I have learned, in 26 years of diocesan leadership, that it is by no means clear to everyone in our eparchy (the term used in Canon Law for dioceses of Eastern Catholic Churches) what a diocese—or, for that matter, a bishop—is all about, and why we need both a defined jurisdiction and the church structure known as the episcopacy. “After all,” goes the thinking of some of us, “when I show up in church on a Sunday, the priest is there celebrating the Divine Liturgy. What else is there? Isn’t that enough to be a church? Why do we need anything more than that?”
There are lots of ways I could try to explain this: from the perspective of the theology of the Church, from Sacred Scripture, from Canon Law, from pastoral theology, from the Fathers and Mothers of the Church (Patristics), and so forth. Each of these perspectives has its own emphasis and its own way of looking at the phenomenon of Church and its various structures. I decided instead to tell you about how having a diocese made a difference in my life.
I first began to have a sense of attraction to the priesthood in eighth or ninth grade, if memory serves me correctly. It was far in the background of my thinking, though, and I did not pursue anything directly. The fact is, my parish, St. George in Canton, at that time used no English in the Divine Liturgy. (Well, not quite. I used to read the Creed in English from time to time.) I literally never heard a Gospel read or a homily preached, because I spoke no Romanian whatsoever, apart from mămăligă and a few related edibles.
All of them assumed I was heading for ordination as a Roman Catholic priest. And so did I.
Bishop John Michael Botean
In short, it is hard to say where on earth my vocation to the priesthood came from. To make matters worse, when I approached my pastor about my developing vocation, he was not at all interested in helping me out. But at that time, all our parishes belonged to the Roman Catholic dioceses in which they were geographically located, so I was able to participate in a vocational discernment program provided by the Diocese of Youngstown. Through that, I participated in retreats and got to know several wonderful priests who guided and mentored me through the process. None of them, though, really knew or cared much about being a Romanian Catholic. All of them assumed I was heading for ordination as a Roman Catholic priest. And so did I.
To collapse a great deal of experience into a few sentences, my discernment prompted me to become a candidate for the Pittsburgh Province of the Capuchin Franciscans (St. Padre Pio’s order); my involvement with the Capuchins brought me in touch with a Melkite Greek-Catholic parish in Virginia, Holy Transfiguration, and its pastor, Father Joseph Francavilla. They spoke English! I finally learned about and was drawn back into my own Church, and entered formation at the St. Gregory Melkite Seminary in Newton Centre, Mass., through the Apostolic Visitator we had at the time, Father Octavian Barlea of Munich, Germany. Again, I met and was mentored by some wonderful priests who became great friends in the process.
But it was not until the creation of the Apostolic Exarchate (which later became our diocese) and the ordination of our first Bishop, Vasile Louis Puscas, that my vocation solidified, that I was ordained, and that I was smack into the middle of things in our fledgling Romanian family. This is what having a diocese has meant for me personally: I was ordained (ultimately to the episcopacy) in and for this diocese to serve you. I was able to come home. What might it mean to you? It might surprise you to know that, in canon law and the traditional language of the Catholic Church, the diocese, not the parish, is the “local church.” Our parishes are part of this one local church that is our diocese, and you are members of the Body of Christ through the communion of parishes that the diocese is.
In the Church, the Romanian Catholic Diocese, Eparchy of St. George in Canton, is our home. And it is our home: ours to care for, to be served by, to enter into Godly relationships through, and, ultimately, to be saved, to find eternal life, in. In the “neighborhood” that is the Church of Christ for all of us—faithful, monastics, clergy—our diocese is the address where our family lives.