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Greetings All,

As all of us know the Eastern Catholic churches are a diverse group of devoted followers of Christ. Each w/ their own unique liturgical customs that add to the vast diversity found within the One, Catholic Church. My question today concerns the Hungarian Catholic Church (Not the Roman Catholic church in Hungary)
I know very liitle about them. Of what I do know is the following;

1. During the 1600s many Orthodox faithful in Magyar territory, bacame Catholic, while retaining their Byzantine culture.

2. During the early 18th century a group of Hungarian nobles (calvanists) became Catholic, and joined the Byzantine rite.

3. In 1795 the Divine Litrugy of St. John Chrysostom was translated into Magyar (Hungarian)

4. In the 1900s Pope Leo X (?) erected a distict Diocese for the Hungarian Byzantines.

5. They currently have 282,000 followers worlwide.

This is all I know of them. My questions are;

1. After the Pope, who is their current leader and title?

2. Are they a metropolitan church?

3. Are there any Hungarian-rite parishes in the US?

4.What is their relationship to the Ruthenian Church?

5. Do they allow married men to the priesthood in Hungary?

Thanks again,

Peace of Christ
ProCatholico

Dear ProCatholico,

A number of them are also Magyarized Ruthenians and Ukrainians. We have about six or so parishes of them up here, one or two in Hamilton.

My grandfather ministered to them during the war and told me that they were very devoted to the Divine Office and to Byzantine traditions.

Links between Hungary and the Church of Kyivan Rus' go back a long way.

The Crown of St Stephen is a Byzantine style Crown, made in the Kyivan Caves Lavra itself.

There are some Eastern Saints of Hungarian background, the one I am most familiar with is St Moses the Hungarian of the Kyivan Caves who is the Patron of purity for youth (O.K. Kurt, O.K. ).

St Paisius Velichkovsky, a monastic reformer, counted Eastern Rite Hungarians among the ten ethnic groups that comprised his followers.

God bless,

Alex

Dear OrthodoxCatholic,

Thank you for your response. But I ask you, are the Hungarian parishes by you of Hungarian rite, or Ruthenian rite? Also what about my other questions. I'd like to know a little more. Anyone's input is greatly appreciated.

God Bless,

ProCatholico

Hungarian Greek Catholics in the United States are subject to the Ruthenian Metropolia. A number of parishes including Holy Cross in NYC are Hungarian. (Holy Cross Church has wonderful murals of Hungarian Christian history on the walls of the church.) Not to answer for Alex, but I believe in Canada, the Hungrain Greek Catholics are subject to the Ukrainian Metropolia.

In Hungary they consist of an eparchy, directly dependent on the Holy See, and an Apostolic Administration, which consists of those parishes that were formerly part of the Mucheveko Eparchy before the creation of the Czechoslovak state. Since the Communists came to power, both offices have been held by the same person, though they have never been formally merged.

Under the Hungarian monarchy, the eparchy was a suffergan see of the Primate of Hungary. The Holy See ended this practice at the first opportunity. It hard to speak of particular traditions of the Hungarian Greek Catholic Church, as for the most part they are a creation of shifting borders and national consciousness.

The Church has no Orthodox counterpart and ordains married and unmarried men to the priesthood. They are quite strict about not accepting married transritualists as candidates for the priesthood. While they suffered under the Communists greatly, unlike elsewhere, the Greek Catholics were not treated differently than the Latins. They shared in the passion of the holy Cardinal Midvensky.

K.

[This message has been edited by Kurt K (edited 08-21-2001).]

In the 15th and 16th centuries, after the turkish invasion, eastern orthodox inmigrants became byzantine catholics and in the 18th some protestant hungarians and a group of jews joined the eastern rite church. They were placed under the jurisdiction of non-Hungarian Byzantine bishops.

Once this community of Greek Catholics was integrated into Hungarian society, some began to press for the use of the Hungarian language in the liturgy. But such a proposal was resisted by the church authorities. For this reason, the first Hungarian translation of the liturgy of John Chrysostom and the liturgical books were published in the 19th but their use was still not approved by the ecclesiastical authorities.

In 1900 a group of eastern christians from Hungary presented Pope Leo XIII a petition asking him to approve the use of Hungarian in the liturgy and to create a distinct diocese for them. So the Holy See erected the diocese of Hajd�dorog but the use of Hungarian was limited to non-liturgical functions: the liturgy was to be celebrated in old Greek and the clergy were given three years to learn it although the requirement to use Greek was never enforced and in 1930 the rest of the necessary liturgical books were published in Hungarian.

On June 4, 1924, an Apostolic Exarchate was established at Miskolc for 21 Ruthenian parishes formerly in the diocese of Pre�ov that remained in Hungarian territory after Czechoslovakia was created. They were provided with a distinct identity because they used Slavonic in the liturgy. By the 1940s, however, they had all begun to use Hungarian, and the apostolic exarchate since that time has been administered by the bishop of Hajd�dorog.

Since 1980 the diocese of Hajd�dorog was extended to all Greek Catholics in Hungary.
The head of the church is His Grace Szil�rd Keresztes (born 1932, appointed 1988), bishop of Hajd�dorog and Apostolic Administrator of Miskolc, who resides in Nyiregyh�za.


The Greek Catholic Hungarians who immigrated to North America have a few parishes, all of them part of the Ruthenian dioceses in the USA and the Ukrainian dioceses in Canada.

Thank you all for writing me back.

You have all really clarified the Hungarian-rite for me. But now I have yet another question, I hope someone can answer. It was stated that basically the Hungarian rite came into being due to national border changes, etc. So my question is, if the Hungarian immigrants to the US joined the Ruthenian church, why do they not unite in their respective lands? If they are so similar anyways. Oh, and it was said that they have no orthdox counterpart, yet the Maronites pride themselves on being the only church in Roman communion that have no EO counterpart? Thanks again.

God Bless You,

ProCatholico

If what you mean by "Magyar territory" is areas that were historically ethnic-Hungarian, then you are mistaken about this.

In northeast Hungary (where most of the indigenous Greek Catholic faithful are), in the counties of Abauj, Borsod, Szatmar, Szabolcs, Zemplen, the faithful are almost exclusively magyarized Romanians and Carpathian People(tm).

At the monastery of Pocs (now Mariapocs), almost 3/4 all the monks in 1803 were documented to be of Carpathian People(tm) nationality [i.e., "Ruszin"] but from villages which are today still in Hungary and entirely Hungarian-speaking.

In virtually all the historical churches in such villages (anything dating from the late 19th century or before), the icon inscriptions and icon murals are inscribed in Church Slavonic, in Cyrillic. In the other places, in Romanian.

I think that the seperation is somewhat due to the ethnic differences. Although many Carpatho-Rusyns and Slovaks did know Hungarian fluently, it is not very similar to Slovak, Ukrainian, Rusyn, (or Old Slavonic).

It is important to keep in mind that Hungary controlled a significant amount of territory in what is now Slovakia and the Transcarpathian districts. Early in the 20th Century (and towards the end of the 19th), there were campaigns to "Madgyrize" these areas, with Hungarian as the "favorite language of choice". This tended to be a common strategy when one ethnic group dominates another, and we even see evidence of this in our own day and age. The problem was, the Slovaks and Rusyns didn't always like it. (Nor did the Rusyns like it when the Slovaks tried the same thing after the establishment of Czecho-Slovakia.)

Although this may not explain totally why there are independent Eparchies in Europe today, I tend to believe that this influenced it.

Also, it should be kept in mind that the Uzhorod Eparchy was totally decimated after the Second World War, along with the Presov Eparchy. Presov existed solely in the underground unitl the mid 1960's, and Uzhorod until the 1990's. There was virtually no way for the Hungarians to rely on Presov or Uzhorod for many years. For the Byzantine Hungarians' Eparchy to be extended in 1980--that was pretty dog gone lucky!

These are my ideas on the subject and I claim no final authority (or Primacy) on the subject, I defer to those with a more complete understanding than mine .

One could also remark about the Hungarian Greek Catholic Church in Hungary that because it was never abolished or really persecuted, it was able to accept and deal with the Second Vatican Council. Thus, it has undergone somewhat of a "Byzantine renaissance" and is a flourishing Church, no longer terribly Latinized, and quite progressive! Many young (married) vocations, vibrant city & suburban parishes, and a strong liturgical life. We should be so blessed!

Dear Friends,

Yes, the Hungarian Greek CAtholics are under the Ukrainian Metropolia in Canada.

Again, there might be an issue with the notion of what a "Hungarian Greek Catholic" is.

I have met Hungarian historians who deny that their Greek Catholics are truly "Hungarian" but are from "Marmarosh Orsag" and are Magyarized Slavs.

Certainly, there are such Magyarized Slavs and they used the Chuch Slavonic until they reverted to Hungarian.

The oppression against the Slavs under Hungary was fierce and unrelenting.

That the Greek Catholics here and there call themselves "Hungarian" is no surprise, therefore.

Alex

The Hungarian Greek Catholic Church in Hungary is organized, I believe, as an exarchate.
In Canada, the Hungarian Greek Catholic parishes would be under the Ukrainian Bishop (Toronto, I believe?). One in particular was in Windsor, Ontario, which unfortunately closed in December 2000.
In the United States the Hungarian parishes are all part the Byzantine Ruthenian Church. Parishes include St John�s in Solon Ohio, one in Perth Amboy NJ and one in Bridgeport, Conn. There are others which I am not particularly familiar with. Originally, these parishes were organized within close Hungarian neighborhoods. Subsequently, as the Hungarians left their ethnic neighborhoods and spread throughout the suburbs (i.e., Buckeye Road in Cleveland), the original Hungarian character became less distinct. Many of these parishes today have their identity in the American converts from their new neighborhoods and thus have had to drop the ethnic Hungarian in the Divine Liturgy.

Regarding the Hungarian translation of the Divine Liturgy: It was in 1868 when the Austro-Hungarian Empire forced the �magyarization� of the liturgical texts. The Empire deemed it necessary that the empire�s language be either Austrian or Hungarian. The Rusyns living in the northeast section of the empire were forced to drop their Old Slavonic texts and replace them with Hungarian translations. This was quite a brutal time for the Greek Catholics in the empire, but they had little option but to comply. Then, as the European immigration to the US increased in the late 1800�s and early 1900�s, the Rusyn Greek Catholics in Hungary brought their priests, liturgy and tradition � now magyarized to Hungarian � into the U.S. For the generations since 1868, Hungarian was the �natural� language and became part of the Hungarian culture in the U.S.

Additional information is available in publications from Fr. A. Pekar (not sure of his titles).

Deacon El

It should also be noted that we have had (I think he may have ow retired) a bishop who was Aposoltic Visitator for Hungarain Catholcis of both rites in the USA.

K.

I know that the Romanian Byzantine Catholics in Canada have their own exarchate within the Ukrainian Metropolia. I don't know if they also have hungarian parishes (I'll ask some information to Father Radu Roscanu, the apostholic administrator)
The eastern christians with Albanian and Greek roots are a small minority and I think they're part of the ukrainian metropolia and they don't have their own exarchate.
On the contrary the slovak eastern catholics have their own diocese and some hungarian parishes are part of the slovak diocese.

I believe that St. Nicholas,in Roebling, NJ is also Hungarian of the eparchy of Passaic.
They have a Hungarian picnic every year, in July, I believe.

There is an Hungarian Byz. parish, St. George, in Youngstown, OH