Mission Statement

We, as involved members of St John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church, are a family-oriented parish who express our faith through rich Eastern Rite Catholic traditions. Our lives are centered and based on the life of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ, and sharing this relationship and experience of Him with others. We are committed to evangelizing all peoples with the Gospel message of the Good News of Jesus Christ who is our salvation. Our external expression encompasses the Apostolic traditions of the Church through spiritual liturgical worship, catechesis for our youth and adults, the sacraments, and fellowship with our parish family membership and the community at large.

Who We Are

Yes, we are Catholics in union with the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) whom we recognize as the visible Head of the Catholic Church. We are recognized as being "Catholic" by the local Roman Catholic Bishops and the Bishops of the United States of America and the whole world.
Having said that we are "Catholics", we must now state that we are NOT Roman Catholics, but Catholics who are identified as being Eastern Catholics. AS Catholics, we Eastern and Roman Catholics share the same faith and have the same seven sacraments. The difference is that we Eastern Catholics have a different way or rite of expressing our faith in regards to Liturgy and customs.
At the Last Supper, after Jesus changed bread and wine into His own Body and Blood, He told His disciples to "Do this in Memory of me." This they did. As the disciples brought the Gospel to different parts of the world, they adapted ceremonies of the Liturgy to the customs and music of that people. In the end, four great centers of Christianity emerged with distinctive Christian customs, but the same faith. These centers were located in the great cities of Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome and Alexandria. A couple of centuries later when the capital of the Roman empire was moved to the Eastern city of Byzantium and renamed Constantinople, an adaptation of the Antioch way of celebrating Liturgy was made. Thus a new center of Christianity arose in Constantinople and her ritual became known as the Byzantine Rite. From Constantinople the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe were converted by Sts. Cyril and Methodius and naturally followed the Byzantine Rite. Today the Byzantine Rite is subdivided into ecclesiastical jurisdictions based on ethnic groupings, such as Greek, Ukrainian, Ruthenian, Russian, etc. For more Byzantine Catholic history, see the History Page at the Eparchy of Parma web site.

Our Church Building

The church is where we express our relationship to God and each other, so the building is full of items that symbolize this. The interior of a Byzantine Catholic Church is designed to create a reverent mood for worship, preach the Gospel through architecture and art, and free our hearts and minds from daily concerns so we can praise and worship God. The building is a communion of God and His people.