POINTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE

An extract from a reply to Rev. J. di M, Garrison, N.Y.

YOU WONDER about the Western Rite Orthodox and the Uniats, and at first glance it would seem that they are mirror image phenomena, but in fact, I believe they are very different. The various types of Uniats were, of course, invented to facilitate the conversion of Orthodox Christians to Roman Catholicism and so were a proselytising tool. I believe the Western Rite Orthodox are mistaken, but their motives are much cleaner. They simply feel that as the West was once Orthodox and had authentic rites, these can be resurrected and it would be easier for Western people to relate to them. However, being a curmudgeon, I believe that it is impossible to resurrect a rite which has not existed within Orthodoxy for a thousand years. One has to feed in a lot of one’s own presuppositions and as this is often done, in the way of things, by people who are not yet mature in Orthodoxy, there is a danger than their invented Western rites reflect not the teaching and life of the Church but their own views. It seems to me, safer, especially for those of us who are converts to Orthodoxy, to stick with the various rites that the Orthodox Church in general uses today and to be nourished by them. Maybe in time, over generations, they will become more Western, but maybe we have to become Eastern.