Western Orthodox University

Ah, that's right. It was Fr Laurent. My mistake!

This is my understanding as well. From a contact in Puerto Rico, I had heard a few years back that they were trying to be formally recognized as a Russian Greek Catholic community. Yet, in the meantime, they merely default to the local Latin bishop.

Out of curiosity, which school is he running? And do they have any English-language info on said school?

 

Bishop Viktor runs Avgustyn Voloshyn Carpathian University, which includes Uzhhorod Theological Academy.

 

I wonder what was the issue. RGCC is super small and could use another community. Then again, I have a feeling some powers that be may be uncomfortable with any kind of growth of that Church out of misguided ecumenical deference to Moscow. They are not even allowed to elect their own Primate.

 

We attended a Dr John concert. Shemekia Copeland opened, and we fell in love with her.

 

That does ring a bell. You may have mentioned his university and academy in a previous thread. I'll have to pull up his sites and bookmark them for the future so that I don't forget.

And now that you mention it, I think Archimandrite Andrew's school 'validates' all of their Eastern Christian degrees through the Uzhhorod Theological Academy. Whether that means a double title or if both list their names on a single diploma, I don't know. But if AVCU and their Academy are the ones granting the degrees, does that make said awards fully accredited, English-language degrees from Ukraine?

For the reasons you mentioned, the Russian Greek Catholics don't even have a single bishop, let alone a metropolitan, major archbishop, or patriarch. It's a very sad situation. Even in Russia proper, ministry to Greek Catholics is overseen by the Latins, who assign some Greek Catholic clergy to quietly carry out their duties there. I've seen photos of literal underground Greek Catholic liturgies there (in basement chapels and the like). Even if Catholicism is granted some degree of tolerance, I've heard that that supposed tolerance rarely extends to Eastern Catholics.

 

Fabulous! Great musical genes. Her father was Johnny Clyde Copeland - the "Texas Twister." Great blues singer /guitarist! I listened to him 40-50 years ago a lot. He'd appear sometimes with his friends, Robert Cray and Albert "Ice Man" Collins. Robert is still with us; he's about 70, now. Albert passed quite a few years ago.

I remember Johnny took a trip back to the Mother Source - Africa, around 1980 IIRC. Came back inspired and made a wonderful album with excellent African musicians. I put that one on -and I was there!

Shemekia is just plain wonderful. I'm sure up there, somewhere, her Dad is very proud. Shemekia AND Dr. John? I'm envious, Rich! Good for you!

 

Albert Collins? I still grin and think of "Master Charge."

 

"My wife has a charge card
That I got her the other day,
I owe five hundred dollars
That's just for yesterday...."

Hey, you really know this stuff, Rich! That's great!

 

Yeah, I would like to find that out. Not sure if this can even be done, but there is no better man for out-of-the-box educational exploits than Bp. Viktor.

Yeeeah... with the current climate, I would not be surprised if they are fully underground, by now. I would imagine that there are some Italian Cardinals who would much prefer for this tiny community to go away. Their nominal Primate is Bp. Joseph Werth; I am pretty sure mere existence of the "Uniates" creates problems for him in his day job as the Roman Catholic Bishop in Novosibirsk.
I'd say that if 3xDr. Fr. Andrew just wants his parish to be left to his own devices, there is no better jurisdiction than RGCC. Full canonical legitimacy with minimal to none pesky Episcopal oversight. I mean it sincerely btw; that would be a sweet deal.

 

I mean, the Spaniards 'validating' degree programs for learning centers or even at satellite campuses abroad. UCN and Azteca have their partners and satellites in Europe and beyond. I'm pretty sure I've seen the Brits operating learning centers or have local partner institutions in Asia.

Why not the Ukrainians 'validating' degrees from Puerto Rico?

From what I understand of the Catholic communion's canon law, if there is no Eastern bishop present in a jurisdiction (say in Puerto Rico), then an Eastern community would default to the local Latins. On paper, this means that the Latin bishop is supposed to provide 'ministerial support' to said communities. In practice, this means that the local Eastern priests would attend any clergy meetings with their Latin bishop and brother priests but otherwise would be left to their own devices for day-to-day running of their parishes.

So in Fr Andrew's case, it may be a win-win to join the Russian Catholic Church. He and his parishioners would have an official sui iuris Church to belong to (instead of floating around in limbo, which may or may not exist in modern Catholicism ) but have a local bishop to support them should any issues or needs arise.

 

Makes sense.
Out of curiosity: in this case, is approval from the Vatican required? There is a somewhat prominent Russian alt-Orthodox priest (and also pro-democracy essayist and radio commenter), Fr. Yakov Krotov. He was ordained in a "liberal" Apostolic Orthodox Church, left it at some point, and joined a diocese that split from UOAC under Abp. Ihor (Isichenk0). You might have heard about him; a few years ago, he and a handful of his remaining priests joined Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Abp. Ihor is "Emeritus", but priests who joined with him, I believe, are active and serving under Bishop Vasyl of Kharkiv (God help them be safe!). Well, Father Yakov (who is in Moscow and have a tiny apartment parish for pro-Western dissidents) at some point commented that he is moving to UGCC with his Bishop, submitted his documents to Vatican, and they're delayed because of COVID. Then he stopped saying that and said that he's joining Orthodox Church in Ukraine instead (which, weirdly enough, does have one Bishop in Russia) - I didn't see any official notices that this was finalized, either. So, does him waiting for Vatical approval make sense? I'm just curious about this minor celebrity.

Yes, this would fit like a glove. Although, would not it make sense to also approach Byzantine Catholic Church or UGCC? They do have an effective hierarchy (so presumably in position to actually respond to a request like that), yet still no Bishops anywhere near Puerto Rico.

 

I'm honestly not sure about the exact rules governing reception of priests, whether it can be done directly by the Eastern Churches themselves or if Rome has to intervene. In the case of bishops, for sure, Rome must approve them, especially if they are being received for active ministry.

Having said so, I've seen a few individual cases of both bishops and priests, who required a lot of paperwork, investigations, and approvals as they had previously been Catholic, left for various mainstream or alternative Orthodox Churches, and were ordained while Orthodox. The Catholic Church doesn't often look kindly on men leaving for (easy) ordination and may not receive people back for ordained ministry. Of course, everyone is welcome back as a regular member but may not be permitted to serve at the altar, without extensive background checks and all the paperwork that comes with that.

Again, I don't know the details of the specific cases you mentioned nor the precise regulations of the Vatican, so take all of the above with a grain of salt.

As a general rule, Orthodox Christians entering into the Catholic Church are received as members of the corresponding sui iuris Church. For example, if someone is Greek Orthodox and wants to become Catholic, he would become Greek Byzantine Catholic. If someone is Romanian Orthodox and wants to become Catholic, he would become Romanian Greek Catholic.

In the case of the priests and laity of the Puerto Rico community, I understand that they were a mix of Greeks, Russians, and others. I don't know if they were received as individuals or collectively as a parish. That may have an effect on their eventual membership(s).

 

Understood. I have a feeling Vladyko Ihor opted to retire from active ministry to make a process easier. In Father Yakov's case, well... there are plenty of things that could be stumbling blocks, starting with the rather iffy jurisdiction where he was initially ordained, question how fully Catholic he might be in his beliefs, the fact that it would mean little sense for a priest in Moscow to enter the same diocese his fellow clerics entered (Kharkiv Exarchate). His logical place would be, of course, the RGCC, but that could potentially open a can of worms for that already-barely-tolerated little group. He is a high-profile, very outspoken, in opposition to ROC and Putin, had links to rather patriotic Ukrainian circles, and what they like to call a "foreign agent" (as a Radio Liberty commentator). If they could find an excuse to keep him away, they would likely use it. It's cunical, but true. I hope he finds jurisdictional stability in OCU (as much as it's possible: Bohorod Eparchy under Met. Adrian is a bit of a Schroedinger's structure, consisting of maybe 2 communities, outside of OCU's canonical boundaries under Tomos, and being in, well, enemy land).

Yep. It doesn't matter, really: they are in the Church and continue to operate, It's just something to nerd out about on the Internet.