Welcome to the Byzantine Catholic World of Western Austria!
You have probably never heard of a Ukrainian or Byzantine Catholic community in Western Austria before, and, indeed, we are a very small parish, although the territory is vast. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Sch�nborn, is Ordinary for all Byzantine Catholics in Austria. We have one parish in Vienna, St. Barbara's, which is the oldest Ukrainian Greek Catholic Parish this side of the former Iron Curtain. It was established in 1783 by the Austrian Emperor Josef II.
Western Austria is actually an administrationally independent mission district of the Vienna parish. After WW II, there where over 10,000 Ukrainians in different camps around Salzburg. Few remain today, most moved on to North America, and many have been assimilated into the Roman Catholic Church. Most faithful are now refugees from Bosnia and recently from Ukraine. My books indicate 350 families spread out between the cities of Linz and Feldkirch, which are 450 km (280 miles) apart. My guess is at over 1000.
In the 50's, a Russian Catholic community existed here in Salzburg. With the repose of the priest, the community died, a victim of the infamous "Ostpolitik". Fr. Methodios of the Russian Catholic Church in the USA is writing a history of this Church and would appreciate any information on the community that existed in Salzburg.
Untill 1999 we did not have a church of our own and celebrated liturgies in the R.C. Church of the "Barmherzige Br�der" in Salzburg. As we were only permitted to use the church Sunday mornings and had no hall where we could meet, life was difficult. These circumstances were also the cause for the community almost to disappear completely.
In November 1999 the Archbishop of Salzburg gave us custody of a beautiful baroque church, St. Mark's, in the center of Salzburg. There we finally find all we need and have been able to install, with the financial help of, amongst others, the City of Salzburg, an Iconostas. Please include us in your prayers that God may fill His house!
We installed this homepage in 1996. English was chosen as main language for some very simple reasons: The idea of the page was (and is) to get ourselves known and to "collect" prayers for our very small community in Salzburg and Western Austria. Not all too many people had an internet connection in Austria or Germany at that time. Statistics now show that a very large portion of our visitors is German-speaking. We are therefore starting to "germanize" our page. I would like to offer the page in three languages (Ukrainian, German, English), yet this is somewhat difficult considerung our manpower and that the work is all voluntary. You will now find the menu in German. The contents will be kept, as ussual, in whatever language in which I receive my information. If a page appears in German, do not log out. Scroll down, and you may find an English translation.
For more information:
http://vi06n140.members.eunet.at/ugcc/index.phpI.F.
