Did You Know Series # 14

Presentation of the Lord

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“It has been stressed several times that the full union of the Catholic Eastern Churches with the Church of Rome which has already been achieved must not imply a diminished awareness of their own authenticity and originality. Wherever this occurred, the Second Vatican Council has urged them to rediscover their full identity, because they have ‘the right and the duty to govern themselves according to their own special disciplines. For these are guaranteed by ancient tradition, and seem to be better suited to the customs of their faithful and to the good of their souls’” (Orientale Lumen 21, Pope John Paul II).

Did You Know Series # 13

Theophany of the Lord

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“The Church of Christ is one.  If divisions exist, that is one thing; they must be overcome, but the Church is one, the Church of Christ between East and West can only be one, one and united. . . . . . True union is possible only in total respect for the other’s dignity without claiming that the whole array of uses and customs in the Latin Church is more complete or better suited to showing the fullness of correct doctrine” (Orientale Lumen 20, Pope John Paul II).

Did You Know Series # 12

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“The Catholic Church values highly the institutions of the Eastern Churches, their liturgical rites, ecclesiastical traditions and their ordering of Christian life.  For in those churches, which are distinguished by their venerable antiquity, there is clearly evident the tradition which has come from the Apostles through the Fathers and which is part of the divinely revealed, undivided heritage of the Universal Church” (Vatican II Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches 1).

Ikon of St. Nikolaus

Did You Know Series # 11

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In the matter of reconciliation between the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Church of Rome, “conversion is also required of the Latin Church, that she may respect and fully appreciate the dignity of Eastern Christians, and accept gratefully the spiritual treasures of which the Eastern Catholic Churches are the bearers, to the benefit of the entire catholic communion; that she may show concretely, far more than in the past, show much she esteems and admires the Christian East and how essential she considers its contribution to the full realization of the Church’s universality” (Orientale Lumen 21, Pope John Paul II).

Presentation of Mary in the Temple (Nov 21st)

Did You Know Series # 10

Assumption of Mary — Coptic

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“From their very origins, the Churches of the East have had a treasury from which the Church of the West has drawn largely for its liturgy, spiritual tradition, and jurisprudence. Nor must we underestimate the fact that the basic dogmas of the Christian faith concerning the Trinity and the Word of God made flesh from the Virgin Mary were defined in Ecumenical Councils held in the East” (Vatican II Decree on Ecumenism 14).

Did You Know Series # 9

Transfiguration of Christ

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Regarding the differences between East and West, Pope John Paul II remarked, “we can co-operate in proclaiming the Kingdom or we can become the upholders of new divisions” (Orientale Lumen 19, Pope John Paul II).

Did You Know Series # 8

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“Although in the first centuries of the Christian era conflicts were already slowly starting to emerge within the body of the Church, we cannot forget that unity between Rome and Constantinople endured for the whole of the first millennium, despite difficulties. We have increasingly learned that it was not so much an historical episode or a mere question of pre-eminence that tore the fabric of unity, as it was a progressive estrangement, so that the other’s diversity was no longer perceived as a common treasure, but as incompatibility” (Orientale Lumen 18, Pope John Paul II).