RITES IN THE UNITED STATES 



SINCE immigration from the eastern portion of Europe 

 and from Asia and Africa set in with such volume, the 

 peoples who (both in union with and outside the unity 

 of the Church) follow the various ILastern rites arrived in the 

 United States in large numbers, bringing with them their 

 priests and their forms of worship. As they grew in number 

 and financial strength, they erected churches in the various 

 cities and towns throughout the country. Rome used to be 

 considered the city where the various rites of the Church 

 throughout the world could be seen grouped together, but in 

 the United States they may be observed to a greater advantage 

 than even in Rome. In Rome the various rites are kept alive 

 for the purpose of educating the various national clergy who 

 study there, and for demonstrating the unity of the Church, 

 but there is no body of laymen who follow those rites ; in the 

 United States, on the contrary, it is the number and pressure 

 of the laity which have caused the establishment and support 

 of the churches of the various rites. There is consequently 

 no better field for studying the various rites of the Church than 

 in the chief cities of the United States, and such study has the 

 advantage to the exact observer of affording an opportunity 

 of comparing the dissident churches of those rites with those 

 which belong to Catholic unity. The chief rites which have 

 established themselves in America are these: (i) Armenian, 

 (2) Greek or Byzantine, and (3) Syro-Maronite. There are 

 also a handful of adherents of the Coptic, Syrian and Chal- 

 dean Rites, which will also be noticed, and there are occa- 

 sionally priests of the various Latin Rites. 



I. — The Armenian Rite 



This rite alone, of all the rites in the Church, is confined to 

 one people, one language, and one alphabet. It is, if anything, 



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