The Orthodox-Catholic Church

— one, holy, catholic and apostolic —

The Church

Outside the Church there is no Salvation – Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus – Außerhalb der Kirche gibt es kein Heil

Изван Цркве нема Спасења – În afara Bisericii nu există Mântuire – Izvan Crkve nema Spasenja

Hors de l'Église il n'y a pas de salut – Вне Церкви нет Спасения – Al di fuori della Chiesa non v'è salvezza

Fora da Igreja não há Salvação – Poza Kościołem nie ma Zbawienia – Fuera de la Iglesia no hay Salvación

Եկեղեցուց դուրս չկա փրկություն – Έξω από την Εκκλησία δεν υπάρχει Σωτηρία – ეკლესიის გარეთ არ არის ხსნა

This list of particular Churches is not immediately analogous to the lists which appear below under the sub-headings for the Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, as the Churches which appear under this sub-heading for the Catholic Church can not be called autocephalous in terms of Church governance. They all accept the immediate primary jurisdiction of the Pope. Their autonomy is a complicated topic, varying among them as also across time and place and circumstances. (The 23 Eastern Catholic Churches all bear the designation sui juris.) In place of the term particular Churches, or perhaps in addition thereto, one might speak of different Liturgical Rites, but hereto such an expression is not fully adequate, as it is not only aspects of the Divine Liturgy, the Mass, which vary among them, but also the ways in which other of the sacraments are celebrated. So one might speak of Sacramental Rites. Moreover, one can discern herein groups or groupings of Sacramental Rites, based on the histories of their transmission and on geographic and other factors: the Latin Family; the Coptic-Alexandrian Family; the Antiochian-Syriac Family, itself further subdivided between West Syriac and East Syriac; and the Byzantine-Greek (and later also Slavonic) Family which sprang from the Antiochian and the Armenian Rite, rather in a family of its own. By another scheme all the non-Latin particular Churches are simply called Eastern Catholic.

Glorious is the cultural diversity within Orthodox-Catholic Christianity.

Yet one must also recognize that some of this complexing springs forth from schism. After the particular Churches which did not accept the Council of Chalcedon, the Fourth Ecumenical Council of 451, and then again after or concurrently with the 9th through 13th-century progressive estrangement between Latin "West" and Byzantine-Greek (and also Slavonic) "East" which came to be known as the Great Schism, the Catholic Church variously, haltingly, episodically won over some adherents from the others. So too did the Orthodox in Communion with Constantinople. In the event of the reunification which is the goal being explored and pressed in these pages, it might be fair to assume that, for example, the Coptic Rite Catholic Church would simply be subsumed into the two-thousand-year-old Coptic Orthodox Church. Would the united particular Church then be called the Coptic Orthodox-Catholic Church? But be ever mindfull of the decided proclivity toward turf struggles, together with regular old episcopal pride, which plaque the Church perennially. Here, at least in the times we live in, one thinks not first of Copts but of the Ukrainians and Russians of the Byzantine-Slavonic Rite. Pray and persuade, but do not be surprised to find resistance along the path for no better reason than that this or that bishop wants to go on reigning and to do so without a boss anywhere in the wings.

From Orientalium Dignitas 1894 of Pope Leo XIII

(and here one could note the further complexity arising from differences in the Ordinary Form, the Extraordinary Form and of the Anglican Use. Tensions of a Twentieth Century genesis between those loyal to the former two, can perhaps be roughly analogized to the tensions of a Seventeenth Century genesis between the Старообрядцы – Old Ritualists (a.k.a., Old Believers) and the Patriarchate within the Russian Church (what we should be calling the Church in Russia), but perhaps not.)

using Coptic and Arabic as liturgical languages

using Geez as the liturgical languag

(India; with the second largest number of adherents of any Eastern Catholic Church, after the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church; an ancient particular Church with a tradition of descent from Apostle Saint Thomas)

(Southern India; using Syriac, Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi and English)

(Lebanon; founded by Saint Maroun (or Maron or Maro, 410 †))
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon

With its seat in Kiev-Galicia, the largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches with perhaps six million faithful

Russian Orthodox Church in communion with Rome
и Леонид Фёдоров и Владимир Сергеевич Соловьёв

Originating among the Rusyn people who lived in Carpathian Ruthenia,
but now headquarted in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

(including the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church in India)

(including the the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church)

יַעֲקֹב - Ἰάκωβος - Santiago de Zebedeo/Santiago el Mayor - Иаков Зеведеев - Apostle Saint James the Greater, son of Zebedee, brother of Apostle Evangelist Saint John the Theologian. Reliquary in Santiago de Compostella, Spain.

The brothers —Βοανηργες - Boanerges, Sons of Thunder — were two of The Three Apostles Jesus selected and set apart even with the body of The Twelve Apostles, the other of The Three being Apostle Saint Peter, their leader.

Twelve, to include the Three and nine others. These nine positions should be allocated with a view to achieving enduring balance and with it legitimacy among the community of the pious Christian faithful. It is to be expected that over the coming centuries and millennia there will be few if any reallocations made with respect to these nine metropolitan Episcopal allocations within the Twelve, as it is anticipated that there can be no changes to the recognition of the Three or certainly none within the just started millennium, as indeed the protos of the Holy Standing Apostolic Synod, any future Ecumenical Council and the Church Universal will never change this side of the Parousia, will always be the Bishop of Rome. With this in mind, the impulse should be resisted to settle on any particular allocation because the current occupant of the office is or is perceived as being particularly holy, intelligent, knowledgable or wise or indeed is perceived as being lacking in any or all of these. Fairness, percieved legitimacy among the community of the Christian faithful and spiritual enrichment all argue in favor of giving due consideration to a metropolitan see's antiquity, the number of the community of the faithful within its flock and balance of representation among liturgical traditions and across global geography. As resolution of those few outstanding theological and ecclesiological disputes is assumed, the Oriental Orthodox must be represented. In view of the foregoing, the following parameters for allocating the remaining nine chairs among the Twelve will not be far off the mark:

The Protos of the Church in Jerusalem (the reasons for including this see are too obvious to elaborate here), His Most Godly Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III now holding this office;

The Protos of the Church in Alexandria, the Egyptian or Coptic Orthodox Church, His Most Blessed Beatitude Pope Shenouda III now holding this office;

The Protos of the Church in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, His Holiness Abune Paulos now holding this office;

In view of the fact that it has the second largest Orthodox community of the faithful after the Russian Orthodox Church, and as Latin and Romanian are the liturgical languages, including the Protos of the Church in Romania, currently His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel, would be a very useful bridge, a reminder that orthodoxy is universal, not exclusively Greek, less so still Slavonic;

Including another Orthodox metropolitan archbishop from Western Europe, North or South America or Australia/Australasia/Oceania would be a very useful gift to remind those Christians who currently see themselves and are seen as Eastern Orthodox and all of us that Orthodoxy is universal / καθολικός (katholikos), not "eastern";

Understanding of the appropriateness and necessity of the foregoing allocation of chairs / kathedra (καθέδρα) among the Twelve senior hierarchs of the Orthodox-Catholic Church -- The Church -- means that there are only four remaining chairs which could be allocated among those bishops currently within the Catholic Church structure and tradition., even though the number of people presently within the Catholic community of the faithful might argue for a higher number. Without forgetting the criteria other than size of the flock, as set forth above, this deficiency, if it is one, is fully offset by the fact that the Bishop of Rome is the Protos of the Universal Church as also by the circumstance that corresponding adjustments can be made as an understanding emerges as to the appropriate membership of the other fifty-eight bishops among the Seventy.

Considering the foregoing and the goals of the Church, it would be useful for at least one and possibly two of these senior metropolitan Episcopal seats to be understood as properly residing in a local Church which is by tradition lead by a non-Latin-rite Catholic bishop, that is by the protos of one of those autonomous, self-governing, sui iuris Churches which has already by long tradition been in full Communion with the Bishop of Rome: The Byzantine/Greek Catholic Churches (the Arabic-speaking Greek-Catholic Melkites or the Ukrainian, Old Church Slavonic Greek-Catholics from the Ukraine) or one of those Oriental Catholic Churches following the Coptic, Antiochian or Syriac, Armenian or Chaldean liturgical traditions.

As the largest of these, there would be an obvious appeal in choosing the Protos of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, with the recent retirement of Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, currently headed by His Beatitude Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk. Mutual recriminations in recent decades, and centuries of hostility, mistrust and even violence would make such a choice at present extraordinarily unpopular within the Moscow Patriarchate, a deal stopper. When considering this matter, the bishops of the world, and certainly including those within the Russian Orthodox Church, will be invited to recall that much will change for the better if those same bishops can unite on an understanding of Primacy at the Universal Level. Once united, and understanding the need for and urgency of a return to the ecclesiological norm of One Bishop in One Territory, many of the problems of the past will cease to exist. Indeed as all of the Orthodox-Catholic bishops of the world will be in full Communion with the Bishop of Rome as with the Bishop of Constantinople and the Bishop of Moscow, there is no obvious reason why the name Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church would continue to be used. The Russians can hardly object to there also being one or more bishops from the Ukraine numbered within the Standing Apostolic Synod, including perhaps one among the Twelve.

Although compelling arguments do not emerge from recalling the long-outdated Byzantine Imperial notion of the Pentarchy, as an alternative to the bishop currently Protos of the UGCC, there are strong and obvious arguments for numbering among the Twelve at least one bishop who uses liturgically the language spoken by our Lord and His Apostles among themselves, Aramaic. The Protos of the Syriac Catholic Church, currently Mar Ignatius Joseph III Younan, the Protos of the Maronite Syriac Church of Antioch, currently His Beatitude Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rahi and the Protos of the Syriac Orthodox Church, His Holiness Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, the first two of whom are currently in Communion with Rome but not Constantinople or Alexandria, the third of whom is in Communion with Alexandria but not Rome or Constantinople and all three of whom claim to be the rightful successor to the Patriarchs of Antioch, could choose one of their number or a fourth bishop to fill this seat among the Twelve, and in so doing also remove the scandal and schism of having two bishops in one territory. This bishop, apart from his duties on the Standing Apostolic Synod, could with the assistants of auxiliary bishops and vicars also act as the spiritual father to the Byzantine-liturgical-rite Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch (in Communion with Constantinople, but not with Rome or Alexandria) and the Byzantine liturgical-rite, vernacular-language Melkite Greek Catholic Church (in Communion with Rome but not with Constantinople or Alexandria). (Note that the Patriarchs of these two join the previous mentioned three in regarding themselves as the rightful successors to the Patriachial throne of the Church of Antioch, founded by Saint Peter. ) Or these five "Patriarchs of Antioch" can face God and explain to Him how His calls for Christian unity were outweighed by other considerations.

The remaining two or three bishops to be numbered among the Twelve should be chosen from among Latin-rite Catholics with a view toward balancing geographic diversity among Western Europe, Eastern Asia and North and South America, among these continents giving consideration to which lands were not represented by the Orthodox bishop last referred to before the discussion of Catholic representation.

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, reporting the conversion of the Gentiles, and they gave great joy to all the brethren. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up, and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to charge them to keep the law of Moses.”