Byzawhat?

If you're not already an Eastern Christian (an umbrella term for Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, or another unassociated like the Assyrian Church of the East) the term "Byzantine" might not mean a thing to you.

In fact even if you are one of these the term might mean nothing to you. After attending a paraklesis (παρακλεσις in Greek, sometimes written as paraclesis) service at a local Greek Orthodox church I went to the adjoining fellowship hall. There were a lot of older, extremely nice people there. After talking for a while a woman asked me if I had ever been to a Greek service before. When I said I had been to a Byzantine Catholic service that was very similar she said, "A what?" After some more discussion it was clear neither she nor anyone sitting next to her knew anything about Byzantine or any other kind of Eastern Catholic.

So to explain what a Byzantine Catholic is - glossing over a lot - I'll just say this. There is more than one visible church in the Catholic Church. Many have erroneously cut these churches into convenient "rites" in an attempt to define non-Romans as Catholics that have a different liturgy.
A better way to explain it is to say there are many distinct heritages within the church. These churches have very real identities (observably unique home practices, prayer lives, lexicons, etc.) that may overlap or be completely particular to that group.

Taking all that into account I really haven't gone into the whys and wheres of the Byzantine church. The exact history of the founding of these churches is for another time / another post.

I like to do tables, but blogger seems to dislike processing them. Eventually I shall prevail, but I digress... So once you've enumerated all the extractions it's easy to see how one could speak of heritages more readily than independent rites.

What makes the Byzantine way special? Who exactly are these people? What do the aforementioned home and liturgical practices look like? I hope to cover all these as pictures and time become available.