Old Believers from the Russian Orthodox church. I think a Bosnian Serbian Orthodox bishop joined their ranks around 1680 and provided Holy Orders.

I like their Medieval Russian Use of the Byzantine Rite very much. I love it. It is real European heritage.