This web site was designed
by Nicholas Stanosheck.
If you have any questions that you would like to see answered in the bulletin, please do not hesitate to ask. Please leave your questions and suggestions at the Candle Desk, or email (glardas@cs.com). They will be given to Fr George. But you may also ask Fr George directly.
"Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic"
Q: Dear Parishioners, many have asked, Why do we have on our sign "St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church?" Since I did not know the answer to this question I posed it to my fellow clergy. The best answer was from Fr Alexander Lebedeff, Rector of the Holy Transfiguration Cathedral in Los Angeles:
A: Dear Fr. George!
There are several reasons for this.
1) At the end of the last century, the established terminology in English was the form "Greek Catholic" to identify the Orthodox Christian Church, as opposed to "Roman Catholic." The use of "Greek Catholic" for Uniates came later.
2) The Russian Orthodox Catechisms always stated, on the question "To what Church do we belong?" "We belong to the Russian Orthodox Greek-Catholic Church" - "Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Greko-Kafolicheskoj Tserkvi" (note the "f" instead of the "t"--the convention in Russian was that "kafolicheskaya" meant "universal" while "katolicheskaya" meant Roman Catholic). This distinction does not come across in English.
3) The foundational documents of the North American Diocese (or Metropolia) all include the words "Greek Catholic" in their titles. For example, our ROCOR [Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia] Eastern-American Diocese was originally incorporated as "Ruling Archbishop and Diocesan Council of the North American Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, Inc."
Now that the term "Greek Catholic" has become universally understood as "Uniate" - the usage of Greek Catholic has basically disappeared among the Russian Orthodox, but historical artifacts, such as legal names, remain.
- Fr. Alexander Lebedeff