All this to say that in the Eastern Rites, at least the Ukrainian Catholic Church, there is a real concern to be genuinely Eastern in their liturgical practice, not to be sort of half way between Orthodoxy and Rome. This created a lot of discussion, because many Eastern parishes are so heavily latinized – is there to be a forced delatinization? And how quickly, and to how great an extent does this take place? But there is that concern and vision, and the heavy academic guns to back it up. When Byzantines, both in communion with Rome and not, are able to work on things like this together – especially liturgy, I think – I believe there is a deep hunger created for intercommunion, and the understanding that the two parties are part of the same Tradition.

As I mentioned, two of my profs were Ukrainian Catholic and two Eastern Orthodox (of two different jurisdictions, one OCA and one in the Carpatho-Russian Diocese, under the Ecumenical Patriarchate). One of the Ukrainian Catholic profs, in the first part of his dogmatics course, described his vision of the Eastern rite as “Orthodox in communion with Rome” – the idea being that, especially since Vatican II, the purpose of the Eastern Catholic Churches is to be fully Orthodox in their doctrine and liturgy, yet passionately devoted to the unity of the Church. My professor’s understanding of this was that at times Eastern Catholics might have a somewhat different interpretation of certain doctrines, while respecting a principle of unity in diversity, agreement in essentials and the primacy of the See of Peter (we talked a lot about the differences between the Eastern and Western views of the Trinity).

The Orthodox and Catholic priests take turns presiding at the Hours in the chapel, and the Liturgy as well, I believe, subject of course to Orthodox rules for reception of the sacraments. There does seem to be a deep desire among the students and faculty for a genuine reconciliation between Rome and Constantinople – there is no desire to gloss over problems of doctrine or of history, but a genuine attempt is being made to understand what the problems are, and to pose creative solutions.

The understanding of the Eastern Rites as having an enduring and honoured place within the Catholic Church, even having a role to play in evangelization, helps a great deal, I think, in unity talks. Before Vatican II, I think they were often seen only as a concession to those unwilling to go all the way and adopt the Latin rite. Now, things are improving – the situation in Ukraine is particularly difficult due to the division of the Orthodox Church in that country, and the surpression of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church under the Soviets, but there are hopefull signs elsewhere, especially between the Melkites and the Antiochian Orthodox. This is to say nothing of the positive development between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox.

So, a lot of work to be done, but much enthusiasm among the current generation of theological students. There’s a tremendous amount of good will, and I for one am most enthusiastic about it.