On EWTN at 1pm today central time they had a program on the Byzantine Churches, it was the slot for FR. JOHN CORAPI, I think. It was from the Ruthenians, of a display at the Heinz History Center, and it was done before Metroplitan Judson died. I do hope they show it again, it was well done. I wish they had included the makings of a Pascha Basket, however they did everything else. It was good.

Pani Rose, Yes, we watched it here. It really was well done. I especially thought the explanation of iconography was excellent. Sure hope they show it again. I checked whether it would repeat today, so I can record it, but doesn't look like it. It is available from EWTN's catalogue.

Blessed by this good film.

Mary Jo

I caught the tail end of that like 5 months ago.
I always seem to miss the eastern programmes on EWTN.

I watched it the other day...by mistake...it was suppose to be a FSSP program...

I liked it but found myself wanting a hour more...

james

Dear Friends,

I saw Fr. Taras of the Ukie Studites on EWTN explain the Eastern three-bar Cross . . .

Frankly, it left something to be desired. His explanation, to my mind, of the slanted foot-rest was so confusing and left out so much of the liturgical tradition regarding the foot-rest as a weigh-scale (Lenten office of the 9th Hour) that it left me wishing he had not bothered with filming that segment . . .

Alex

Is that more typically a Ruthenian thing? I guess if I think about it at the ROCOR church I attended as a child, the White Russians and High Russians all brought Kulich (fruit cake baked in a can white frosting and candle inserted on top with died eggs surrounding it) or the pyramidal cheese pascha.

Rose,
what do you include in your pascha basket?
Nonna

We watched the program this afternoon and found it to be far from uplifting. Not only was the video quality rather poor, the commentator spoke with a flat affect - there was no excitement in his voice as he presented the many beautiful icons.
How unfortunate.

Nonna:
Have a look - Ukrainian Easter Traditions!
http://www.brama.com/art/easter.html

Yak se Mash Pavloosh! Dyakouyou for the link. I have to point out though that the Ruthenians and the Ukrainians are two distinct cultures hey-niet? Ruthenian pisanki are quite different from Ukranian pisanki for example. (I bet there's a certain amount of overlap otherwise. )

Pani Nonna:
The similarities certainly outnumber the differences between Ukrainians and "Ruthenians".
It's interesting to ask a member of a Ukrainian parish what his/her nationality is and inevitably the answer is UKRAINIAN.
Ask the same question of a parishioner of a "Ruthenian" church and you'll hear: Russian, Slovak, Hungarian, Rusyn, I don't know, and even Byzantine.
We still smile when we recall the laocal church picnic menu listing Byzantine Pyrohy - 4 for $1.00.
Tremytesyia!

The quality of the filming was indeed poor. However, I found it interesting to see this video on this Sunday at around 1030 pm and wished it had been placed earlier in the peak hours to maximize viewing. Too many of my fellow Latin Catholics have no clue what Eastern Christian Churches are.

Cyril, happy to see some representation of the East by Byzantines even if more is needed

Deacon Lance is correct. My family is techically Rusyn, but they always called themselves Ukrainians.
Are those Byzantine Pierogies of the True Faith?
That thread, ah yeah!
Signed,
Byzantine Pyrohy (or is that Pravoslavni Pyrohy?)
-member of the Deacon Lance for Priesthood fanclub since 2006

Dear Pyrohy,

I know that I am overworked and tired and maybe my eyes are not seeing like they used to, but I did not think that I saw any posts from Father Deacon Lance on this thread.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Oh geez Father you're right. Pavloosh and Deacon Lance have the same avatar and that threw me off. My apologies. I am up for an eye exam on the 22 of Feb.
Sorry Pavloosh, Fr. Anthony, and Deacon Lance.
Ok, switch that around. Pavloosh is right!
Go Stillers.

Eh tam Rusnak inne Coal Kontree!

Ti ne rozumiesh, hey niet! ee Pavloosh, Ya resent dose quotation marks around Ruthenian!!! The word "Ukranian" is a newer word, invented by the Austro-Hungarians, any way, it should be in quotes.

The reasons why Ruthenians get confused about whether they are Russian, Ukranian, or Slovak is multifactored, but mostly because they've forgotten their history. The Rusyns are a people without a country. You can find it, Ruthenia that is, on old maps though. Ruthenia is there in the "U.S. Naval Academy Edition of Hammonds HIstorical Atlas" I'm looking for the page numbers to give you a reference.

The Ruthenians have a distinct language and culture. (My Russian teacher would accuse me of talking in Ukrainian when I would accidentally fall into Ponashemo. And I had to explain to her how she was wrong!)

Part of what explains the cultural confusion were the campaigns of Talerhof (1914) and of Operation Vistla (1947) that further separated the people from their history from their land. (and it occurs to me Pravoslavnie Pierohi, that perhaps your relatives survived Talerhof by saying: yes I'm Ukranian and Catholic. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I don't blame anyone for wanting to survive, but that would still explain the forgotten history.)

My Grandfather, God bless his soul, was adamant as he drank his whiskey that he was Russian not Ukranian (and he had silicosis too -- I'm a coalminer's granddaughter!) But he also had a heavy Carpatho-Russian accent. Maybe he was saying Rusyn only it sounded like Russian. Or maybe that's how he translated it. The Rus are the Rus. But on the other hand the Carpatho-Rus are truly the low men on the Slavic totem-pole. They're the hillbillies that the cultoornie White Russians, and High Russians and maybe even the Ukrainians look down on. But we're Rus, Rusnak, Rusyn, Ruthenian, Carpatho-all of the above.

lem tak toje dobrie?

And Pavloosh, you ignored the pisanki point.

Oh also one other thing. I have cousins in Ternopol and somewhere else nearby the Soviets would not allow us to visit. They were there as a result of Operation Vistla. I know that my Grandfather's nephew's children all believe they are Ukranian...again, forgotten history.

Go Nonna! They even changed their last name like ten years after being here, just one letter at the end. No one has a clue why. I miss my great aunts and uncles that talked with that accent. My one aunt made pascha bread and pierogies year-round. We had pascha bread muffins, I miss those.

At least Nonna you exist, the previous Ukrainian Catholic bishop RIP told Rome there were none here when they raised the Exarchate to an Eparchy. Previously it was an Exarchate for both but the Bishops told Rome there were none here. So they created an Eparchy for the Ukrainians only. This is what happens when ethnic nationalism takes pride of place. The Russian Catholics used to go to their Liturgies but were made to feel very unwelcome and in time had their own separate centre and Priests to look after them.

Dear Nonna,

There is absolutely no need to be offensive regarding the name "Ukrainian."

"Ruthenian" is actually a Latin version for a "citizen of Rus'" and was used by the Roman Catholic Church to describe Ukrainians/Belarusyans et al. for years, and especially since the Union of Brest in 1596.

St Volodymyr the Great is termed, by ancient Roman documents as the "Rex Ruthenorum" or the "King of the Ruthenians."

Today, "Ruthenian" refers to the Carpatho-Rusyn nation, but it is hardly specific to them and it is not a Slavic name at all, but Latin (an "ethnic Latinization?").

The word "Ukraine" is mentioned in the Chronicle of 1169 and in the next five after that.

Although some scholars contend it means "borderland" on the basis of the Slavonic "Okrayina" (which truly does mean "borderland"), other historians, usually those who don't share the imperialist historical perspectives of the former, (including the Rusyn scholar, Paul Magosci) show that "U" is the vowel used historically and that "Ukrayina" can mean either simply "land" or "land that has been parcelled." Today, Ukrainian historical textbooks in Ukraine accept the latter explanation as normative.

Both ideas that the Austro-Hungarian empire developed the terms "Ukrainian" and "Greek-Catholic" are false. The latter term was used in the form of "Greco-Uniate" by our early Greek-Catholic forefathers, as Met. Ilarion Ohienko has shown by his analysis of liturgical publications.

There are also Carpatho-Rusyns who truly do see themselves as a subculture of Ukraine and the Ukrainian nationality. Others say differently.

Symbolically in terms of culture and language, I must say that I have the greatest of difficulty seeing the Carpatho-Rusyns as being all that dissimilar from mainstream Ukrainians. There are subcultural groups in Ukraine and surrounding countries that have much greater cultural dissimilarities with "mainstream Ukies" than the Carpatho-Rusyns (Lemkos and Hutsuls - and this poses a problem for Carpatho-Rusyns who wish to affirm their cultural/national independence.

Carpatho-Rusyns have been culturally and spiritually crushed by other countries for centuries. Hopefully, they will now be allowed to live in peace and be who they are as they wish. And it is very true, as you show, that it was a policy of the USSR to "Ukrainianize" the Rusyns. Ultimately, this was also part of their plan to create the "Soviet man" whose cultural identity would be Russian.

But there is no need to repeat the tired phrases of Russian/Soviet (and also Polish, Hungarian and Roumanian) colonialism with respect to "Ukraine."

Ciao,

Alex

Dear Pavel,

Yes, there always were problems between the Ukies and the Russkies, both in the Orthodox Church and in the GC Church.

It was due less to "nationalism" (a political ideology) than to "cultural ghettoism" where the church was seen as "only mine and you go to yours."

Ukrainian Orthodox were made to feel unwelcome in a Great Russian Church, unless they "behaved" and accepted their identity as a subgroup of the Great Russian one.

Russian Catholics were made to feel unwelcome in a UGCC because they were not Ukrainian, despite the fact that the two great patriarchs of the UGCC, Met. Andrew and Patriarch Josyf, were quite open and pastorally inclined toward the Russian Catholic Church.

Ultimately, this is not so much a problem of ethnic nationalism, but of the Eastern Christian experience of the Church as the defender and promoter of one's cultural identity - and an embodiment of it, in fact. The Russian Church is quite "Russian" precisely because of the experience of persecution under the Soviets and other factors. The same is true for the UGCC, the Belarusyans and the Carpatho-Rusyns.

There are UGCC parishes that are exceptions to the norm.

Our Eastern Canadian Eparchy has Hungarian and Roumanian parishes and continues to enjoy an excellent relationship with our Slovak GC brothers and sisters.

And I've met Russian Catholics who attend our more "Orthodox in communion with Rome" parishes and who feel entirely at home there.

Again, it takes time for everyone to climb out of the ethnic ghettos they created out of their parishes.

Alex

The majority of those 'Slavs' who identified themselves as either 'Lemko', 'Rusyn', or 'Ukrainian' (or any combination of these) who found themselves in an area in the Southeastern Carpathian mountains of Poland known as Lemkivshchyna (or Lemkovyna in Polish) were deported to Ukraine in 1947 under 'Operation Vistula'. Most were relocated under duress and even brutal conditions to the 'Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast' (hmmmm... that Oblast has a familiar 'ring' to it ). The majority are now members of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church which does not distinguish between the three identities.

I.F.

Dear Alex:

I apologize if my post in anyway came across as offensive. That was not my intent in the least. And I take back those comments that anyone might take offense at. I was being playful and lighthearted. I know nothing about Soviet/Russian colonialist-speak. I know only what my grandparents have said on the topic -- Lemkos and Galitsianis

I know that Ukrayina means borderland. Thanks's for the information on the word's origin. It was careless of me to say that the Austrians invented the word. What I read is that the Austro-Hungarians are the ones that stirred up Ukranian nationalism in order to drive a wedge between the Eastern and the Western Rus.

The thing about the history of that region is that so many goverments were persecuting so many different peoples that it really does make one's head spin. And to understand the trends of it all I think historical descriptions of these events including why some Rusyn consider themselves Ukrainian while others are adamantly not have to be tied to specific geography.

You write:
There are subcultural groups in Ukraine and surrounding countries that have much greater cultural dissimilarities with "mainstream Ukies" than the Carpatho-Rusyns (Lemkos and Hutsuls - and this poses a problem for Carpatho-Rusyns who wish to affirm their cultural/national independence.

I ask:
are you saying the Lemkos and Hutsuls see themselves as dissimilar from Ukranians or Rusyns?
I was always told that the Rusyns are comprised of a number of tribes: the Lemkos, the Boykos, the Hutsuli, the Galitsiani...


oops, I'm late for class, more later
Nonna

Alex,

To be completely open with you on this whole topic. I guess one thing that gets my back up, is that the Ukranian Ukranians also have denied the Rusnaks their unique identity. So when I hear of instances where people have forgotten their origins, I find it painful, and why I feel compelled to clarify who the Carpathian Rus are.

If they struggle with what label to give themselves, I see it as akin to what the American Blacks go through, searching for a name for themselves in a country to which they are born and of which they are a part, but a people whose history and ethnicity has been lost.

The fundamental question to me is how can we acknowledge our diversity and differences and celebrate them without having them become an instrument of divisiveness.

Dear Nonna,

There is absolutely nothing for you to apologise for and your two posts above are of such intellectual depth and perspicacity that I must say how honoured I am to make your acquaintance here and receive the benefit of your penetrating thoughtfulness!

My position is that people's cultural identity is what they themselves say it is.

My father was a Boyko and my mother from Bucovina. People from both places would, in the past, have referred to themselves as Boyko's and Bucovinians in the first instance. Today, they would not. There are other East Slavs who would and don't see themselves as "Ukrainian."

In fact, in the West, "Ukrainian" has indeed taken on a kind of nationalist identity that was formerly located in Galicia.

The Austro-Hungarians promoted, in fact, a kind of "Austrophilism" or Western-looking Ukrainian identity (they were all afraid of Ukrainian nationalism, even some Ukrainians were too ).

They preferred to see Ukrainians as Latinized and Westernized as possible, along the Austrian model of course.

They ordered the UGCC Metropolitans of their day to actually drop a number of Saints from the Greek-Catholic Calendar, including some miracle-working Icons of the Mother of God, as these were too "Eastern" and suggested Russophilism that the Austrians were afraid of etc.

That Austrian identity was felt by me right in my own family and I grew up hearing nothing but great things about the Emperor Franz Joseph - as did Incognitus, it would seem . . .

But cultural identity is dynamic, it doesn't fit into any neat symbolic pigeon-holes and it changes over time.

I met a person who told he was a "German-Ukrainian."

He was born in Ukraine in the German colony there and spoke both languages fluently.

Variety is the spice of life, no?

By the way, what courses are you taking?

Alex

According to this comprehensive and very colorful study, Ruthenians are a 'sub-group' of the Ukrainians.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=h...6lr%3D%26sa%3DN

Happy reading.

I.F.

Dear Jean,

There are also lots of similar studies that say Ukrainians are really just "Little Russians . . ."

Alex

Watch this:

Then there are others that claim Ukrainians are the sons and daughters of KievanRus [re: St. Volodymyr's Baptism in 988] while the Russians are the stepchildren.

Slava Ukrayeena!

Dear Alex,

thank you for the kind words!

Yes variety is the spice of life.

(Since you asked, I had to run off to *embarassed* yoga class. My classes are nothing esoteric.
I'm also taking metalworking, stained glass and poetry.)

Dear Pavel and Jean Francois:

Yes a lot of people say a lot of things. I find I have to look at as many websites as possible to find the errors in any given page. Without peer review, that which is published on the 'net is of varied quality.

The whole debate kind of reminds me of the "ethnic" struggles in the area we know know as France. The dominant society sought to eliminate the regional languages (like the language of Oc) there were literally hundreds of tribes and hundreds of languages. Most were exterminated or assimilated into the culture we know as France today. But Jean Francois, if you are French perhaps you have a better grasp of the details there?

with love,
Nonna

I have to make a correction to something I posted earlier. The Hammonds Maps do not show a region called Ruthenia. I was getting confused. They show Galicia as it existed over the centuries. The only other map I can find right now that shows Carpatho-Rusyn settlements is the one done by Dr. Magosci (I can't for the life of me remember how to spell his name!).

Incognitus: regarding the book. I've had the best luck with the public library tracking things down and getting them through interlibrary loan.

Nonna,

Many modern languages are the sum of various closely related (true) regional dialects. Not only did the French do it, the Germans, Italians, and others created 'modern languages' from various dialects. The Rusyns did the same thing, and created a modern language known as Ukrainian which was the 'nickname' that the largest group had taken on in order not to be confused with Russians (Muscovites).

I.F.

Dear Jean Francois:

You seem to be assuming that all Ukranians are Rusyn. That is not correct.

Dr. Paul Magosci is an expert on Ukrainian and Rusyn cultures and languages. These are some good books we should all read:
A new Slavic language is born. The Rusyn literary language in Slovakia. Ed. Paul Robert Magocsi. New York 1996.

Magocsi, Paul Robert. Let's speak Rusyn. Бісідуйме по-руськы. Englewood 1976.

Дуличенко, Александр Дмитриевич. Jugoslavo-Ruthenica. Роботи з рускей филолоґиї. Нови Сад 1995.

But I found the Wikipedia explanation enlightening:
Rusyn is an East Slavic language (along with Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian) close to Ukrainian.

It is spoken in the Transcarpathian Region of Ukraine, in eastern Slovakia, southern Poland (where it is often called łemkowski 'Lemko', from their characteristic word lem/лєм 'only'), and Hungary. The Pannonian Rusyn language in Serbia is sometimes considered part of the Rusyn language, although some linguists consider that language to be West Slavic. In Ukraine, Rusyn is often considered a dialect of Ukrainian, but speakers are frequently reported to consider themselves distinct from Ukrainians.

Attempts to standardize the language suffer from its being divided between four countries, so that in each of these countries there has been devised a separate orthography (in each case with Cyrillic letters) and grammatical standard, based on different Rusyn dialects. The cultural centres of Carpatho-Rusyn are Prešov in Slovakia, Uzhhorod and Mukacheve in Ukraine, Krynica and Legnica in Poland, and Budapest in Hungary. Many very active Rusyns also live in Canada and the USA.

It is very difficult to count the speakers of Rusyn, but their number is sometimes estimated at almost a million, most of them in Ukraine and Slovakia. The first country to officially recognize Rusyn, more exactly Pannonian Rusyn, as an official language was former Yugoslavia. In 1995, Rusyn has been recognized as a minority language in Slovakia, enjoying the status of official language in municipalities where more than 20% of the inhabitants speak Rusyn.

In the introduction to the book "Slavic languages," written in 1973, ten years before glasnost, Samuel Bernshtein writes about "western Ukrainians" and the "literary language" which they "until recently [i.e., 1973]" had.

Thank you Nonna for that information.

I will be an offical elections monitor at the upcoming federal elections in Ukraine. For some silly reason they have assigned me to Zakarpatska Oblast / Zakarpattia / Sub-Carpathian Rus/ Carpatho-Rus / Carpatho-Ukraine / ... etc...

I promise a full report when I return, and if I have access to a PC (which I should) I may even send a couple pictures with reports. Who knows, maybe I will even bump into the esteemed Prof. Magosci.

I.F.

Here is another point of view:


Ruthenians. A historic name for Ukrainians corresponding to the Ukrainian rusyny. The English ‘Ruthenians’ (sometimes ‘Ruthenes’) is derived from the Latin Rutheni (singular Ruthenus), which also gave rise to the German Ruthenen and similar words in other languages. Originally the Latin name Rut(h)eni was applied to a Celtic tribe (see Celts) of ancient Gaul (their town Segodunum later became known as Rodez). The name Rutheni came to be applied to the inhabitants of Kyivan Rus’ as a result of the medieval practice of giving newly encountered peoples the names of extinct ancient peoples. Boris Unbegaun has suggested that the attested Latin Rucenus, a rendering of the Old Ukrainian rusyn, was instrumental in the selection of the name Ruthenus. The first use of the word Ruteni in reference to the inhabitants of Rus’ was in the Annales Augustiani of 1089. For centuries thereafter Rutheni was used in Latin as the designation of all East Slavs, particularly Ukrainians and Belarusians. In the 16th century the word more clearly began to be associated with the Ukrainians and Belarusians of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as distinct from the Russians, who were designated Moscovitae.

After the partitions of Poland (1772–95) the term ‘Ruthenian’ underwent further restriction. It came to be associated primarily with those Ukrainians who lived under the Habsburg monarchy, in Galicia, Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia. In 1843, at the request of the Greek Catholic metropolitan of Halych, Mykhailo Levytsky, the Austrian authorities established the term Ruthenen as the official name of the Ukrainians within the Austrian Empire. In the 1870s the central-Ukrainian political theorist Mykhailo Drahomanov, as well as his Galician disciples Ivan Franko and Mykhailo Pavlyk, used the term rutentsi (a Ukrainianized version of Ruthenen) to denote narrow-minded, provincial, and Habsburg-true members of the Galician Ukrainian intelligentsia. Although the term Ruthenen remained in official use until the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918, Galician Ukrainians themselves began to abandon that name (from around 1900) and its Ukrainian equivalent, rusyny, in favor of the self-designation ukraintsi (Ukrainians).

In the last decades of the existence of the Habsburg monarchy there was a massive wave of Ukrainian emigration from there to the Americas. In their new countries the emigrant Ukrainians were often referred to and referred to themselves as ‘Ruthenians.’ In the interwar era the name ‘Ruthenian’ became even more restricted: it was generally used to refer to the inhabitants of Transcarpathia and to Transcarpathian emigrants in the United States. Since the Second World War the term ‘Ruthenian’ has been used as a self-designation almost exclusively by descendants of Transcarpathian emigrants in the United States, but since the 1970s even they have begun to abandon it in favor of the designation ‘Rusyn’ or ‘Carpatho-Rusyn.’ In official Catholic ecclesiastical language the term Rutheni was used in a wide sense, to denote all East Slavs of the Eastern church rite (Ukrainians of Galicia and Transcarpathia as well as Belarusians) until the early 1960s. Since then the term Rutheni has been used to refer only to Byzantine rite Catholics of Transcarpathian origin in the United States.

In 1991 the government of Slovakia recognized Ruthenians as a distinct national minority. The regional variation of Ukrainian, after several years of study, was proclaimed a new Slavic language in 1995 by the Rusyn Renaissance Society of Slovakia.

J.-P. Himka

Therefore, it would appear that the Byzantine Catholic Church here in the United States is misnamed. Wouldn't it be more accurately named the Rusyn Catholic Church?
Byzantine is much too general a term especially since Ukrainians, Russians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Melkites, etc. are technically all members of the Byzantine Church.
Is it time for a name change?

Dear Pavloosh,

Well not necessarily. I can tell you though that there are already churches in the U.S. with Rusyn in their name.

for example I found on the internet:
Christ the Savior Seminary of the American Carpatho-Rusyn Orthodox Church, Johnstown, PA

And I recall seeing it elsewhere.

Many churches retain a specific ethnic identity and express it in their name. What's wrong with that?

Plus there's this: (URL posted at the end)
"Undaunted, Father Ardan pushed for a convention of the recently organized Association of Rusyn Church Communities to settle the question of a separate exarchy for America's Greek-Catholics once and for all. At a conclave held on March 26, 1902, nine Galician priests (Ardan, Bonczevsky, Dmytriw, Konstankevych, Makar, Nizhankovskyj, Pidhoretsky, Simialo and Tymkevych) and 16 lay delegates representing eleven communities, discussed a total of nine questions regarding the future of the Greek-Catholic Church, including the most crucial one: "Should we American Rusyns recognize the pope of Rome as the head of the Rusyn Church or not?" After much heated debate, they resolved that: "Those gathered here consider the matter of breaking with Rome to be absolutely essential for the future good of the Rusyn Church and people in America. Nevertheless, due to the gravity of such a step, we think it necessary to carefully consider all of the nuances of such an action in an open discussion with the entire community before any further action is taken."

Other resolutions adopted demanded the formal acceptance of the name Ruska Cerkov (in English) for all Rusyn churches. Names such as "Greek Catholic," "Hungarian Greek Catholic," and "United Greek Catholic," all used by Rome and local Latin-rite bishops in the past, were rejected. They also asked for a guarantee of Rusyn Catholic Church autonomy with complete independence from Latin-rite Catholic bishops and priests; the immediate nullification of all guidelines set down by the Congregation de Propaganda Fide which governed the Rusyn Catholic Church in America; and the appointment of a Rusyn bishop in the United States elected by Rusyn priests and representatives of church lay councils and directly responsible to the pope and not to the Congregation de Propaganda de Fide. The resolutions passed at the Harrisburg conference elicited much discussion in articles which appeared in Svoboda between April 3 and June 5.

Rome attempted to mitigate the growing conflict with acts of token recognition. The appointment of Father Andrew Hodobai, an Uhro-Rusyn, as the "Apostolic Visitor" to Rusyn Catholics in 1902 was boycotted both by the Galician and, eventually, the Uhro-Rusyn priests. The battle for a bishop continued for the next five years with the American Circle and Svoboda leading the way. In "Pro Popivskyi Galir" (About Priest's Collars), Father Makar defended the right of Rusyn Catholic priests to eschew the wearing of "Roman" collars. Demands for a Rusyn bishop were repeated once again in Union in America, a publication of the Rusyn Church Association on October 12, 1902, and at a congress of Rusyn-Galicians in Yonkers, on December 26, 1903...In the end, efforts by the American Circle, Svoboda, and the RNS membership to establish an independent Catholic Church in the United States succeeded. On March 26, 1907, Rome appointed Father Soter Ortynsky, a Basilian monk from Galicia, the first bishop for Rusyn Catholics in America. Consecrated at St. George's Cathedral in Lviv on May 12, Bishop Ortynsky arrived in the United States on August 27.
http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2004/200412.shtml

And check out what I found just googling "carpatho byzantine"
http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/bogdan2.htm

Cher Jean Francois,

N'oublie pas que c'est le peuple soi-meme qui veut etre reconnu Rusyn, et qui veut que leur langue est reconnu Rusyn.

amitie,
Nonna
(mon francais n'est pas le meilleur!)

p.s. I certainly look forward to hearing about your experiences as election judge.

Sometimes I get the feeling it's like talking to a wall.
I give up!

Some days after visiting various forums I would rather talk to a wall...

james

My dear Ukrainian friends,

As you know, there are over 95 cultural groups in Ukraine who have been there for hundreds of years.

They have their own languages, institutions, in many cases distinct religions etc.

The Carpatho-Rusyns must be recognized and respected for who THEY say they are and want to be, not how anyone else says so.

Have we Ukrainians, after so many years of colonial occupation, not learned the meaning of "let us be ourselves?"

Alex

Dipping my toe into the mix...

This arguement seems to be a bit similar to the one that keeps going on - on various levels - between Macedonians and Bulgarians....

And that's all I am saying!

Anton

If you go to http://www.acrod.org you can see that they use the term "Carpatho-Russian" and not "Carpatho-Rusyn" in their official title.

Dave

Dear Anton,

If you Bulgarians don't leave the Macedonians alone, the spirit of Alexander the Great, their Slavic ancestor, will get you!

Alex

"Is it time for a name change?"

No, our jurisdiction does not just include Rusyns but Slovaks, Hungarians, and Croatians as well.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Dear Dave,

Yes you are right. In my experience (as a full-blooded Carpatho-rusyn/russian) Rusyn and Russian are used pretty interchangeably.

What people choose to call themselve is always an exercise in defining identity and history.

When it comes to what churches call themselves perhaps its an exercise in identifying the dominant ethnicity of the founding congregants and the jurisdiction of the founding Patriarchate.

with love and a wish for peace,
Nonna

"Ja ne Moskaly! Ja Rusyny!"


This was the battle cry my father remembers both the Uhorsky and Galiciany saying around our parish.

For what it's worth...

Ungcsertezs (GO STEELERS :p )