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Vol. 45 | No. 1 WiNter 2014 In This Issue Are You Saved? A Forgotten People Vatican Lifts Ban on Married Priests CONTENTS SThe Journalophia of the Eparchy of Newton 3 From the Editor, We Must be Doing Something Wrong for Melkite Catholics in the United States 4 Vatican Lifts Ban on Married Priests www.melkite.org Published quarterly by the Eparchy of Newton. 5 Letters to the Editor ISSN 0194-7958. Made possible in part by the Catholic Home Mission 6 Peter and Andrew: A Brother’s Embrace Committee, a bequest by the Rev. Allen Maloof and generous supporters of the annual Bishop’s Appeal. 8 Closer to Communion What the Patriarchates Mean PUBLISHER 10 Is This the End for Christianity in the Middle East? Most Rev. Nicholas J. Samra, Eparchial Bishop 14 A Forgotten People: The Twice Betrayed Christians EDITOR-IN-CHIEF of Ma’aloula Rt. Rev. Archimandrite James Babcock Hopes for 2016 COPY EDITOR 17 Orthodox Churches in Symphony Rev. James Graham 18 Voices Across the Divide PRODUCTION 19 Conversing with God Deacon Paul Leonarczyk DESIGN and LAYOUT 20 Are You Saved? It’s More Than Confessing with Your Lips Doreen Tahmoosh-Pierson 22 Another New Melkite Priest Fr Paul Al Khouri Fallouh SOPHIA ADVISORY BOARD We Must be Doing Something Wrong Dr. Fran Colie | Rev. George Gallaro 19 Father Deacon Sebastian Carnazzo Ordained Very Rev. Lawrence Gosselin Deacon Paul Leonarczyk | Rev. Justin Rose 23 Family Life is a Call to Live in Love Rt. Rev. Michael Skrocki 24 Make the Family the Extension of the Church into DISTRIBUTION Rt. Rev. Michael Skrocki the World Please email subscription additions/deletions or 26 The Synod of the Family: An Interview with address changes to: [email protected]. Fr George Gallaro The Publisher waives all copyright to this issue. Contents may be distributed free and without special permission in The Orthodox Church in the Arab World publications that are distributed free. Wherever possible, 27 Book Review: please include a credit line, indicating the name of SOPHIA magazine. Unsolicited manuscripts, articles, and letters to 28 New Head of Antiochian Orthodox Church the editor are welcomed. The editors assume no responsibility for lost manuscripts or photos. The content of all ar- 29 Vocation Tour The Return of the Circuit-Riding Priest ticles, past, present and future, remains the expressed personal opinion of the individual author and may not reflect, in its What’s Your Melkite IQ? entirety, the opinion of the Melkite Eparchy of Newton. 30 Quiz © 2015 SOPHIA Magazine. 32 Melkite IQ Some of the Answers Were Wrong 33 Canonization on the Horizon for Two Melkite Nuns HaveShare you ever Yourdreamed Voiceof being With a writer? Us! Perhaps 34 Eastern Catholic Religious Educators Meet in Arizona having your voice heard on the printed page? Is there a subject that you have wanted to address or a story that 34 SS Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary you are excited to tell? We would love to hear from you! SOPHIA welcomes updates and photos from all 35 Around the Eparchy of our parishes and invites manuscripts, articles, and letters to the editor from parishioners. Submissions 38 NAMW News will be subject to review by the editorial staff and only those approved by the publisher will be published. 39 Navigating the Eparchy All submissions can be sent to: [email protected] or SUBMISSIONS All materials (photos/articles/parish news) SOPHIA Letterbox for the Spring issue of SOPHIA magazine PO Box 189 | Temecula, CA 92593 DEADLINE are due March 1, 2015. Phone: 714 600 3660 2 SOPHIA | Winter 2014 FROM THE EDITOR e must be doing something wrong,” Fr Father Deacon Sabatino in the last Paul commented as we were returning issue and again in this issue quotes ex- from visiting one of the families of our tensively from Father Alexander Schme- Right Reverend mission community. We had just passed mann about wandering from Christ. If Archimandrite “Wthe Kingdom Hall, home of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was a you didn’t read this in the last issue, you James Babcock Friday evening. The parking lot was packed. can find it online at Melkite.org. Editor-in-Chief The next morning we found the Mormon missionaries can- Essentially, he makes the following vassing our neighborhood. Fr Paul said, “They’re coming here.” suggestions: Rebirth the Concept of Church; Experience the I said, “Go talk to them.” Church; Create an Authentic Eastern Christian Atmosphere at I have always been impressed that these young men would ded- Home. These are some of the first steps we need to take to re- icate two years of their lives to share what they believed in hopes store an authentic Eastern Christian approach to living our faith. of making converts to their faith. The Church of Jesus Christ of If our parents are not living our authentic Melkite Eastern Latter Day Saints has a phenomenal growth rate. And this is a Christian faith, then how can we ever expect our children to religion which seems to have no historically verifiable basis. do so? Meanwhile our Melkite families continue to enroll their chil- In fact, year after year, they wander away, searching, search- We Must be Doing Something Wrong dren in Roman (Latin) Catholic religious education programs ing because they never grew up practicing an authentic Eastern so they can have a first communion celebration. It seems not Christian spirituality. to matter to the parents that all of these children have already Consider this: “Belief is not taken up in a vacuum. The a made their first communion at the time of their baptism. priori decision is practice. People believe what they practice,” The Roman Church, pseudo-Christian sects, and the secular- Koreen Miller wrote in a recent letter to the Los Angeles Times. ism of our society continue to eat away at our authentic Eastern Every year our numbers diminish, His Grace Bishop Nicho- Christian tradition and spirituality. las stated at the last clergy conference. Can we afford to con- The Nativity Fast? Replaced with Christmas parties and visits tinue on the current course? If something is wrong, we need to from Santa Claus. Feast days? Move them to Sunday, because address the situation and make a course correction. no one wants to come to church during the week. Religious My dear readers, this has to begin with you. Unless enough Education programs on Saturday? No way; the kids have soccer of us gather together and examine what we can do in our com- and basketball (Sunday too!). munities to make our Eastern Christian tradition a way of life, Of course, the problem here is not the children, but the parents. we will continue to drift off course, losing our members, our The truth is that if we don’t know our own tradition and do youth, our children. not practice it, it will slowly fade away. As we begin a new year, why not make it a personal goal to Liturgy on Sunday? Well, if we don’t have anything else on return to the practice of our very rich Eastern Christian spiri- the calendar that day, we go to church. Which means only spo- tuality? And if we do not know it, let us make a concerted effort radic attendance and sporadic support, forcing our churches to rediscover it. Start by reading Deacon Sabatino’s article in into spiritual and financial chaos. this issue, and please, take it to heart. † We need to correct the course our ship is traveling. St John Climacus said, “A sure sign of the deadening of the soul is the Archimandrite James Babcock is Editor-in-Chief of SOPHIA and Pastor of St Jacob avoidance of church services.” Mission, San Diego, CA, and Virgin Mary Mission, Temecula, CA. The Journal of the Melkite Catholic Eparchy | 3 ited married Ruthenian priests from living in the United States. And in 1929-30, the Congregation for Eastern Churches ex- tended the ban to all Eastern-rite priests throughout North America, South Amer- ica, and Australia. The 1929 prohibition, known as Cum data fuerit, had significant repercussions for the Eastern Catholic churches in the United States. Sandri’s decree noted that soon after the law was promulgated, “an estimated 200,000 Ruthenian faithful be- came Orthodox.” Ruthenian Bishop John Kudrick of Par- ma, Ohio, said on 16 November that he sees the end to imposed celibacy for East- ern priests in the diaspora as an acknowl- edgement of the Eastern churches’ “obli- gation to maintain their integrity” and “of the right of the various churches to equal responsibility of evangelization through- VATICAN LIFTS BAN out the world.” “The world needs the church in its fullness,” he said, adding he believes the on Married Priests “change of policy results from the long- FOR EASTERN CATHOLICS IN DIASPORA standing experience of married priests in the Western world, especially the Ortho- By Laura Leraci, Catholic News Service dox, but also Eastern Catholic.” Vatican City, 17 November 2014 Kudrick said Eastern churches in the diaspora have a responsibility to minister to new immigrants, who are accustomed to married priests. he Vatican has lifted its ban on the ordination of “Because of the dual responsibilities to maintain continuity married men to the priesthood in Eastern Catholic with our past and to reach out to the society to which we are churches outside their traditional territories, in- called, some degree of freedom is necessary,” he said. cluding in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Fr Alexander Laschuk, a canon lawyer, said the new decree TPope Francis approved lifting the ban, also doing away also “regularizes a situation” in which some Eastern mar- with the provision that, in exceptional cases, Eastern Catho- ried men were being ordained despite the 1929 law.

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