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History
* BYZANTINE CATHOLIC CHURCH
What is an Eastern Catholic Church?
The Catholic Church is a communion of churches. It is made up
of churches from the Eastern Tradition and the Western
Tradition.
Eastern Catholics are in union with Rome. We share the same
basic faith and the same mysteries (sacraments), however, our
way of expressing them follows the same tradition as the
Orthodox churches. In reality, there are many Eastern
churches, each with its own heritage and theology, liturgy and
discipline.
Jesus sent his disciples to the four corners of the world to
spread the Gospel. Eventually, four great centers of
Christianity emerged with distinctive Christian customs, but
the same faith. These centers were Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome
and Alexandria. A few centuries later when the capital of the
Roman Empire was moved to the Eastern city of Byzantium, later
renamed Constantinople, an adaptation of the Antioch
celebration of the liturgy was made.
From this powerful cultural center the Byzantine church
emerged (Radvansky, Joseph. A Brief Explanation of the Eastern
Catholic Churches, Introduction).
Who are we, Ruthenian Byzantine Catholics?
The Ruthenian faith-journey begins in the homeland of our
ancestors, “the old country,” central Europe.
Envision a map of the European continent. Our ancestral
homeland known variously as Carpathian Rus’, Transcarpathia,
Carpatho-Ruthenia, Carpatho-Russia, and Carpatho-Ukraine is
the very heart of the picture, presently eastern Slovakia,
southwest Ukraine, northeast Hungary and northwest Romania.
The religious life of these people came from the East. Like
the other East Slavs, the Carpatho-Rusins received
Christianity from the Byzantine Empire.
In the year 863, two Byzantine Greek missionaries, the
brothers Cyril and Methodius – “The Apostles to the Slavs” –
introduced Christianity and the new Slavonic alphabet to
Greater Moravia, the present Czech Republic and Western
Slovakia.
Thereafter, the followers of these Byzantine missionaries
moved eastward, eventually converting the Ruthenian people. |
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