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Hi, Jim —
For those readers unfamiliar with the terms Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox, there is a extremely important difference.
The Catholic Church consists of about 23 different rites. The largest rite by far is the Roman Rite which makes up about 95 percent of the faithful. The other 5 percent consist of various other Catholic rites who all:
- believe the same teachings as Roman Rite Catholics, and
- are faithful to the Magisterium of the Church and Holy Father.
One of those twenty-one other rites is the Greek Catholic rite.
In a related question, my colleague Eric said:
There are many rites within the Catholic Church (ways of worshiping), and many churches sui iuris (according to the law) — such as:
- the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
- the Melkite Greek-Catholic Church
- the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church
- the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church
- the Chaldean Catholic Church
- the Coptic Catholic Church, and
- the Armenian Catholic Church
but we are all united under one head and believe in one common faith, and we, by no means, call our different rites or churches (sui iuris) "denominations".
We don't even call ourselves a denomination. |
A sad result of some stupid bickering between both Catholics and Greek Orthodox resulted in the Schism of 1054 A.D. While Greek Orthodox have valid sacraments they do not recognize the authority of St. Peter which Jesus established in 33 A.D.
That said, our two faiths are very, very close to coming together in the near future.
Hope this helps,
Mike
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