It seems that many people who are Greek Catholics, including clergy, feel that they have to embrace what is seen as Catholic without realizing that the   Roman Catholic Church embraces a very Western theology that fits their services. We must remember that all theology finds its roots in     the worship of the Church. Our Eastern form of worship is different from that of the Western Church. Therefore, if we are to have a true and real understanding of our faith, it must be through a theology that flows from our services.

For example, the Western Church does not have a sense of Theosis which is the foundation of Eastern Spirituality. When we truly look at our Eastern worship and the mysteries (i.e., sacraments) that we     celebrate, we see that they do not express Western Theology.

Now one theology is not better than the other. BUT, our theology must flow from our services.

For example, our Eastern approach to the worship of God is Trinitarian. We do not worship Jesus, the Christ, but rather our Triune God. While it is true that Christ is a part of our understanding of the Trinity, He, because He was also truly a man, calls us to worship God together with Him. So all of our prayers end with the doxology (i.e., praise) of God as a Trinity of Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We also know and believe that we cannot think of Christ as God unless we first embrace God as a Trinity of Persons who, through the Person of Christ, are joined to us through a sharing of Divine Life.

Further, our understanding of the death of Jesus is much different. We do not believe that He died for our sins but, rather, to reveal to us that the life that we experience is immortal. We do not believe that Adam and Eve, the first parents, gave us a defective nature. Humans are not born into this world as defective. Our initiation ritual, which includes the mysteries of Baptism, Chrismation and Holy Eucharist are given to infants to signify that they are born into a community that believes that earthly life is given to us so that we might learn how to be spiritual beings, children of God. We become spiritual beings when we learn how to be more like Jesus Christ.

The focus of our spiritual development is entirely different from that of the Western Church because our worship and theology are different. The word Catholic means universal, which means that the Catholic Church is composed of a variety of ways of looking at the faith. We are just as Catholic as the Roman Catholic Church even though we look at our spiritual life in a different way.