Which christians are associated with the knights of columbus

In the same speech, Anderson announced that the Knights of Columbus will partner with the U. According to a statement from Aid to the Church in Need, the grant comes in response to an appeal from Bishop Oliver Doeme of Maiduguri, who finds himself struggling to cope with the physical and spiritual needs of some 5, widows and 15, orphans as a result of Boko Haram violence.

Another part of the grant, the statement said, will cover school fees and the feeding of orphans and half-orphans in the diocese. Read Msgr.

During the late s, the Mexican government issued several anti-Catholic laws, which banned Catholic services, barred Catholic education and seized property belonging to the Catholic Church.

Many priests were killed or expelled. This catapulted the country into the Cristero War. Knights sent resources to support Catholics facing persecution.

Others took up arms. Six Knights were martyred for the faith — they are all now saints. The Knights of Columbus not only defended the religious rights of Jews as well. They produced books showcasing the contributions of Jewish people to American society during a period of nativism. Roosevelt that the U. The Ethiopic Church is unique in retaining many Jewish usages, such as circumcision, Jewish dietary laws, and a Saturday sabbath.

Ethiopia is a poor nation, and the twentieth century was a violent and unstable time. In the s droughts devastated the country and millions died. The violent Marxist government of Mengistu also brought turbulence and confusion.

The two Churches together have around 18,, members. There is no documentation to prove this, but it is clear now that trade did go back and forth between the Mediterranean and south India even in the Roman period. In time this Church established links with the Assyro-Chaldean Church and took on their Tradition in the state of Kerala in southern India, which is still their homel and , and where most of them still live, historically St.

Thomas Christians. The largest group today is known as the Malabar Church. Both use the Antiochene Tradition. Today the Malabar and Malankara Christians may number as many as eight million. They are centered in Kerala state in south India. They are also present in other parts of India and in an international diaspora. The largest group belongs to the Malabar Catholic Church with around four million members, whose major archbishop resides at Ernakulam, Kerala.

The Malankara Catholic Church has about , members, with a major archbishop whose See is at Triv and rum, Kerala. The Malankara Orthodox Church, which is divided in two groups, one based in Kottayam and the other in Muvattupuzha, both in Kerala.

They claim 2,, members. Coptic Tradition B. Armenian Tradition E. Maronite Tradition - 13 - F. Byzantine Tradition G. Despite divisions on theological issues, these three Churches had a certain amount of borrowing back and forth. They have substantial differences, but a number of underlying similarities remain. It is important to underst and that these seven Traditions, or Christian Ways of Life, are the pattern for Eastern Christians.

In many ways, they are more important than the later division into various Churches. For instance, Armenian Christians will have a lot in common whether they are members of the Armenian Apostolic Church or members of the Armenian Catholic Church. In a similar way, there are many Churches that follow the Byzantine Tradition. All of these Churches and dozens of others follow the Byzantine Tradition and their spiritual ways of life are extremely similar, if not identical.

That some are Catholic and some are Orthodox — meaning not in communion with the pope and the Catholic Churches — is not apparent in their basic way of life. In fact, one would have a hard time telling whether a Ukranian Church were Catholic or Orthodox without first having checked the signpost outside. In many cases, the break was not final at one definite point. Still, certain historical events were clearly turning points that solidified the distance between the Churches.

When Nestorius d. Many of them went east to the Persian Empire. As Christians , the Assyro-Chaldeans were suspected of sympathies with the Greco-Romans who, by the s, were mainly Christians. In time, the Assyro-Chaldeans also rejected the Council of Ephesus for a number of reasons. Their famous phrase is, of course, that Christ is one person in two natures. Unfortunately for the Coptic Egyptians, the Syriac Antiochenes, and the Armenians, this sort of philosophical distinction did not make much sense within their underst and ing of theology.

They also saw no need to create new theological formulas. It seemed that the older, traditional theology they - 15 - had had up to that point was perfectly good. Despite the many accusations against them, it is clear that they have always believed and always held that Jesus was both fully human and fully God.

The reaction to the Council of Chalcedon, then, created yet another break in the Eastern Churches. Particularly after the fifth century, there were few Greeks who could read Latin and few Latins who knew Greek, so the theologies of the two Churches grew in isolation from each other.

Political tensions between Rome and Constantinople also aggravated their disagreements. For brief periods, the two Churches broke of f their communion, but soon restored it. Then, in , a dispute between papal envoy Cardinal Humbert of C and ida Silva d. Cardinal Humbert, impatient with his treatment by the patriarch, issued a bull excommunicating the patriarch and his Church, and the Orthodox Church responded in kind, which left the Catholic Church in the West, the Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Church, and the Church of the East.

In some ways, this was a break not all that different from some of the earlier ones. In some cases, the Churches continued to work together. Still, when Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras of - 16 - Constantinople chose to make a dramatic step toward healing the break between their churches in , it was those excommunications of that they chose to reject.

For a variety of theological, political, and educational reasons, many Eastern Christian groups joined the Catholic Church. These reunions created what is now called the Eastern Catholic Churches. Two Eastern Catholic Churches , however, have always been at least in some sense, part of the Catholic Church. From ancient times there have been Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy and Sicily. At some point very early on no one knows exactly when , they picked up the Byzantine Tradition and have lived by it since then.

At present, there are two dioceses of Italo-Greek Catholics, one on the Italian mainl and and the other in Sicily. The monks maintain fraternal and friendly relationships with various Orthodox Churches and monasteries.

Likewise, the Maronite Church, first in Syria and later in Lebanon, never formally separated itself from the Catholic Church. There certainly were centuries when the Maronites and the Pope in Rome had no contact with each other, but from the time of the Crusades in the twelfth century, the Maronite Church has strongly and unambiguously affirmed its adherence to the Catholic Church. The Christians who follow the Assyro-Chaldean Christians were, for centuries, called the Church of the East, but a majority joined the Catholic Church as part of the Chaldean Catholic Church in the - 17 - sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The minority are the Assyrians, who form the Church of the East. The great majority of the Christians in India who follow the Assyro-Chaldean Tradition are part of the Malabar Catholic Church, although there is also a small community of the Church of the East. The several Byzantine Catholic Churches are larger than some other Eastern Catholic Churches , but they are smaller than their corresponding Orthodox Churches. Parallel Catholic and Orthodox Churches for these Traditions exist.

The Orthodox Churches are far and away the most numerous Eastern Christians. They have somewhere around 25 separate Church communities, each of which is independent, but which recognize each other.

All of them follow the Byzantine Tradition. Likewise, the Catholics of the Byzantine Tradition, or Greek Catholics, are a very diverse group, having ten separate Church hierarchies within the Catholic Church. Without question, the largest group is the Ukrainian Catholic Church. At present, the Christian East is made up of the following Church groups. The Assyrian Church of the East B.

The Orthodox Churches D. Still, there are many similarities. Certainly in much of the world, both parishes and dioceses are considerably smaller than what one finds in the Roman Catholic or Protestant churches. One would find nothing like the mega-churches of hundreds of thous and s of members in the Christian East. It is not at all unusual for an entire diocese to be made up of 50, or fewer people.

In consequence, those who are most active in their parishes have generally met their bishop several times. In many cases, ordinary lay people are closer to their hierarchy and have a stronger sense of the church being truly theirs.

Eastern Church members are frequently closely connected to the identity of the ethnic group in which they grew up. For instance, the vast majority of Serbs are members of the Serbian Orthodox Church. It is certainly true that some Serbs are Roman Catholic, Protestant, and even members of non-Christian religions. Still, in the mind of most Serbs, to be fully and entirely Serbian, one must be Orthodox.

Indeed, one can hardly underst and Serbian history at all if one overlooks the centurieslong dedication of its people to the Serbian Orthodox Church. One would find similar reactions among the Armenians, the Ethiopians and within most other Eastern Churches as well.

Although mystery and the unexplainable are a part of all religion, the sense of mystery is much more at the heart of Eastern Christianity. As with Russian spirituality, beauty and the senses play a large role in Eastern Christian worship. He was not moved by the truth of the Christian doctrines. The legend says nothing about doctrine. What moved the Russians was that the liturgical services were beautiful.

The hymns of the Liturgy are moving poetry, accompanied by stirring music. The stark plainness of early Puritan churches in New Engl and , for instance, is far removed from the highly ornamented world of most Orthodox Churches. Many Eastern Churches have used various icons in their services for many centuries.

Most are painted on wood, but they are also painted as frescoes on plaster. The Romanian Church has distinctive icons painted on glass and even on the outside walls of Churches. For Eastern Christians , icons are treated like the pictures of loved ones: they are kept at h and and h and led with loving gentleness.

Certainly even the simplest peasant underst and s that the icons are not magic idols, but pictures of Christ and of beloved Christian heroes. Eastern Theology and Spirituality Many of the differences between East and West are questions of emphasis. Some issues are more important in the East than in the West, and vice versa. For instance, systematic theology, which makes a harmonious system of the whole of theology, has not been especially prominent in the East.

To some extent, the great Greek theologian, Saint Maximus the Confessor c. But, following them, one would find few systematic theologians in the East until Father Dumitru Staniloae of Romania. On the other h and , Eastern Christianity has had a rich tradition of teachers of prayer and spirituality. It drew on the work of many Eastern theologians, but Saint Gregory of Palamas c. Hesychasm elaborated a very audacious theology of theosis, or deification, which teaches that humans can become God by participation.

Only the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are God by nature, but by living with and in God, humans can become God by participation. It is difficult to characterize all of Eastern Christian theology in a few words. A simplistic approach could say that Eastern theology tends to accent similarities and connections, while Western theology works frequently with distinctions and divisions. The prayers and actions of the Liturgy are also seen as a source for theology because the Holy Spirit has inspired the manner in which Christians pray in Church.

Theology in the East tends to focus on relationships —God and the believer, the individual believer and the Church community, and so on. Father Robert Taft and other scholars at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome have contributed to the scholarship on the liturgies and to other studies on the Eastern Churches. The sanctuary and the altar are to the east and the main door is to the west. The east has, for centuries, represented God and holiness.

For Christians the sun rising in the east has of ten been a symbol of Christ rising from the dead on Easter Sunday. In the Byzantine baptismal ritual, one renounces Satan facing west and then turns to the east to pr of ess faith in Christ and the Holy Trinity.

One enters the Church, symbolically, in the west —from what is less perfect and less holy— and moves east, toward God and what is good and more holy.

Consequently, many Eastern churches continue to have the priest on the west side of the altar facing east, as the congregation does. A typical Sunday service will use incense at least four or five times. Sometimes incense is also used for minor blessings. The burning of incense has several meanings. First, burning spices and ointments is an of fering to God of things that could be used otherwise for personal pleasure or pr of it.

So, it is a form of sacrifice. Finally, as Psalm says, our prayers go to God like the smoke of the incense rising up to heaven. Most Eastern Christian liturgical services have a much stronger emphasis on the Holy Spirit than either Roman Catholic or Protestant services.

For instance, every Byzantine of fice except from Easter to Pentecost includes the following prayer: Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, everywhere present and filling all things, Treasury of Blessings, and Giver of Life, come and dwell within us, cleanse of all stain, and save our souls, O gracious One. Like some of the Fathers of the Church in the first centuries, Eastern ers tend to think of their Liturgy as a reflection of the Liturgy of the Holy Trinity with the Saints and Angels.

Consequently, the Saints and the Angels appear more frequently in iconography and in the Divine Liturgy. One of the more striking examples of this is the Byzantine Prayer of Entrance early in the Divine Liturgy, as the ministers enter the sanctuary at the Little Entrance: O Lord and Master, our God, who in heaven have established orders and armies of Angels and Archangels to minister to your majesty, grant that the holy Angels may make the entrance with us and concelebrate with us and co-glorify your goodness.

For to you belongs all glory, honor, and worship, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and always and forever and ever. The prayer asks that the Angels in the heavenly Liturgy also be present in our Liturgy, and then goes a step further, asking that they concelebrate our Liturgy. Easter is not simply one of the most important feasts for Eastern Christians , it is the Feast of feasts —in a class all by itself. In all Eastern Churches , the Easter vigil and Divine Liturgy are, without question, the crown and center of the liturgical year, despite their length.

Even today, the diet of ordinary Christians is frequently dramatically restricted during the Great Fast Lent , leading up to Holy Week and Easter. Consequently, the liturgical blessing of all these foods - 23 - and their reintroduction into the diet makes Easter also a culinary delight. The dietary changes and the Lenten church services mean that the whole lifestyle changes radically at Easter, making it not only a religious occasion, but also a major turning point in the life of the Church.

Because of the great richness of liturgical prayers, and their abundance, most personal prayers used by Eastern Christian believers come from hymns and prayers in the Liturgy. In the Western Church, a great number of the prayers used for personal devotion are not from the Liturgy. They are, rather, prayers that grew out of personal devotion.

In the Eastern Churches , the link between the Liturgy of the Church and personal devotion is very close. Most prayers for personal use come from the Liturgy and change with the liturgical season.

Each Tradition has its own distinctive liturgical services. In many Churches baptism, chrismation confirmation , and first communion are given together in receiving infants into the Church community. In such cases, babies and children continue to regularly receive Holy Communion. It always has a Liturgy of the Word, in which scripture passages are read.

This is followed by the Liturgy of the Eucharist, which leads up to communion. The service is overwhelmingly sung, both by the clergy and by the laity. Although the Ethiopic, Maronite and Malabar Liturgies sometimes use musical instruments, mainly percussion, most other Eastern liturgies are sung without instrumental accompaniment. Illumine, O our Lord and our God, the thoughts of our heart, so that we underst and the kindly words of your life-giving and divine comm and ments.

In your goodness and your mercy, grant us to reap their fruits: love, hope and the salvation, which both body and soul need. After the readings, there is, in some churches, a homily. In other cases, it comes at the end of the Liturgy. Following either the readings or the homily there are prayers for the Church, its needs, all the faithful, the deceased, the government, the poor and those in great need.

Roman Catholics would call these prayers the General Intercessions. The ancient of the kiss of peace takes place at this point in Eastern liturgies.

For example, in the Coptic Liturgy of Saint Cyril, we find: And send down from your holy heights, and from your prepared mansion, and from your boundless bosom, and from the throne of the kingdom of your glory, the Paraclete… - 25 - … upon us your servants, and upon these precious gifts which have been set before you, upon this bread and this cup, that they may be sanctified and changed R. And this bread He makes into the holy Body of Christ R. Then communion is given from both the Holy Bread and the Holy Wine.

In the Armenian Tradition, the hymn sung by the choir is the following: We have been filled with your good things, O Lord, by tasting of your Body and Blood. Glory in the highest to you who have fed us. You who continually feed us, send down upon us your spiritually blessing.

Glory in the highest to you who feed us. The priest prays: Remain in peace, O altar of God, and I hope to return to you in peace. May the sacrifice which I have of fered on you forgive my sins, help me to avoid faults and prepare me to st and blameless before the throne of Christ. I know not whether I will be able to return to you again to of fer sacrifice.

Guard me, O Lord, and protect your holy Church, that she may remain the way of salvation and the life of the world. Married Clergy Just as most of the apostles were married, so in the ancient Church most priests were married. The policy of the Christian Church was that - 26 - c and idates for ordained life must be married before ordination to the diaconate.

In the ancient discipline of the Church, a priest was not allowed to re-marry even if widowed. Although bishops were also sometimes married in the earliest centuries, from a relatively early period they were required to be celibate. Especially with rise of celibate monastic life in the fourth and fifth centuries, there was a dramatic growth in the celibate priests, many of whom were monks. In the Western Roman Catholic Church, eventually celibacy became the normal way of life for all priests, just as Roman Catholic priests took on other aspects of monastic life, like distinctive dark or black clothes and the obligation to pray the Divine Office.

In the Eastern Churches , the clergy developed two branches: the married clergy and the monastic clergy, a pattern which continues in many Eastern Churches. In many cases, the clergy serving in parishes are married. Some of the Eastern Churches that joined the Catholic Church and became Eastern Catholic Churches were constrained to give up ordaining married men. Other Eastern Catholic Churches , however, retain their married clergy and in many of those Churches , married priests are the vast majority, as with the Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Hungarian Catholic Church.

In the closing years of the twentieth century and the opening years of the twenty-first, the question of married and celibate clergy has been in flux among Eastern Catholic Churches.

Most of the canons were written or approved by Church councils and synods. Sometimes the canons contradict one another. One of the notable accomplishments of the Eastern Catholic Churches in the field of canon law was the production of a consistent and unified code of Eastern Catholic canon law. Work on it began in earnest under Pope Pius XI in Among other things, it specifies the types of Eastern Catholic Churches : 1 patriarchal, 2 major archiepiscopal, 3 metropolitan, and 4 eparchial ceterae ecclesiae.

Patriarchal Churches enjoy a great deal of autonomy and are predominantly directed by the patriarch and his synod. The major archiepiscopal Churches have slightly less autonomy. Eparchial Churches have the least independence. They fall under the direction of the Vatican dicastery, known as the Congregation for the Eastern Churches , whose head is chosen by the pope.

This Congregation collaborates and coordinates a variety of efforts with experts on Liturgy, Canon Law, faith and ministerial formation and studies on various aspects of the patrimony of Eastern Churches , in order to deepen knowledge of Catholicism. Latinizations Almost all Eastern Churches have, at one time or another, undergone some latinizations, meaning that parts of their own distinctive liturgical and theological usages were ab and oned for Roman Catholic customs.

At times, even some Orthodox Churches used Western Latin Roman Catholic theology books because they were the only ones available. Certainly, the impact of latinizations has been much more dramatic on the Eastern Catholic Churches. To take one clear example, the Eastern Churches continued the practice of the ancient Church for baptism and Eucharist. The practice in both the Orthodox East and the Catholic West was that at baptism, everyone, including infants, also received chrismation confirmation , and Eucharist.

Toward the end of the first millennium, the Roman Catholics changed this practice and instituted first communion ceremonies for young children. But over the centuries things slipped, particularly when Eastern Catholic seminarians studied in Roman Catholic seminaries and universities, but learned very little about the history, theology, and Liturgy of their own Tradition. Finally, the Second Vatican Council in published Orientalium Ecclesiarum, a brief, but radical, document which urged Eastern Catholics to purge the latinizations in their Church and return to their original practice.

Since then, the Church has specified how to make these reforms. Some Churches have made considerable changes; others have barely started. Many of these Christian Ways of Life are very ancient indeed. Nonetheless, even the more recent Eastern Churches live by a particular Christian way of life which began in the apostolic period. Today there are communities of Eastern Churches on every continent. Some continue to serve God in the languages of their ancient homel and s, while others have translated their liturgies into modern languages.

These churches are both rooted in the distant past but also they are very much part of the modern world. It is centered on the Incarnation, from which creation itself draws light. It was founded in by a group of monks from Calabria under the leadership of Saint Nilo of Rossano It is located in the Alban Hills Italian, Castelli romani in the town of Grottaferrata a short distance southeast of Rome.

It is one of three ancient traditions expressed in the Syriac language. Assyro-Chaldean Tradition: The Christian way of life that developed in Mesopotamia and the surrounding areas, what are today eastern Syria, Iraq, and northwestern Iran.

This Church also developed almost all of its theology and liturgy without reference to Greek philosophy and terms. Saint Gregory the Illuminator is recognized as the founder of the Armenian Church. Byzantine Tradition: The Christian way of life that developed originally in Constantinople present-day Istanbul, Turkey , from to capital of the Roman Empire of ten called the Byzantine Empire although the empire always considered itself the authentic Roman Empire.

Canon Law: The body of canons, guiding the life and discipline of the Christian Church. Therefore, it shows that there is an unity of belief versus holding beliefs that are heretical or schismatic and it describes the Churches who are in communion with the See of Rome. Applied to the Eastern Churches , Catholic almost always means the Churches - 32 - in communion with the See of Rome, as opposed to Orthodox or Apostolic Churches not in communion with Rome. Catholicos: The supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The Catholicos is elected by a group of delegates consisting of clergy and laity. Since the Church is at present spring divided, there are two Armenian Apostolic Catholicos: one at Etchmiadzin, Armenia and the other at Antelias, Lebanon.

From Saint Jerome we know that there was an important school of theology some boast that it is the oldest catechetical school in the world which widely influenced spread of Christianity throughout the world. The Coptic Church is also credited with being the cradle of monasticism. Both Catholics and Orthodox Churches use similar liturgies and rituals. This Council defined Christ being of full humanity and full divinity, and was the second person of the Trinity.

Those Churches which refused to accept the council are the Oriental Orthodox Church. The Council was called to deal with the heterodox teachings of Nestorius regarding Christ and His mother, Mary.

Saint Cyril of Alex and ria was a key bishop at this council and was instrumental in teaching that Christ was one person with two natures divine and - 33 - human and that Mary is to be called Theotokos, The Bearer of God. The Church of the East refused to accept the council. It is recognized as the fourteenth Ecumenical Council in Roman Catholic numbering. It proclaimed a short-lived reunion between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Ethiopic Tradition: Tradition holds that Philip the Apostle founded this Church see Acts of the Apostles 8 but the Church solidified in the 4 th century.

This tradition makes the claim to originally hosting the Ark of the Covenant. Its chief feature is the enormous dome. Its structural layout played a decisive role in the shaping of Byzantine liturgy. In the church was converted into a mosque and since it has been a museum.