LINCOLN — Bishop Richard G. Henning recently joined the Melkite Catholic community in Rhode Island in welcoming their newly appointed eparch, Bishop François Beyrouti.
On the evening of Saturday, Sept. 16, local faithful and clergy gathered at the St. Basil the Great Cultural Center, which is part of the St. Basil the Great Melkite Catholic parish in Lincoln.
Hors d’oeuvres, consisting mainly in traditional Syrian dishes, welcomed the faithful.
Upon his arrival, Bishop Beyrouti and the Reverend Father Ephrem M. Kardouh, the pastor of St. Basil the Great, showed Bishop Henning around the parish as he greeted the parishioners.
Members of the Melkite Catholic clergy from throughout New England were also in attendance.
During the reception, traditional folk music from the Levant was performed on the violin by Lina Malshy, a Palestinian-born student of music at the Berkeley School of Music, with many of those present singing or clapping along. The reception was followed by a banquet for Bishop Beyrouti and Bishop Henning. During the banquet, two parishioners performed traditional Near Eastern music for those in attendance.
Many of those present were both joyous at the presence of the newly elected bishop for their rite, and also saw the meeting of Bishop Beyrouti and Bishop Henning as a sign of the fundamental unity of the Church.
“It’s a great feeling, an awesome feeling, it’s uplifting, and helps us to look forward to a brighter future,” said Elias Deeb, a parishioner of St. Basil’s. “We are grateful to see communication among both bishops, and we always feel that we are one Church with common cause under the Pope in Rome. We are in communion with the Pope, and so are they.”
His wife, Barbara Deeb, serves as a teacher in the religious education program at St. Basil the Great.
“I’m very happy to see the union of the two this evening,” she said of the two bishops in attendance.
“This is a great way to show our unity in Christ,” said Father Joseph Ekwoanya, a priest ordained for the Church in Nigeria currently enrolled in the Graduate theology program at Providence College.
In his comments to those present at the start of the banquet, Bishop Henning noted how many Melkite Catholics began to settle in Rhode Island in the early 20th century, before any dioceses or ecclesial structures were established for the Melkite Catholic Church in America.
It was Bishop Matthew Harkins, the local Latin Rite bishop, who encouraged the growth of the Melkite community in Rhode Island and the building of a parish of their own, he said. Bishop Harkins even laid the cornerstone of the original parish building associated with St. Basil’s.
“In a very real sense, that was only right,” Bishop Henning noted, “because as a young church here in Rhode Island, going back to the 1870s, the Christian witness of the Greek Melkite Catholic Church is an enormous gift to the universal Church, a witness that has endured so much strife and persecution, and not only is it ancient, but that tenacious fidelity continues even today.”
The Melkite Greek Catholic Church is an Eastern Rite Catholic community that traces its roots to Catholics of the Byzantine tradition from Syria and the surrounding regions. The Melkite Church came into existence as a result of Byzantine Christians in the Near East affirming their loyalty to the pope in the aftermath of the schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches.
St. Basil’s parish was founded in 1909. Originally located in Central Falls, the parish was founded by immigrants settling in Rhode Island from Syria, who hailed mainly from Damascus and Aleppo. A part of their parish were also Middle Eastern Catholic immigrants from the regions immediately surrounding Syria, particularly Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
The original parish building was destroyed in a fire in 1972, but a new building was rebuilt on the same spot. In 1988, the parish chose to relocate to its current home, with the current building being completed in 1998. Thus, Bishop Beyrouti and Bishop Henning’s visits to the parish also overlap with the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the completion of its current building.
There is only one Melkite Catholic diocese in the United States, based in Newton, Massachusetts. St. Basil’s is the only Melkite parish in Rhode Island. It is one of only eight Melkite Catholic parishes in New England and is one of only 16 Melkite parishes in the entire Northeast.
