Re: CHAT: Religions (was: Visible planets)

Isidora Zamora scripsit:

> >Why not simply explain to Latin-rite kids that they should push and
> >Byzantine-rite kids that they should pull,
>
> I may be confused here, but I think that is backwards, since Eastern
> fashion is from right shoulder to left shoulder, which seems more of a
> pushing motion than a pulling one.
Yup, my left-right confusion nailed me again, it seems.  Rightly,
Latins pull and Byzantines push.

> Does the West have anything like the naming of the child and the Churching
> of mother and child?  On the eighth day after the birth of the child (and
> we count inclusively, so we would think of it as the seventh, whereas
> Orthodox call it the eighth - it's the same day of the week as the child
> was born on), the priest comes and there is a little service of naming the
> child.
Anglicans do this, so I suppose that Romans do too.

> >(I note that Latins are allowed to use the Orthodox style.)
>
> Yes.  That is probably because of the existence of Eastern Rite
> Catholics.
No, it's perfectly correct for even Latin-rite Catholics to do it,
just as it's correct to recite the Nicene Creed with or without the
Filioque.  Indeed, there is a plaque containing the Filioque-free
version in Greek and Latin (engraved by order of Pope Leo III) in
St. Peter's at Rome (if no one has stolen it since the 9th century).

> Latins do, as far as I know.  There are a few Western Rite Orthodox
> parishes in the U.S., but they do not have the same sort of origin as the
> Eastern Rite Catholics, (and their Liturgy is based on the Book of Common
> prayer adapted to conform to Orthodox usage), and I doubt that they cross
> themselves in the Western direction,
At least some definitely do cross left to right.  But Pope Innocent III
in the 13th century described the right to left method, so it is not
un-Latin, even if unusual, to use it.

The Oriental Orthodox ("Monophysite") churches also cross left to right;
I can't find any information on the Assyrian Church of the East
("Nestorian") method.

> were here, he might be able to tell me how is was that East and West came
> to cross themselves differently.  I believe that it dates from before the
> Schism.
There's a theory that the method passed from the Latins to the OO or
vice versa during the Crusades, but nobody knows for sure.


--
John Cowan  jcowan@reutershealth.com  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Does anybody want any flotsam? / I've gotsam.
Does anybody want any jetsam? / I can getsam.
        --Ogden Nash, _No Doctors Today, Thank You_