How Putin's War Threatens What Pope Leo Wants to Protect

[00:00:00]I feel that in my own church there's often times [music] this disgust at seeing something that's being done in authentic Byzantine right way because the association [music] is ah this is the same thing that's if you want to see how it's also done you look at these Orthodox churches that are at the same time either blessing the war or being kind of silent just days after his election Pope Leo called for the Eastern Catholic churches to be protected [music] and strengthened in Ukraine That vision is being tested as Russia's war reshapes attitudes [music] toward the Byzantine tradition itself.

[00:00:37]Few communities [music] have lived those tensions more deeply than the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Byzantine in its worship, yet in full communion [music] with Rome. And for Father Daniel Galata, they're part of his family's story.

[00:00:52]My father is a priest. My uncle was a priest. My great-grandfather was a priest. He actually got sent to Siberia with his wife and two youngest daughters because they wouldn't obey the KGB and abandon the Catholic [music] Church. So they got sent to Siberia by Stalin.

[00:01:12]Today, Father Galata serves [music] at the Vatican's for Eastern churches and teaches liturgy in Rome. From that vantage point, he sees both the pressures facing the Christian East and a growing Western interest in its traditions. I wanted to know why even as the war reshapes eastern Christianity, [music] it's attracting new people in the west.

[00:01:33]Sometimes eastern Christianity is [music] described as kind of a more full contact religious experience. There's incense and the icons and body is involved [music] in prostrations or fasting or or feasting. There is a sincere appreciation for the period of the apostolic times and the times of the church fathers. [music] And so it seems like it's something that is grounded and is maybe like a haven or an anchor in a world that is in flux.

[00:02:04]What would be a hard truth about Eastern Christianity [music] that people who are coming from it out of a place of interest may not be prepared to hear?

[00:02:13]All these aspects [music] of the tradition can become dangerous if you don't.

[00:02:20]This is Vatican [music] Access.

[00:02:26]Well, Father Daniel Galata, thanks for sitting down with Catholic News Service.

[00:02:29]It's a pleasure to be here. So, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church draws from a common tradition as the the Russian the Slavic tradition. There's so much in common, right? I suppose what I want to ask you is has the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the apparent support of the Russian Orthodox Church of that war, how has that affected your perceptions about global orthodoxy, the Russian Orthodox Church, Eastern Christianity? I I I assume that it's pretty complicated emotions. Yeah. The easiest uh way to describe it is extremely difficult and extremely tragic and simply just sad because before the Russian annexation of Crimea and all the events that happened around the Maidan, which in Ukraine is called the uh revolution of dignity, I think as kind of a in a way an attempt to throw off this kind of Soviet heritage that um really destroyed society and the effects are still being felt I think throughout the world and will be felt for a long time until that point there was a sincere kind of openness even among the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to you know even Russian Orthodox things because as you said we understand okay it's the same Byzantine right of course there's regional variance but you know it would be easier for a Ukrainian Greek Catholic to get some kind of information in Russian or look north or watch some YouTube video from even some place like Moscow or St. Petersburg rather than to navigate through the Greek of something coming from Constantinople or Mount Aos or Athens or Jerusalem. But the war really has created this bitterness and this woundedness and this kind of like thing wounds that were healing and and attempts at reconciliation or uh peace especially in light of various attempts to liquidate the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church through the collaboration of the Russian Orthodox Church with whatever state authorities they were whether it's Sarist or Soviet and even now with uh the Russian government in uh occupied territories.

[00:04:41]It's almost like as if the wounds keep on being you know opened up or salt being thrown on them. And in a way all this spliturgical tradition I feel that in my own church there's often times this almost like disgust at seeing something that's being done let's say um one could define it in an authentic Byzantine right way because the association is ah this is the same thing that's if you want to see how it's also done you look at these Orthodox um churches that are at the same time either blessing the war or being kind of silent in the face of this horrific u human tragedy. And so it almost disgusts people and as I would say a promoter of and uh someone who tries to live this liturgical tradition to the fullest even to teach it and teach the ideals and and convince people that this is something that we should be learning, living and allowing to flourish.

[00:05:43]It's it's difficult. What what are those personal points of contact that make the feelings you've just described more tangible or real?

[00:05:53]>> Although I'm I was born in the states and grew up in Canada and live here in in Rome, I'm a priest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archery of Ke. little uh kind of um main uh sea of our church and that's actually where if there's any place in the world where I could call my room and I have my books and my icons, it's it's there in cave. Um and I had left my job. I worked at the University of Vienna and was you know discerning this vocation and instead of going to a monastery I went uh accepted the invitation to go to Ukraine as a layman and um was ordained there in Ukraine. So that is my epic which is my dascese arch diocese in the Roman terminology. And so watching the the first days of the Russian invasion even you know tanks getting not too far from Ke something's getting like constantly being bombed. Um I can't even imagine understand fully how all the people there are are living through this because I went um my I was not in Ukraine when the invasion the full-scale invasion happened. I I came after one month to help bring some kind of human humanitarian supplies and only to the western part of Ukraine to Vue and was there when you know there were literally rockets that hit the train station and eight people died and you could see the plumes of smoke and it was ironic that it was Monday of Holy Week where we're reading all these gospel readings from Matthew about the end of the world and judgment and woe to her who is pregnant or those in the field one will be taking and this kind of apocalyptic uh uh images and being in Levie at the Cathedral of St. George where Metropolitan Andre Sheptitzky is buried in the crypt and actually that was being used as a bomb shelter. I was there with people crying and it kind of evoked all these images of World War II where Metropolitan Andre Sheptitzky who is uh I think considered a venerable uh in the Catholic church now he's not beatified yet but he saved I think hundreds of Jewish children in Leu he saved several people like sons of rabbis that went on to write amazing autobiographies and testified to his uh heroic virtues as a saint and all the stuff we were talking about a liturg urgical, theological, spiritual revival.

[00:08:19]He was instrumental in that in the first half of the of the 20th century. So your viewers can go Google him. Um just an amazing man to be there in view when the rhetoric coming from Moscow was oh to denazify Ukraine thinking how ridiculous. And to see that these people that are being bombed on the one hand, you know, the bombing is going on, people are crying, the air raid sirens turn off, and then it's almost as if get back to everyday life. You bump into a friend, say, "Oh, let let's uh let's go get coffee." Oh, you know, the you know, everything's working still with the credit cards and everything, but oh, we don't have the raspberry tart. We just have the blueberry tart. Oh, okay. You know, like, hey, people just died. They got bummed. Ukrainian resilience for me is still uh I can't I can't understand it and there will be a lot of trauma that I think church leaders are understanding this and there's a great need for um psych psychologists therapy and in a way the eastern Christian tradition has a lot to offer but in a way it's not always something that in Ukraine would be a challenge and um a challenge in a good way to try to implement these aspects of the church tradition in together with um contemporary psychology and therapy.

[00:09:42]>> So what do you think that your church in particular the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church can offer to the west western Christians the Ukrainian and Greek Catholic Church has an experience of being some people in our church have articulated and I think it's even gone into our ecumenical conception as an Orthodox church in communion with Rome.

[00:10:02]So one thing is a witness to the importance of communion and this uh unity of the church and we have a lot of martyrs that were willing to die for that. Uh they would reject um leaving union with Rome especially for um motivations uh promoted by um let's say like atheistic regimes like the KGB. There's a lot of or or other communist authorities. There's a lot of history of that especially well in the 20th century. The other thing is trying to negotiate or navigate uh strong theological tendencies both in east and west. So, scholasticism or kind of posttrintine theology um and then a let's say a Byzantine revival of orthodox theology several centuries maybe later and attempts to uh see if those are reconcilable and in fact in academia now there's a lot of interest in this kind of orthodox readings of Aquinas and if I'm not mistaken uh the kind of compilation of Tom St. Thomas Aquinus's works happened in Greek quite quickly, maybe even before everything was kind of uh put together in Latin in the Byzantine Empire. And often times that doesn't really fit the like neo um petristic palomite approach to uh Byzantine Orthodox theology. And a lot of Eastern Catholic churches have especially since Vatican 2 opted for that kind of vision uh theological approach because it's the easy that's kind of the dominant view among Byzantine Eastern Orthodox. And so you know you kind of maybe uh brush over any palemical anti- Roman or anti- papal aspects of that but you adopt it.

[00:11:53]Whereas in the history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, there have been a lot of cases where certain things from the west get absorbed and say even inculturated. Often times it's seen as latinization and sometimes it it is because it's kind of like um ineffective or kind of a cheap adoption from the west. There are other cases where certain Latin um either devotional or disciplinary or um theological categories have been adopted and even been accepted in the orthodox uh churches in in the same kind of region.

[00:12:27]So um definitely this um church that can a cliche like breathing with both lungs east and west but also seeing its mother for example for the Ukrainian degree Catholic church our liturggical tradition is the Constantinopolitan tradition so often the head of our church will say our mother is Constantinople but we're in union with the holy father uh in Rome successor of St. Peter. So showing that this antinomy or this um tension between east and west can be resolved and uh just lived out in unity in a naive and idealistic way.

[00:13:06]That's my that's my positive spin on things. There are a lot of difficulties but um I'd say that's a positive. What has Pope Leo said so far in his papacy about Eastern churches? There's been an address or two. He's also been to Turkey. So I mean what what for you have been the most important things that Pope Leo has said that have meant meant a lot to you in your own priesthood.

[00:13:30]>> Well so when he was elected I was still a deacon but it's still meaningful to me in my priesthood. Yeah. Um so it I kept on saying that it was providential and I was told that in the Roman Kura you don't use providential providential because it seems like some kind of pagan like augars or whatever. But then I heard even some bishops or archbishops repeating that actually it was providential, divinely providential that he was elected and then after the the audience with the journalists which I assume you were there. Yeah. The next public audience that he had in the AW laoesto where he does the audiences which can hold around 6,000 people was providentially with the Eastern Catholic churches because it was the jubilee for the Eastern Catholic churches in May May I'm not mistaken 12th to 14th here in Rome. So he was elected on May 8th if I'm not mistaken. So literally within a week of his election and he received v all various heads of Eastern Catholic churches, various bishops, clergy, monks and nuns and tons of faithful from all over the world. And he spoke to the it's almost as if they were the first kind of Catholic faithful to receive this direct message from the pope. apart from his I would say really edifying and wonderful address from the balcony after his election and various homalies but the message um struck me as being very powerful in that it showed respect um for the theological lurggical spiritual and canonical tradition of the Christian east what we would find as a right the heritage patrimony of these churches but it wasn't just something that was, you know, closed in for these churches that they should safeguard and and um just do their thing, but it was supposed to help them respond to the world today and for the future. So, it wasn't just something static or something looking backward and it was to make it alive today. And at the same time because when the pope speaks the whole world listens but especially the Roman Catholic Church. He had a very strong message for Roman Catholics saying you have to respect this and you also should not impede it.

[00:15:49]You should also learn from this tradition, learn this tradition, love it and cherish it and help those people whose patrimony it is to live it out. um which I I was very impressed that message to Roman Catholics that do should one understand in that admonition that Roman Catholics even today haven't maybe always respected or I mean is that something that you felt in in in your life as sort of a secondass citizen in the Catholic church? Simple answer yes.

[00:16:25]So often times there's a lack of awareness, but it's often times because the Eastern Catholics themselves or ourselves, we don't live out our tradition fully.

[00:16:37]We're always putting ourselves in not just in communion with Rome, which is our vocation. There's the vocation to Christian unity in general for every Christian that all may be one but there is this kind of always framing ourselves in comparison with the Roman Catholic Church. It's the mo it's the largest tradition that makes sense. It's uh omnipresent and so in a way that's understandable but we often don't live out our own heritage to the to the fullest. It's often easier to learn something or adopt some kind of Roman Catholic whether it's theological categories or uh certain liturggical ways to like cut corners cuz Roman Catholics are pretty smart about making things practical. So sometimes we learn and even Orthodox learn from them or with regard to spirituality definitely canon law it's the it's Rome that's codified the eastern code the code of cannons for the eastern churches which some orthodox churches have difficulty with the codification of their own canon law. Um so in that sense eastern Catholics have not been you know being themselves. Um at the same time sometimes being ourselves means that we have received a lot of things. There's you know uh every where this liturggical spiritual theological canonical tradition is alive and so it grows and changes over time. So there are good things that can come from the west. It's not, you know, it's not all like, you know, anathema to anything uh western, but often times that means that we are not the best promoters of our own tradition. And then in in the west, the only thing people know us for is, you know, the beards and the the long services and the smells and the bells.

[00:18:18]So, um, theological education has not been promoted as much as it should be in our own tradition. So, in May of 2023, the Wall Street Journal wrote an article with the headline, "Eastern Orthodoxy gains new followers in America." And then just last year in November, the New York Times wrote an article and the headline was, "Orthodox church pews are overflowing with converts." So, it seems like there is a a broad interest in Eastern Christianity in the United States, maybe in the Western world more broadly. Does that ring true to you? And is this a real phenomenon? there is an interest in Eastern Christianity whether it's a rising interest I would say in Eastern Catholicism which may or may not have been ignored um it since the second Vatican council in general and definitely in Eastern Orthodoxy especially in a context in the west like uh United States, North America, even Western Europe. Um, and but to try to follow the trends of increasing converts or people leaving or pe things staying the same is kind of tricky because I'm not uh most informed on this question, but the things that I've read apart from those articles that you mention some podcasts or analysis or even hearing u several bishops or priests talk, there are sometimes contradictory um observations. Um there's a book I think by Oxford University Press about uh western converts to orthodoxy. So people who were whether Cathol Roman Catholic or Anglican or other Protestants becoming Eastern Orthodox especially in the English-sp speakaking world. And the author of that book once told me said I wrote one book about that but I could write two books about people leaving the Orthodox church. So and that's something that doesn't get a lot of attention. And the same thing with Eastern Catholic churches. How many people uh have some kind of Eastern Catholic heritage, if you want to call it that, or roots in their family that ended up Roman Catholic or Protestant or or kind of nothing. So, >> because that's your case, right? Yeah.

[00:20:22]You have Eastern Catholic heritage.

[00:20:24]>> Yes. So, my uh I was born in the States.

[00:20:26]Uh my parents were born in the United States. Um but my grandparents were born in what is today Western Ukraine and on both sides. So, we were eastern Catholic. our Eastern Catholics as far back as we know. I suppose though that you encounter this phenomenon in your in your pre now priestly ministry. You were ordained recently in your studies and lecturing you encounter men who maybe don't have a a heritage of Eastern Catholicism or orthodoxy but who are nevertheless interested in Eastern Christianity. Yeah. What is what are they interested in? So yeah um definitely to go back to your first question it is possible to observe um a growing increase in what I guess people in society today called nuns not to be confused with religious sisters or monastics um and or people that are uh very pra active in their whatever their tradition is but attracted to the Christian east whether orthodox or eastern catholic uh for various reasons.

[00:21:33]Sometimes Eastern Christianity is described as kind of a more full contact religious experience because um there's you know the smells and the bells, the um incense and the icons and um the body is involved in prostrations or fasting or or feasting things like that. So that could be attractive in kind of the sensory approach but also theologically um it's dangerous to paint it as a continuity without interruption you know going back you know without uh any changes to the time of the apostles but it at least seems like there is a um sincere appreciation for the period of the apostolic times and the um times of the church fathers and the desert fathers and desert mothers um because they're celebrated in the liturggical calendar. they're still quoted all the time in the liturggical services in homalies in in catechesus and so it seems like it's something that is grounded and is maybe like a haven or an anchor in a world that is in flux. So definitely during and after co when people were kind of shopping around or able to leave what they were in and find something new or because of live streaming or whatever would find things in when I was in during the pandemic in Canada I definitely observed that a lot of young men who have time on their hands because of whatever job they do they're attracted to something serious there looking for some kind of rootedness. That's not to say that other church traditions don't have that, but I think it's easier to to at first glance to find it in something Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic. So, if a Western Christian, a Roman Catholic, or a Protestant were to approach you, somebody who didn't have heritage in from one of the the the nations where Eastern Christianity is the norm. What would your advice be to them? Because it's not only a religious question. I suppose there's also a cultural question as well within the Catholic Church.

[00:23:36]There's really no need for people to switch uh to change their I think it's the canonical term is change their ascription or change rights or change churches officially because being in communion with Rome means that you can go to whatever church you want. Of course, if you want to get married or you want to receive other sacraments other than the Eucharist or confession, it could get complicated. You know, as I say, canon law, the bad side of the good news. Sorry, I'm a liturgy uh scholar, so I got to take a, you know, easy hit at the canonists. But there is all the possibility to participate in the in the community life, the lurggical life of any uh church in communion with Rome.

[00:24:19]and different places in the world have different Eastern Catholic churches present. Now with u immigration, migration, um various uh contexts in the world we live today, there could be a very strong like Byzantine right community whether it's Ukrainian Catholic or Melkite or um Romanian or Ruthenian church in let's say you know somewhere in Detroit or something but mentioning Detroit there's a very strong Calaldian Catholic community and in the United States uh there's also a lot of Marinites and so it also depends on the accessibility to that community through language because the vernacular is highly um emphasized and appreciated in the Christian east. Sometimes that vernacular gets kind of uh oified in I don't know the 13th century and so whatever was the vernacular then isn't anymore but the idea of living languages are important. So that means a Marinite church in the United States might actually be praying more in English than in Syriak or Arabic and that could be attractive and that could be conducive and helpful to participating in that church life. Whereas some other community that does in my own church, a lot of our churches do things only in Ukraine. And so that's not going to help people who don't know that language. And definitely step number one for participating in the community life of a church is having access to the language cuz uh just kind of fleeing to other churches and not understanding um at all what's going on in terms of the words that's not helpful. And that was happening a bit in certain periods even in recent history where people who maybe were um comfortable with the Latin mass uh that was not available in their communities. They would find a church where it wasn't Latin. It could have been I don't know Ukrainian or church savonic or or Arabic or something and they like that's good enough for me >> anything but English >> something like that. Yeah. Which won't really help in the understanding of the faith.

[00:26:13]>> So one of the things you said makes Eastern Christianity attractive is its emphasis on fasting.

[00:26:20]>> Yeah. So fasting is something that Jesus Christ told us to do and it's uh one way to you know feel the hunger for God and in the Christian east it's something that has been present I would say continuously even culturally with different uh approaches to involving or uh removing food from uh the daily kind of routine and I'd say maybe the Eastern Orthodox are at least on paper better at it than the Eastern Catholics cuz we have uh access to all sorts of again sorry canon laws coming in but uh uh dispensations and in a way helping people not feel you know guilty that they're not following the sometimes maximalist uh or monastic rules um but I would say fasting is still quite present in most eastern Christ eastern Catholic communities and churches where Lent definitely is um season of the year where that is highly respected and in let's say the Byzantine right there's a whole rhythm of where abstaining ideally from meat and dairy products the whole time is the ideal and there's even kind of um sensibility to that to ease into it by having certain periods where even on Fridays and in the Christian east Wednesday is also respected a along with Friday as a day of fasting throughout the year because Wednesday is the day of the betrayal of Christ. Friday is the day of the crucifixion and there's a text from the first centuries the uh the teaching of the apostles that already talks about this that adapts the two days that were practiced in or still practiced in Judaism of fasting and transfers them to two other days and explains them theologically. And so uh apart from this there are certain days where the church tradition says you don't have to fast at all. In fact, you can't fast for example the week after Easter or the period between Christmas and theophony or Epiphany or uh the period after Pentecost and also in the preparation for Lent to kind of you know the all the carnival and martigra and all that kind of stuff kind of to ease into uh fasting. So it all of this involves the body makes you hungry for God. Makes you kind of you know slow down um realize that you should expend your energies on getting closer to God not using your energy to an to fight with your neighbor. Um >> well that I mean that's one of the jokes right is like you you know in the the Orthodox countries traditionally Orthodox countries you have to walk on eggshells during Lent because people are hungry and and maybe short-tempered, right?

[00:28:59]>> Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um there is a question about where and how in the modern world these ancient and aesthetical monastic practices are really applicable to people in sort of like ordinary 21st century life. The ideal that monks and nuns are called to in reality is exactly the same ideal that any man or woman that's baptized and prismated and nourished by the Eucharist is called to. And the um there's a church father from the 8th 9th century St. Theodore Studight. um he was a monk in Constantinople right um during the kind of second wave of iconocclasm and he emphasized through all his katakesis and his um even in his correspondence that theoretically there should be no distinction between monks and nuns and he wasn't you know encouraging everybody out there in the world to go get taured and enter the monastery but the idea was that the each person has exactly the same calling through baptism but it's that monks have the free time to do it to the to the max. Whereas uh the people in the world, you know, with kids or with other jobs, they do as much as they can. And in a way, also going back to the fasting question, there's this pilgrim uh from the 4th century, Egeria. She always gets taught in liturgy classes because it's a a pilgrim diary of a woman to Jerusalem, probably from Spain or France, and she talks about the lurggical services in Jerusalem. One thing there also that she highlights the fasting practices and is really enthusiastic about everything that she sees but she describes you know some people that they don't eat at all.

[00:30:39]They eat once a week something very minimal then some people eat every day uh at in the evening and then the people who really can't then just eat every day as normal but nobody judges the other but they all do what they can in preparation for the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. So it's kind of this both communal thing where each one you know everyone is a member of the body of Christ and everybody does their part and then you kind of you know bear each other's burdens carry each other's crosses but also if you can do more you do more and I think that's where everybody kind of understands their vocation and various people through history whether it's a pilgrim from the 4th century to Jerusalem or a monk in Constantinople these the messages of these people are still extremely relevant for the 21st century.

[00:31:23]Do you think that Christians in the west in your experience and your pastoral experience are doing enough of these things? And depending on your answer, what would you encourage them to do more of? I'd say that definitely there is a Roman Catholic kind of perception of Eastern Catholics that I see as like, okay, uh, we're some kind of like holy rollers or whatever, like we got the beards and, uh, we just don't stop fasting. But I think from what I've experienced, it's often times the Christian East has more kind of a a rhythm to the year where there's highs and lows, maybe a bit more realistic, like a human person also has like a good day and a bad day. There's uh times for extreme enthusiasm and maybe some people get depressed, whatever. But it seems in the Christian West there's an emphasis on kind of a even keel kind of keeping a balance whether it's you know Benedicting monasticism um I'm not an expert in western Christianity but definitely St. Theodore Studight emphasizes kind of a cenobitic communal ideal and so in the west it seems that there's kind of here's the the minimum that you have to do and don't do less than that and then you can grow in holiness from that. My perception often is that sometimes when you set the minimum then people just go for that and they don't go for anything more. Again a gross generalization painting with broad strokes but often times in the east the ideal is so high that nobody can achieve it but people can try and then the people who try and really you know get somewhere close those are kind of the saints. Whereas if you just kind of stay at the minimum human weakness as a temptation to you know how low can you go kind of thing.

[00:33:13]Do you think that that maybe one of the reasons people are interested in Eastern Christianity is because maybe they want to do more in their spiritual life but it doesn't really seem like it's possible for one reason or another in in Western Christianity as it exists maybe at their their local parish or whatever.

[00:33:30]And so they see opportunity in participating in Eastern services. One thing definitely that it seems is more accessible in the Christian East, whether it's the Orthodox or even Eastern Catholics, is the liturgy of the hours in a regular parish. And again from my limited experience of Roman Catholicism, a regular pair schedule will have mass many times in a day maybe then maybe something like Eucharistic adoration or the rosary. But um maybe in in an ideal case like Sunday evening second vasespers or something and and here in Rome at the Vatican uh at St. Peter's the second vespers is a nice thing. I even enjoy uh going to that um when it's possible.

[00:34:21]But in ideally even in a regular Byzantine right uh Eastern Catholic parish Saturday evening vespers is something that is really emphasized and part of the schedule and it gives people an opportunity to participate in the liturgy of the hours to reflect upon what they're going to do the next day because vespers begins the the day kind of in the Jewish um rhythm of the day that the day begins with the evening like in Genesis there was evening and there was morning the first day and so in that sense It allows people to kind of take the things that exist elsewhere in various devotions or various kind of communities in the Roman Catholic Church or ecumenic like taz or something. You know, you can dim the lights, light the candles, have some incense, sing nice songs with refrains. And this is done according to a tradition that's been going on for a while. I don't want to say, you know, it's not unchanged unchanged since the time of the apostles, but a lot of the things have been going on for several generations at least and texts that go back definitely to the first millennium. Uh, and those exist in the the Roman Catholic Church, but they're mainly in a more monastic context, whereas kind of the monastery and the parish in the Christian East have more um more in common, more more contact. So, you mentioned Rome and St. Peters, maybe this is a good opportunity for you to just explain to listeners uh how has your professional life led you to work not only at the Pontipical Oriental Institute, the PIO, but also the Vatican. Yeah. So I'm a a professor of I always forget what the exact title is cuz sometimes it's in Italian sometimes and it's it's in English but professor of liturgy or eastern liturgy at the pontipical oriental institute or an Italian ponteio institut oriental.

[00:36:12]It's now part of the bigger Gregorian university. it was always um uh part of the consortium but now it's part of it um entrusted to the the Jesuits and it's located here in Rome near Santa Maria Major and since 1917 it's been you could say kind of the the Holy Seas flagship uh academic institution for studying the Christian East. So I'm a professor of liturgy there and then here if you're in Rome then you often get tasked with other things. So in the dichestry for Eastern churches there's a liturggical commission that I'm involved in and other work um connected with the Eastern Catholic churches here in Rome. So I think you'll be able to fill in some of the blanks for me on this. Even before the second Vatican council, the popes in particular going back to Leo I 13th, the popes have wanted to encourage the Eastern churches uh in communion with Rome to have a greater voice in the universal church and to recover their authentic traditions. What's the history that that emphasis that more modern emphasis is responding to?

[00:37:24]>> Yeah. So there's very complicated history because Rome has been the sea of Peter striving for promotion of unity among all Christians.

[00:37:37]And so throughout history there have been v various periods of unity and division. And the eastern Catholic churches each one of them has their own history. So some have been in union with Rome for 400 years. uh some had a sism uh then returned to unity with Rome.

[00:37:55]Others claim that they were never separated. So it's all quite complicated but um the contact of Rome with the Christian East that's been going on since the beginning of since you know St. Peter got here. But um for example, Pope Benedict I 14th uh even though he is often attributed with this approach of the Aritus prestio latini like the Roman right is better uh than the others he nevertheless did a lot to work on the kind of publishing of Greek liturggical books here in Rome. So a great attention to preserving the heritage of the Christian East and then popes since then. Yeah, you mentioned Pope Leo I 13th uh with um an encyclical oriental dignitas uh emphasized the dignity of the eastern churches. The terminology is often changed whereas before one would talk about rights like rits uh of the Catholic Church as being just kind of ways of liturggical expression.

[00:39:00]Especially since the Vatican second Vatican council one can talk about churches and the they then used another Latin term churches suiuris of their own kind of law where uh a right is understood as not just a lurggical expression um of how they pray but also the lurggical theological spiritual and canonical tradition that is distinct and different from the Roman Catholic uh church and and tradition. So, it's this kind of unity in diversity. That often sounds like a cliche or overused, but I would say in this case, it's an authentic expression of the the diversity of Christianity since apostolic times and something that the Eastern Catholics have that Eastern Orthodox don't. the the non-calcedonian Orthodox what are in English called oriental Orthodox have it a bit more because you have Armenians and Copts and Syrians um all in certain uh form of communion whereas the Eastern Orthodox those that are in communion with Constantinople so like let's say Greek Orthodox or or Serbian Orthodox or Russian Orthodox or Ukrainian Orthodox or or Antioin Orthodox they all just have one right the Byzantine right whereas in the Catholic church there is there are five liturggical traditions as codified um the eastern code of canal law promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1990. And so there is this unity and diversity and the recognition of various churches in communion with Rome in the one big Catholic church. So to say Catholic doesn't mean Roman Catholic even in communion with Rome. Just to go back briefly to the work of your the diccastry that you work for here at the Vatican. Um it I I've heard sort of whispers of different kinds of things.

[00:40:51]On the one hand, you know, I think the the work of the diccastry does a lot to help the eastern churches. I mean, they there are various matters that they need they actually need Rome's guidance for.

[00:41:03]And on the other hand, I think maybe uh particularly from the Orthodox perspective, but you can correct me if I'm wrong. There is a sense that well if you really if if Rome really respected your churches as independent uh in communion nevertheless autophilis you you you you wouldn't need this kind of HQ in Rome uh sort of micromanaging I mean this is may not bear any relation to the truth but I think that kind of mentality is out there at least in in a kind of critical mode >> definitely the relationship ship with Rome is always a tricky one. And you mentioned a few minutes ago various papal pronouncements on the Eastern churches. And if from the time of at least Benedict the 14th until the present day, they're often times very positive statements. And then, you know, when the rubber hits the road, you don't always see that put into practice. Just for example with the the idea of are they churches or rights or um like I said there's one department of the Vatican diochastry for the Eastern churches that is responsible for 23 different churches whereas all the other dicestries in the Vatican are basically responsible for the Roman Catholic church and have an impact on the other churches but um you know without being too negative sometimes times it's u considered some kind of like colonialism or some kind of colonial office. Um and the dynamic is not always uh the easiest because exactly as said if these churches are self-governing probably Suudas would be closer to autonomous rather than autophilis although the heads of their churches are called father and head whether it's a patriarch or major archbishop or uh or other titles. Um >> that's right that's my mistake.

[00:43:01]>> Oh yeah no no no problem. It's the terminology is always complicated. my my Catholic and uh Eastern Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox confused terminology.

[00:43:12]>> Well, the terms are words are words and things are things as some people say, but it's always complicated when it it's always >> I mean, I'm sure I'm sure if anybody has made it through this this far and they're not already some kind of autodidact uh you sort of interested in all of these matters. They've heard so many words that they've just never would have heard before. You mentioned different rights like you said Marinite, Melkite.

[00:43:38]I mean, and here here I was uh sort of getting my my my jeritical terms wrong.

[00:43:45]Somebody might say this all sounds fussy and complicated. I mean, aren't we just supposed to love our neighbor? How would you steal man? There the value of all of this what some may see as just a mess.

[00:43:58]So, what you're trying to say is it's all Byzantine.

[00:44:00]>> It's all Byzantine. That's right.

[00:44:02]>> Yeah. Which I'm all for. Um, in the probably I forget if it's the first or the second meaning in the dictionary, the one about the Eastern Roman Empire, which I'm all about. Um, no, your question is spot on because there are a lot of Eastern Catholic faithful in, let's say, the West or even in the East that often times say, "Well, I look at my Roman Catholic friends and they got it a lot easier. I can you know like I say follow Christ and be a disciple of Christ and I don't need all these you know like you know these complications and all these uh arcane traditions and that is the response for many people and a lot of people do leave the Eastern Catholic churches or the Eastern Orthodox churches because they they appreciate the um pristine or whatever noble simplicity for example of the Roman right And my mother always tells me that there's a danger that we often worship the way we worship rather than worshiping God. And that is is can be a temptation. Does that mean >> in the way that we don't remember what what we're doing in church that we're here to worship the triune God, the father, son, and holy spirit, the resurrected Christ. And we obsess about how we do it, you know, oh, do you swing the incense this way or do you go left or do you go right? And then, oh, is that the right color of vestments that the priest is wearing? And then, you know, oh, did they say a the wrong, you know, autophilis or autonomous or whatever uh in that litany or something. And this is all com not even secondary, not even tertiary to our encounter with uh Christ.

[00:45:47]But at the same time, we often pass down these traditions because we understand that they are a means of helping us to encounter uh Christ if we understand their depth. And u sometimes in the Christian East, people make a distinction between like tradition with a big T and a tradition with a small T.

[00:46:07]And you know, there are often times things that we think are going ancient going way back. And then in fact, it was just a previous pastor that invented that, but nobody knew that. but they like it so they do it. So there's often an evolution and uh living uh aspect to all this. But having said all that, as we started off, you mentioned that a lot of people are attracted to this and coming to this and a lot of these little uh details here or there captivate you and then kind of suck you in to go deeper. And the ultimate goal is that in all this like the in all the Christian worship, apostolic Christian worship, it's like an iceberg where you just what what happens in church of course is the encounter of the body of Christ, everybody coming together in worship of God, but it's kind of like the tip of the iceberg that then everything be below that that the personal prayer that you're supposed to do at home. Maybe I'm going off kind of maybe on more of a monastic ideal, but there's all this understanding of the scriptures, all the things that we sing and say in church, there's all this interextuality with different either books of the Bible, the gospels, Pauline epistles, uh, Old Testament readings that all come together and then some church father commenting on it and then we sing it in our worship. All these things then when put together really kind of like that little thing that people are obsessing about like not to say the whole faith doesn't depend on it but there's a way that it pulls you in and brings you closer to Christ.

[00:47:42]Something that just occurred to me while you were speaking is is I mean the the experience of the Eastern churches and all of the you might call baggage that comes along with it is actually a lot more like the experience of act being in a family uh than just being a part of an institution. And so you know maybe what's attractive to people is just that it's it feels more real and participative. you know, yeah, there is all of the things that make it complicated are also points of participation uh with the past and and with the present. Uh so I don't know if that sort of family analogy rings true to you, especially because of your own maybe you could talk a bit about your own family experience. I mean, your father's also a priest. The family analogy is excellent because there's different layers and levels of we're talking about the liturggical or church experience.

[00:48:39]It's not all just in here. Uh the definition of prayer in many Eastern church fathers is uniting the mind with the heart. And so it can't all just be rational. um it encompasses all our senses, all our being. We talked about fasting of the body is very much involved. And so if everything is just kind of on the rational level, everybody just kind of stands in their pew and you know I don't want to paint a negative picture of certain worship but like kind of like robots like everybody is you stay in your lane, you do your thing and all you do your participation is like okay maybe you'll sing some kind of responsorial uh psalm or something or you'll kneel or you'll stand up or you go receive communion. That's it. I think I mentioned it earlier. It's like a full contact experience where you know the in I would say authentic uh Eastern Christian worship the place of the priest not to diminish the place of the priest but the priest is one of several uh you know players in all this and the the role of the deacon is extremely important. the role of the singers.

[00:49:44]Ideally, sometimes the singers are more important than the priest because the priest just kind of says the prayers and of course um there are ways to pray, not any sacraments without priests, but the liturgy of the hours can be done and in many cases in mission parishes um in places where it's hard for priests to reach that's what keeps people going.

[00:50:02]And then it's almost like a lot of these Eastern church traditions are great for people with ADHD because there's always something else going on like, you know, some kind of prayer, some kind of singing overlapping. You're singing a psalm, there's somebody else going around incensing. Meanwhile, you know, you have to light lamps or or candles.

[00:50:19]And then, oh, it's Easter, so you got to decorate the church with flowers. And then, uh, if you go to somewhere like Mount Aus, then while that's going on, they're like swinging chandeliers. So, it's definitely like the full full experience. And um so the family analogy that was I think in a big family that's what's going on. Like there are people sitting at the table talking about certain things but then there are the kids that you think they're not listening or paying attention but they can recite you can repeat all the all the bad words generally that are being said at the table. Um and so everybody is as a member of the body of Christ is doing their thing in this in this um worship. not kind of at the same level but at different levels each one important and about my own family experience which we were asking about it's connected with all this. So yeah my father is a priest um my uncle was a priest uh he died a few years ago my great-grandfather was a priest he actually got sent to Siberia with his wife and two youngest daughters because they wouldn't uh you know obey the KGB and abandon the Catholic Church. So they got sent to Siberia by Stallion and um yeah various other members of my family are either you know priests or or deacons or or um very dedicated to the church and so anybody in my family is very much involved in church life lurggical worship. Uh you have to learn all the different melodies but you kind of do it. We don't really have very good schools for this. It's you just kind of pick it up like learn by doing kind of thing. So um in that sense the for example the wife of a priest has a very important role that's also not like codified in any way. It's also something that that um they learn from the context and experience and often times by having contact with uh previous generations and seeing examples and then also adapting to the context. So definitely uh being raised in that context um it's extremely formative and I'm very thankful for it.

[00:52:30]So you you mentioned again this for the second time the the married priesthood that was a path that in principle was open to you but now that you were ordained it's no longer no >> open to you. So uh for people who don't know the idea is that you can uh uh uh you can be married a married Eastern Catholic priest if you're married before ordination. Exactly. Yeah. So this is a tradition that exists also in the Orthodox churches. I think there's one uh I think among Anglicans or other Protestants you can get married after you're already a pastor. And there might be one church in India I think that has this practice because it's influenced through Anglicanism. But the apostolic practice is that you have to be married before you receive ordination. So sometimes people say uh I think in many Eastern Orthodox churches it's before minor orders to the subdiac.

[00:53:27]In most eastern Catholic churches now it's before the diacinate. And there is sometimes a practice in some churches that the requirements for ordination of a man to the priesthood is a sign of stability in their state of life. So either you are let's say like a monk and your abbott says you're a good monk and we need a priest here in this community and you've shown signs of stability in that way of life. Or you're a a married man and you've shown signs of stability in married life and the bishop asks the wife says are you okay with this and then then uh you'd ordain him and then this kind of state in between neither monk nor married is something that's more common in the Catholic church and Eastern Catholic churches um and so then yeah I guess you should show signs of stability in other ways. What would be a hard truth about Eastern Christianity that people who are coming from it out of a place of interest that weren't born into it so to speak uh may not be prepared to hear in general requires a lot of effort.

[00:54:38]>> I don't know if that's uh maybe it's not explain more.

[00:54:42]>> Yeah. Even though I just said it's all are welcome and it's accessible to all to really go um deep takes a lot of effort. And I think I mentioned that kind of this that the bar is set so high that no one can achieve it in a way by kind of doing everything all the keep on mentioning the smells and the bells all the all that that's kind of just the gateway and once you're in that then you see that if you want to you can't stay there you have to kind of keep on going um you have to go deeper or you're always every year let's say when you do all these services of the lurggical year like uh going through Lent, it's never static. So if you you can't just do everything exactly as the year before. You got to go deeper, closer to Christ. And that maybe again coming back to your first question about people coming and entering and and seeking this out. It's something that without the whole like package deal that involves also community life that is supportive and um takes into consideration also like human psychology and um um need for basic human care for one another and and spiritual and pastoral care and accompanyment that all these aspects of the tradition can become dangerous. If you don't keep on always going deeper, that doesn't mean rejecting something that you already passed through or like we talk about fasting. Doesn't mean that oh now I don't need to fast because I already did it once or whatever, but it means kind of going like doing everything you already did and then going one more step. And that is kind of a lifelong challenge cuz we're always supposed to get one step closer to Christ even though we might, you know, fall in sin.

[00:56:37]And the confession and repentance is all about kind of getting back up. But we when we get up, we also have to take that one step closer so that it's at least two steps forward, one step back or you know, one step back, two steps forward. Better like that than one step forward, two steps back. um in our life. But I think that's something common to everything. It's just that in the Christian East, you can get uh tempted to stay at that level of kind of the ritual expression of it, which already is beautiful and converted so many people. There's all the these um accounts of the encounter of the beauty of the worship and the glorification of God that converted whole nations. Uh, but if you stay there, then that's a hard truth. [music] I would say that you're not going to you might go backwards.

[00:57:31]>> Father Daniel Galata, thank you for your time. Thank you.