Western Rite
Welcome to the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America. Effective May 18, 2012, by appointment of His Eminence Metropolitan Philip, His Grace Bishop John serves as the only Auxiliary Bishop to oversee the Western Rite Vicariate. Assisting His Grace is the V. Rev. Edward Hughes, Vicar General of the Western Rite Vicariate. The Vicariate includes more than 20 churches and missions located throughout the United States.
Find a Western Rite parish near you
Contact His Grace Bishop John via email at frjpa@aol.com.
Contact V. Rev. Edward Hughes via email at WRVicarGeneral@gmail.com.
Encouragement for Our Final Lenten Days
By Fr. John W. Fenton
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, one God.
In less than two weeks, we will be celebrating the Queen of Feasts, the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. Even now, we should be eagerly anticipating this feast. For it is the highlight not of spring, but the highlight of our life in God. And even if you’ve not been successful thus far at keeping the fast—not merely the fast from food, but the more important fast from sin; and not merely the abstention from meat but the abstention from mean-speaking and thoughtless prayer and living as if you mattered most—even if you’ve struggled with this Lent’s fast, nevertheless we should all be longing to delight in the gracious invitation that St. John Chrysostom will once again issue on Easter Day. And to see the resplendent gold and candlelight, to repeat the uplifting hymns, to add our vigorous Amen to the prayers that warm our hearts—that should even now increase our expectation to celebrate this joyous day.
New Church Home for a Kansas Western Rite Parish
Preparing the new temple for St. Michael, Park City, KSSaint Michael the Archangel Orthodox Christian Church, a Western Rite congregation in the Antiochian Archdiocese, hosted The Right Rev. Bishop Basil (Essey), Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America, for its first Divine Liturgy in its new church temple in Park City, KS, on April 7, 2013. This service on the third Sunday in Lent was a significant milestone in the life of the parish which has experienced many challenges and successes in the nine years of its existence.
St. Michael’s began when Fr. John Flora and a group of his former Episcopal parishioners sought to become members of the Orthodox Church. Father John and 37 members were accepted as catechumens by Bishop Basil in the narthex of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral in Wichita on Dec. 31, 2003.
During the time St. Michael's parishioners were catechumens, they attended services in the Cathedral and later held morning prayer services in the chapel at St. George. Father John was ordained on Pascha, 2004, and St. Michael’s then celebrated Divine Liturgy in the cathedral chapel until it moved into a rented space of its own in March 2010.
ORDO 2013 Western Rite Liturgical Guide Now Available
The Western Rite Vicariate announces the publication of ORDO 2013. This booklet is the official liturgical guide for all Western Rite parishes in the Vicariate. It contains directions for reciting the Divine Office and celebrating the Mass according to the calendar and use of the Western Rite Vicariate of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America. It contains rubrics for both the Rite of St. Gregory with the Monastic Diurnal, and the Rite of St. Tikhon with The English Office.
The ORDO 2013 is available in both print and electronic formats. Copies may be purchased at the St. Luke’s Priory Press Store on Lulu: www.lulu.com/spotlight/frfenton.
Bishop Thomas Attends ROCOR Western Rite Ordination
Bishop Thomas with Bishop Jerome, Fr. James, Fr. Mark, and Fr. Nathan(Wappingers Falls, NY) On Thursday, October 25, 2012, His Grace Bishop Thomas was invited to attend a ROCOR Western Rite ordination at the Mount Alvernia Franciscan Retreat Center in Wappingers Falls, New York. His Grace Bishop Jerome, the ROCOR bishop of Manhattan and Vicar of the Diocese of Eastern America, presided over the ordination of Dn. Mark Rowe to the Holy Priesthood, and served as the principal celebrant at the Divine Liturgy. Bishop Jerome, who is bi-ritual and fluent in Latin, adorned western vestments and conducted the ordination service in the Western Rite, and said the Divine Liturgy (Mass) almost exclusively in Latin.
Father James Hamrick, an Antiochian Western Rite priest serving as pastor of St. John the Baptist Mission in Lewistown, Maryland, accompanied Bishop Thomas to the ordination. Bishop Jerome invited Fr. James to participate in the laying-on of hands during the ordination, and to concelebrate at the Mass which followed Fr. Mark’s ordination to the priesthood. Other ROCOR clergy who assisted in the service included Subdn. Anthony Bondi and Fr. Nathan Monk.
Father Mark Rowe was originally ordained an Anglican clergyman in 1997, and in 1998 was assigned as the rector of St. Mary the Virgin in Tampa, FL. Father Mark originally met Bishop Thomas in about 1998, prior to Bishop Thomas’ elevation to the episcopate, while (then Fr. Thomas) was still serving as a priest at St. Nicholas in Pinellas Park, Florida. It was in the years following that Fr. Thomas was instrumental in introducing Fr. Mark and his parishioners to Holy Orthodoxy.
2012 Western Rite Vicariate Conference Convenes
The biennial conference of the Western Rite Vicariate will be held Monday, August 7 through Friday, August 10 at St. Gregory’s University and Abbey in Shawnee, OK.
The theme for this year’s conference will be based on St. Paul’s words to the Philippians:
“Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things.” (Phil 4.8-9)
Presentations will focus on the attraction of personal holiness.
Bishop John (Abdalah), Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Worcester and New England and newly appointed Auxiliary Bishop to oversee the Western Rite Vicariate, will attend and will be one of the featured speakers at the conference.
