Topic: RC Question

[The Caffeinator]

http://www.vatican.va/redemptoris_mater/index_en.htm

The above link seems to somehow fit in this disccusioon

[Father Peter]

That's beautiful, thanks.

[The young fogey]

Yes, icons are HIP right now in the West, which may be a good thing in itself but what I find dodgy are 1) their own Western Catholic iconographic tradition is dissed and 2) the Novus Ordo is basically unchanged - there is little corresponding movement rightwards among many who loooooove icons. (Except conservative RCs are interested in them too and apparently for the right reasons.)

From the liberals I fear this simply falls under the rubric of patronizing political correctness - multiculturalism, or taking other people's trappings out of their context and giving them a new, liberal European-American false meaning.

I've always thought that icons don't belong in a coffee-table book or in some pretty art collection but on the screen, walls and stands of churches or in people's homes actually used as icons.

Is there also a development of icon production in Roman Catholic communities

Yes, and for some time, Peter, far pre-dating today's fad, though it was never mainstream. This real interest in and love of icons goes all the way back to the legitimate liturgical movement (revival, yes, renewal) in the 1920s (along with interest in Gregorian chant), when the dual Roman-Byzantine Rite Benedictine monastery was started in Amay (now in Chevetogne), Belgium, and a few other RC monks and nuns probably learnt Orthodox iconography as well.

(Once read somebody online describe a nun at his Catholic school in the 1950s who loved things Eastern, teaching him about St Panteleimon, for example.)

or are they relying on Orthodox sources

AFAIK yes - coming from the old-time liturgical revival and today's conservatives, a sign of genuine goodwill towards and recognition of the Orthodox.

or was the tradition maintained in Eastern Catholic communities?

AFAIK not really, except perhaps among Melkites in the Middle East (right, Samer?) who of all the substantial Byzantine Catholic churches kept most of their heritage. The Slav(on)ic ones mostly disobeyed Rome (you read that right) by self-latinizing, losing such traditions.

[Father Peter]

Yes, and for some time, Peter, far pre-dating today's fad, though it was never mainstream. This real interest in and love of icons goes all the way back to the legitimate liturgical movement (revival, yes, renewal) in the 1920s (along with interest in Gregorian chant), when the dual Roman-Byzantine Rite Benedictine monastery was started in Amay (now in Chevetogne), Belgium, and a few other RC monks and nuns probably learnt Orthodox iconography as well.

I love the liturgical music I have from Chevtogne. Really beautiful. I would like to visit there over the next year or so. I've been on their website. Have you been there? or do you know anyone who has?

PT

[SamB]

or was the tradition maintained in Eastern Catholic communities?

AFAIK not really, except perhaps among Melkites in the Middle East (right, Samer?) who of all the substantial Byzantine Catholic churches kept most of their heritage. The Slav(on)ic ones mostly disobeyed Rome (you read that right) by self-latinizing, losing such traditions.

Icons?  My father's cousin has made a profession out of being an icon donor.  Oh yes, we certainly held on to that tradition!  Nothing less to be expected of the Melchites, coming from an area whose heritage includes a treasury of some of the oldest icons and churches in Christendom.  I'm not knowledgeable in the matter of our experience in America, however, where Latin interference may have brought us to the the point of severe mutilation, as was the case with the Ruthenians.  I've seen a picture from many decades back of an American parish of ours.  No icons.  Statues.  Looked like a traditional R.C. parish.

Here is an interesting article on the subject of the late Byzantine Antiochian iconography of the Orthodox and Melchite Churches.

http://www.chremoy.org/Icones002p1_e.shtml

As you mentioned, we have held on to much of our traditions, compared to other Eastern Catholic Churches.

In IC XC
Samer

[the slave]

Peter ,

Here is a site that may surprise you

http://www.sanctiangeli.org/

[Father Peter]

Wow! That's really interesting. It's late here now and I've just come in but I will look at every page of the site this weekend.

I am truly not anti-Roman whatever some might say.

Thanks