"Western Rite" Orthodoxy - Patriarchate of Antioch and ROCOR and the comments of Dr Geoffrey Rowell of the Anglican Church

Our friends at SSJC Youngstown Chapter have carried this news item in Light of the East, May-June 2011.

It is worth pointing our that the Western Rite in neither jurisdiction actually celebrates a canonically authorised liturgy of the Latin Church, but a confection of various past, or projected, elements drawn from the Roman Mass, Celtic texts, the Byzantine liturgy and (for elements of the language) the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It is also worth pointing out that Dr Geoffrey Rowell is actually having a little dig at the liturgical and ecclesiological provisions for Anglicans desiring coming into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, as set out in Anglicanorum Coetibus. He is not wrong in what he lists, but he is misrepresenting it in his allusion to its most well known phrases, as the Apostolic Constitution intends thoroughly to be an ecclesial and ecclesiological document. Living in the Church through a patrimonial Rite, be it Anglican, Latin or Byzantine, is far more than "a sacramental living out a Catholic identity" (let alone aspiring to doctrinal, community, pastoral or moral "ideals") - you cannot have a personal Catholic identity unless the Church and its bishops you belong to - the people of God - has an ecclesial Catholic identity. With the best will in the world, it is difficult to recognise more than the remains of such an identity in Anglicanism. Hence the impulse to seek an ever deeper unity in the apostolic faith in which the Church reveals itself as one. It is notable how a significant Anglican bishop speaks positively of what is essentially a kind of Ordinariate for attracting ex-Anglo-Catholics and ex-Roman Catholics in the Orthodox Church, and virtually no Anglican leader has been prepared to recognise the positive ecumenical import of the Catholic Ordinariate for those of Anglican tradition, not as a form of the discredited and repudiated uniatism, nor as a means of proselytism, but as a declaration of acceptance that aspects of Anglican rite and pastoral (and ecclesiological and canonical) practice have a place in their own right in the Catholic Church if it is to be true to manifesting the Church's universality in all her bearings.

On Monday, 14 February, Father Edward Hughes, Vicar General of the Western Rite Vicariate of the Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, and his duly appointed assistant, Father John W. Fenton, met at the Russian Synod chancery with His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion (Kapral), First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR); His Grace Bishop Jerome (Shaw), Bishop of Manhattan and vicar of the Eastern-American diocese (ROCOR); and the V. Reverend Anthony Bondi, Pastoral Vicar for the Western Rite (ROCOR).

This meeting was the first between the hierarchy and leadership of the jurisdictions which oversee all canonical Orthodox parishes in North America which are exclusively Western Rite. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the present situation, and to compare visions in order to foster cooperation in furthering Western Rite Orthodoxy in America. During the meeting, several items of mutual interest were discussed including issues relating to the Western Rite in the committees of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America; the reception of parishes and clergy from other ecclesial groups; the education of laity in Western Rite parishes; the education of current and future Western Rite clergy; the liturgical norms and usages in the jurisdictions; and the planting of Western Rite missions.

A spirit of fraternal openness permeated the meetings, with the often repeated desire that the Western Rite parishes and clergy of both jurisdictions need to grow closer together. Toward this end, Metropolitan Hilarion encouraged Fr. Anthony and Fr. Edward to explore specific ways in which the clergy from both jurisdictions might regularly meet together.

Fr. Hughes and Fr. Fenton wish to express their deepest gratitude to Metropolitan Hilarion and Bishop Jerome for their gracious hospitality and for generously sharing their time. Their interest and desire for Western Rite Orthodoxy was inspiring. They also thank Fr. Anthony Bondi for his many kindnesses, and his earnest desire for increased cooperation.

Anglicanism - Western Orthodoxy

(from http://philorthodox.blogspot.com/)

by Bishop Geoffrey Rowell:

When, in the sixteenth century, ecclesia Anglicana – ‘the English Church’ – was reformed, those, like Bishop John Jewel, who defended that reformation, did so not by saying it was adapted to contemporary culture, but by a return to the faith and order of the early church. Very deliberately, unlike the Protestant reformers of continental Europe, the Church of England maintained the historic, apostolic, three-fold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons. The Church of England did not abandon the historic apostolic ministry but sought to reform it. Ever since Anglicans have held that those ordained as bishops, priests and deacons, are ordained as bishops, priests and deacons of the Church of God. Change in that ordering of ministry is therefore a matter not just for the Church of England or the Anglican Communion but for all those churches who claim to share that ministry. Developments in faith and order need this wider reference....

The Anglican patrimony is not just a matter of hymn-books and liturgy, of Evensong and the English choral tradition, important as those things are. It is a sacramental way of living out a catholic identity, expressed in relation to the community and in a wise application of moral ideals to personal and pastoral realities. It is what the churches of the East have sometimes recognized as a Western Orthodoxy. Above all it is about a faithfulness in a way of Christian living that expresses the beauty of holiness, which is about transfiguration into the likeness of Christ, living out the maxim often attributed to St Augustine but originating in the theological conflicts of Reformation Europe – ‘in essentials unity, in doubtful things liberty, and in all things charity.’