An international symposium on Eastern Catholic Churches will be held this fall on the downtown campus of Loyola University in Chicago. More than a dozen scholars and specialists from Europe, Middle East, and North America are expected to present scholarly papers that will analyze the impact of the Decree of the Vatican Council II on Eastern Churches. One of the co-sponsors of the symposium is the Center of Ukrainian and Religious Studies of Chicago, an affiliate of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome. The other sponsor is Rev. Earl A Weis, S.J., Chairman of Loyola’s Department of Theology. “The Melkites, the Syrian Churches of Malabar and Malankar Rites, and the Ukrainians went through ferment in recent years, confronting the Vatican Curia as a centralizing authority, with their aspirations. Particularly the Ukrainians, the most numerous of Oriental Catholics have been involved in the movement for patriarchal structure,” said Prof. Markus.
