Yes. Eastern Catholics Are Different…

Ok. 

You’ve discovered – perhaps to your surprise – that there are these other Catholics who aren’t Roman but are still just as authentically Catholic as you, your parish priest, and the Pope himself!

You’ve learned that these “other Catholics” have their own liturgies and traditions, some of which seem pretty dang cool.

Now you’re been googling like mad because you’re dying to learn more.

Unfortunately you’re coming across a lot of conflicting, and perhaps even troubling, opinions from Eastern Catholics about what we believe. You may see statements like:

“Eastern Catholics are Orthodox in communion with Rome.”

“Eastern Catholics believe everything that the Orthodox believe. We just happen to be in communion with Rome.”

“Eastern Catholics reject the doctrine (note the word doctrine and not dogma) of original sin, and, based on that rejection, also reject the dogma of the Immaculate Conception because it’s rooted in the West’s understanding of original sin.”

Unfortunately, some of us Eastern Catholics are so concerned to show how different we are from Roman Catholics that we forget we share the same Faith – that’s why we’re in communion with one another!

So I’m here to set the record straight.

What are the Similarities Between Roman Catholics and Eastern Catholics?

As Catholics, it only makes sense that there would be at least some similarities between Eastern Catholics and Roman Catholics. At the very least, there must be similarities in essentials. Otherwise, we’d have no foundation for communion.

So, just what are the similarities between Eastern Catholics and Roman Catholics?

Buckle up, buttercup, ‘cause here we go…

We share the same Creed

You know the Creed that you pray at every Sunday Mass? Yeah. That’s an Eastern thing.

The Creed was drafted – in Greek – at the ecumenical Councils of Nicea and Constantinople I. For this reason its technical name is the “Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.” Don’t believe me? Check out paragraph 195 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Eastern Catholics pray this exact same Creed at their Divine Liturgies every Sunday. The only caveat to that is that Eastern Catholics in the Byzantine tradition omit the phrase “and the Son” when speaking of the Holy Spirit’s procession. But that’s a topic for another time.

We share the same core dogmas

Contrary to what some Eastern Catholics might say, we actually do share the same core dogmas of the Faith with Roman Catholics.

Yes. That includes belief in the Immaculate Conception and purgatory.

If we didn’t share these same core dogmas, then our Faith would be different and, again, we’d have no grounds for communion.

What confuses many – including many Eastern Catholics – is that, although we share the same core dogmas, Eastern Catholics reflect on and express those dogmas differently. Sometimes that theological expression is so different as to appear contradictory to what Roman Catholics believe.

But appearances can be deceiving.

We share the same Sacraments

In addition to the Creed and the core dogmas of the Faith, Eastern Catholics share the same seven Sacraments as Roman Catholics.

Sometimes we have a different name for a Sacrament. For example, what Roman Catholics refer to as Confirmation, Eastern Catholics typically refer to as Chrismation. And what Roman Catholics refer to as the rite of Marriage, Eastern Catholics refer to as the rite of Crowning (because of the act of crowning the bride and groom that takes place during the rite).

It’s also not uncommon to hear Eastern Catholics refer to the Sacraments as the “Mysteries.” Why? Because the Greek word that was translated into Latin as sacramentum is mysterion. English-speaking Eastern Catholics, therefore, simply transliterate the Greek word mysterion into Mystery.

We share much of our history

Eastern Catholics and Roman Catholics also share much of our history.

In fact, one Roman Catholic professor of Eastern Catholic theology went so far as to state that the roots of Roman Catholic theology are in the East (check out Thomas Cardinal Spidlik’s excellent book The Spirituality of the Christian East to learn more).

Look at some of the saints that are honored by Roman Catholics as Doctors of the Church:

• Athanasius
• John Chrysostom
• Basil the Great
• Gregory Nazianzus
• Cyril of Alexandria
• Cyril of Jerusalem
• John Damascene
• Ephrem the Syrian
• Gregory of Narek

With the exception of the last two, each of these saints and Doctors of the Church are from the Greek East. St. Ephrem comes to us from the Syriac tradition and many of his hymns are sung in the Maronite liturgical services to this day. St. Gregory of Narek comes from the Armenian tradition and his writings have had a hugely formative role on Armenian Catholic thought.

Much of the Roman Catholic spiritual tradition has its roots in the writings of St. John Cassian, a Latin speaking monk who journeyed to Egypt to spend time learning the monastic life from the monks there. His Institutes and Conferences – the collections of lessons he learned from the Desert Fathers of Egypt – were widely read among some of the greatest founders of orders in the West (St. Dominic, for example).

So, when comparing the Catholic East and the Catholic West, it’s important to keep in mind that the first millennium of the Church’s history is a period of shared history between East and West.

What are the Differences Between Roman Catholics and Eastern Catholics?

Despite all the above similarities, however, there are some significant differences between Eastern Catholics and Roman Catholics. These include differences in how we reflect on Scripture and the Faith, what we consider to be reverent, how we approach the spiritual life, our devotions, and more.

Eastern Catholics have different liturgies

The most obvious starting place is our liturgies.

Yes, from a birds-eye view, our liturgies are the same. We all start with a “Liturgy of the Word” then progress through to a “Liturgy of the Eucharist.” But that’s about as far as the similarities go.

When you get into the details of each Eastern Liturgy itself and compare them to the Roman Mass, you’ll quickly notice that:

• The prayers are different
• The hymns and chanting are different
• The cycle of readings is different
• The liturgical calendar is different
• The liturgical language is different 
• The postures are different
• The vestments are different
• How we receive Communion is different

Not only are there differences in these things between East and West, but many of these differences can be observed among the Eastern Catholic Churches themselves. Remember, there are five different liturgical families in the East, each of which has developed along its own lines and within its own historical and cultural contexts.

Eastern Catholics have different theological perspectives

This is the point that confuses many Catholics – both Eastern and Western. The temptation is to see these differences in theological perspective, approach, and expression and assume that it reaches down to the point of dogma.

It doesn’t.

The best way that I’ve heard this reality expressed goes something like this…

Imagine three people enter the same room from different entry points and are asked to stand by the door through which they entered. In the center of the room is a large diamond with lights shining on it from overhead.

Because a diamond is a prism, each person viewing it will see different colors coming from it depending on the angle from which he or she observes the diamond.

The Faith is the same.

Here’s an illustration.

Let’s say I ask you: When do the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass? Your response, as a good upstanding Roman Catholic would be, “At the moment the priest says, ‘This is my body… this is my blood.’”

But here we have an issue. In some Eastern Catholic liturgical traditions there are anaphorae (basically “Eucharistic Prayers”) that don’t have the Words of Institution. The Anaphora of Addai and Mari, used in the Chaldean Catholic and, occasionally, the Maronite traditions, is a good example of this.

So how can the consecration take place without the Words of Institution?

In Eastern Eucharistic theology, if we have to pinpoint a moment of consecration at all, it’s during the epiclesis when the Holy Spirit is called down on the gifts “that He may make this bread the Body of Christ our God… and that which is within this chalice the Blood of Christ our God.”

This difference in theology is, in large part, because prior to Vatican II the Roman Canon didn’t have an explicit epiclesis, and so the West developed a different theology on this matter than did the East.

Eastern Catholics have their own history

Although we Eastern and Western Catholics share a millennium of history, there is a great deal of history that we do not share.

This is in large part because over time the East and West became estranged to the point that, with a small handful of exceptions, communion was broken off.

Eastern Catholics have their own saints

Yes. Eastern Catholics revere Roman saints as saints. 

In fact, many Roman Catholic saints are venerated liturgically, with their feastdays appearing on our own liturgical calendars.

And it’s not uncommon to find Eastern Catholics who love reading St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Faustina, St. Therese of Lisieux, and other Roman saints; although this sometimes paves the way for “Latinization” (a topic I’ve covered before elsewhere).

But we also have our own saints that we venerate liturgically, and to whose writings we turn for formation, inspiration, and deeper insight into God’s self-revelation.

In my own Maronite tradition, for example, we highly revere St. Ephrem (the Syrian) of Nisibis and St. Jacob of Serugh. But you’ll also find many Maronites who closely study the writings of St. Isaac (the Syrian) of Nineveh and Philoxenus of Mabbug.

And let’s not forget that St. Gregory Palamas is venerated liturgically by the Catholic Churches in the Byzantine tradition, and his writings are widely celebrated and closely studied by many Byzantine Catholics. Similarly, it’s not uncommon to encounter Byzantine Catholics who venerate Russian saints like Seraphim of Serov, Ignatius Brianchaninov, and Theophan the Recluse (whose writings I highly recommend).

Can you, as a Roman Catholic, also venerate these saints? Of course! If we Easterners can venerate your Roman saints, then you Romans are more than welcome to venerate our Eastern saints. We’re all Catholic, after all.

Eastern Catholics have their own governance

This can be a little confusing to explain, but let me start by speaking about matters on a local level.

Geographically, I live within the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. That would put me under the jurisdiction of the local Ordinary, right?

No.

As a Maronite, my local ordinary is the current bishop of the Eparchy (diocese) of Our Lady of Lebanon… despite the fact that he lives states away from me. I can listen to the archbishop of Cincinnati and learn from him. But ultimately the bishop of my Eparchy is my bishop. Let me illustrate this with a recent example…

During the recent parish closing during the pandemic, my bishop opened the parishes in our eparchy before the local Roman ordinary did. Yes, social distancing was still required. But our doors were opened.

Another example is that, as a patriarchal church, the Maronite Church isn’t governed directly by Rome, but by our own Patriarch and patriarchal synod. This is most especially illustrated when it comes to appointing bishops. Although historically the Maronite Patriarch would appoint a new bishop and then inform Rome of the appointment, today the Patriarch and synod compile a list of three candidates, then Rome chooses which candidate will be appointed bishop for an eparchy.

I hope this helps clarify the often-muddied relationship between Eastern Catholics and the Roman Church. Yes there is much that we hold in common – including the core dogmas of our one Faith – but we have many legitimate differences, all of which add to the richness of our Catholic Faith.