How many folks went RC->EC->EO

[Dave in McKinney]

I was wondering about the experience of those that went from RC to EC church but eventually went EO. 
1)  Why did the leave RC
2)  Was the EC a profitable experience
3)  What prompted the move to EO

There's probably I thread already here so if someone could point me in that direction.

Thanks in advance,
   David

[militantsparrow]

Great question.

[Shlomlokh]

I was wondering about the experience of those that went from RC to EC church but eventually went EO. 
1)  Why did the leave RC
2)  Was the EC a profitable experience
3)  What prompted the move to EO

There's probably I thread already here so if someone could point me in that direction.

Thanks in advance,
   David

I'm one such example, and I think Fr. Anastasios (the founder of this forum) is another. There are more and it is a very common transition.

1.) My RC parish was more Protestant than my Methodist parish in liturgy (and in beliefs taught in RCIA). Surprisingly, my former Methodist church had an altar rail, although they taught communion was merely symbolic. The RC parish had 7 or 8 EMHCs alongside 2 deacons and the priest.

2.) The EC I went to was Maronite. The experience was profitable, IMHO, because it got me thinking about early Church matters (ecclesiology, polity, liturgy) and eventually led me to Orthodoxy. Ultimately,--and I know many ECs will disagree vehemently-- I would say Eastern Catholicism is a dead end, which I'll speak about in the next question.

3.) As I already mentioned, I started reading about the faith of the early Church, how the bishops interacted with each other and the broader Empire. The councils were very enlightening as they showed how the Church operated in a very practical way (there is also the 2nd Ecumenical Council which condemned anyone who altered the Creed). There are many other examples I can go into of that, but what really compelled me was that I could not live out an authentic EC existence without conflicting with the teachings of Rome (which it saw as being binding on every single Catholic, not just Latins) and being a hypocrite.

I did not want to be dishonest about my faith. My priest at the Maronite Church taught that the pope was not supreme, the IC was a farce and the filioque was heresy. Many EC churches teach these things, which I thought was completely contradictory to the whole idea of "being in Communion" in the first place. This is how I saw Eastern Catholicism as a dead end. I had to choose. Did I want to go where my beliefs were Orthodox, or where they were tolerated and contradicted by fiat. In many ways, I feel like Eastern Catholicism is just "playing Orthodox." You have these various sui-iuris churches that pick and choose what they want from Orthodoxy (in my RC days we would call this Protestantism), but are missing the entire spirit of Orthodoxy.

I hope that helps and I pray no one sees it as polemical, because it was in no wise intended to be so. Just my honest thoughts and feelings, no crud.

In Christ,
Andrew

[wynd]

I was never officially EC, but I attended an EC parish for a time between RC and EO. I moved on because I felt like it wasn't QUITE 100% Catholic (depending on who you talk to, the post-schism RC "anathema" dogmas may or may not apply to ECs), and at the same time not QUITE 100% Orthodox (because it still ultimately depended on/answered to Rome and wasn't in communion with any Orthodox churches).

I left the ROMAN (i.e., Western/Latin) Catholic Church because I couldn't take the Protestant services anymore (and the absurd rationalizations and excuses to keep them around), and I felt myself going nowhere with traditional Latin spirituality. In addition, most of the traditional Latin resources I found online were coupled with a healthy dose of demonization of the current "modern" RC administration, and it was very draining to dread going to Sunday Mass and having it be the extreme low point rather than high point of the week.

The EC was a blessed change, but ultimately I couldn't reconcile it one way or the other as I said earlier. I read more about the early Church and came to see that although the bishop of Rome was important in the Church, he simply didn't have the power that the modern RC claims and makes a dogma out of. So I felt like I was lying taking communion at a Catholic church. Ultimately I felt like I was disrespecting the RCC by staying, and I had to become Orthodox to stay intellectually honest.

That's my experience, others probably will take issue with it.

Edit: spelling

[Nigula Qian Zishi]

How funny, I just blogged about this exact journey yesterday!

[Maria]

I was never officially EC, but I attended an EC parish for a time between RC and EO. I moved on because I felt like it wasn't QUITE 100% Catholic (depending on who you talk to, the post-schism RC "anathema" dogmas may or may not apply to ECs), and at the same time not QUITE 100% Orthodox (because it still ultimately depended on/answered to Rome and wasn't in communion with any Orthodox churches).

I left the ROMAN (i.e., Western/Latin) Catholic Church because I couldn't take the Protestant services anymore (and the absurd rationalizations and excuses to keep them around), and I felt myself going nowhere with traditional Latin spirituality. In addition, most of the traditional Latin resources I found online were coupled with a healthy dose of demonization of the current "modern" RC administration, and it was very draining to dread going to Sunday Mass and having it be the extreme low point rather than high point of the week.

The EC was a blessed change, but ultimately I couldn't reconcile it one way or the other as I said earlier. I read more about the early Church and came to see that although the bishop of Rome was important in the Church, he simply didn't have the power that the modern RC claims and makes a dogma out of. So I felt like I was lying taking communion at a Catholic church. Ultimately I felt like I was disrespecting the RCC by staying, and I had to become Orthodox to stay intellectually honest.

That's my experience, others probably will take issue with it.

Edit: spelling

Your story is almost identical to mine.

[Veronika]

I'm still in the "Catholic .. but.." phase as you have listed in your profile but I feel I see where this is all going. So far my journey is RC -> SSPX -> EC -> ??

One question that has struck me during this all... If EC is right, then RC Novus Ordo is equally right. If you have left the RC/NO for fruitlessness or heresy then that seems to be the critical step. The folks who seem happiest in the EC are the true Roman Catholics who just enjoy the Divine Liturgy as another Sunday option, or coverts who went straight to Eastern Catholicism.

To answer part two of your question: Yes, I do feel that EC has been a profitable experience. First, after coming from the Traditional Latin Mass it took me about a year to be comfortable at the Divine Liturgy. It also gave me the space and time to think in ways I most certainly would not have dared without this experience. The first time our EC Priest called Byzantine Catholics "Orthodox in communion with Rome" was truly scandalized in exactly the opposite way most here would think of it. Now I'm slowly coming to know and love so many of the customs of the East.

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