www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Orthodox Church denies claims of pontiff-patriarch meeting

Bless, Father Stephanos!

Well, the UGCC one was never "off."

We're at the crossroads on this one right now and we await Rome's word on it.

We've told Rome that we're not going to take another "not yet" for an answer.

So it is a good thing Rome is taking her time mulling this one over.

To put it another way, we are united behind our Synod in a way we have never been before.

Rome knows this, as I understand from my contact who works as a secretary at the Vatican.

And it knows that it cannot simply blow the Ukies off this time, especially with the close proximity of Cardinal Kasper's visit to Moscow to any immediate decision by the Vatican.

Rome stands to lose not only the loyalty, in various ways, of the UGCC, but it also risks yet another public relations fiasco in the secular press that is already beginning to put its own take on the situation i.e. when Moscow tells Rome to jump, Rome asks, "How high?"

We are all condemned to living in interesting times!

Alex

Yes, BUT I'm not going to confirm or deny the numbers you posted, because they are a bit unclear and some of the sources are not the most trustworthy.

Here is a better way of looking at the situation;

The Poles tried (sometimes with a lot of 'pressure') to Latinize the Greek Catholics. The Vatican and other 'Christian Empires' would not as a rule permit them to do to outlaw the GC, but they found ways around this to make life pretty hard (ie: Kholm).

With the Russians the situation was different. The Russians (Soviets or Empirialists) over time through various decrees had banned the GC church in all territories they conquered. The longer the Ukrainian (Rusyn) territory was in the Russian Empire, the fewer Greek Catholic there were. As a rule of thumb, the more east you go in Ukraine, the longer the Russian influence and hence fewer Greek Catholics.

Kiyiv and Chernihiv have large ROC populations and small GC for this reason. Lviv and Ternopil are the exact opposite.

Stalin of course to some degree began the process of reversing this trend after WW2. He deported Greek Catholics from the Western Ukrainian lands into Eastern Ukraine. For the first time in hundreds of years, he was able to re-introduce (not knowingly) Greek Catholism to the Eastern Ukrainian lands. For this reason, the UGCC decided establish eparchies and exarchates in areas were there were traditionally few Greek Catholics.

The Latin rite church was permitted by the Russian Empire primarily for the 'Western colonizers of Ukraine: Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, and others. In newly conquered lands by the Russian Empire, Greek Catholics were permitted to go to the Latin rite church, but this trend was always more of an exception than rule. Most people whent to the ROC. You can see that in many ways the Soviets and the Empire Russians had very similar views in regards to church affairs.

I remember a professor of mine who taught me genetics once telling us that; "anything I teach you this year will be irrelevant in 10 years, or will be found in such a different context that you will not be able to recognize it". Keep that mind when I ramble about both Ukrainian church life and politics because both are rapidly evolving. The there will be quantum leaps in evolution after the next elections. In fact, I'm not sure we are not experiencing a 'supernova' in many ways right now.

So if I understand you correctly, in the regions with very high proportion of RC versus GC parishes, the RC's are former GC's that either became polonized or became RC to avoid being Russified - or both. I think there is an analogous situation in Slovakia - a vestige of the Communist era. From Andreios's site, I get the impression that very many GC's became RC's when faced with the Communist forced "conversion" to Orthodoxy: the number of "canonical" GC's that are presently practicing RC's is ~equal to hte number of present GC's.

Dear djs,

Those like my relatives and my wife's grandfather got themselves baptismal certificates that said they were "RC" rather than "GC" to avoid losing their jobs!

The best way to avoid Russification was and still is - to escape to North America!

Alex

I don't want to comment on the figures you have posted because I'm not sure how valid they are. The Zhitomir and Vinnitsia ROC vs UOC-KP adherance figures seem to be off - but I would not bet my borsch money on that .

The issue is confusing only because we are speaking about eparchies which have found themselves in different countries and empires. I should have made things more clear.

UKRAINE:

After the Soviet invasion of 1945, in Ukraine, some Greek Catholics whent to the Latin rite church to avoid becoming Russian Orthodox. After independance in 1991, some returned to the Greek Catholic Church and others remained within the Latin Rite. The Roman Catholic Church put their adherance number at 700 - 800,000 in 1991, but Ukrainian Government statistics put it at about 200,000. Is the difference the number of people who returned to the Greek Catholic faith ? I don't know for sure .

The high number of RC parishes (but not adherants) you see in areas such areas as Vinnitsia, Zhitomir, and Lviv are remnants of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Small numbers of adherants survived in areas where they had been more numerous before (ie: pre-Soviet rule). As I mentioned earlier, I have visited famillies in the Rava Ruska area northwest of Lviv were parish churches have remained with as few as 4 famillies, but because they get money from Poland (who collect from Catholic charities) they were able to be sustained.

Vinnitsia and Zhitomir (unlike Lviv) had few Greek Catholics because they where part of the Russian Empire for a period of time and then the Soviet Union from the beginning. Greek Catholics where not tolerated in either. After 1991, the Greek Catholics who appeared were those who moved there from the far western Ukrainian lands. I doubt if any where 'Closet Greek Catholics' hiding in the Latin Church.

SLOVAKIA

Lviv and SubCarpathian Rus were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire up to World War 1. Preserving the Greek Catholic faith was always a struggle, but could be done. After WW1 the Carpatho-Rusyns endured strong Slovakization / Latinization and the Galicians strong Polonization / Latinization.

The pressure to assimmilate into the larger Latin rite Slovak Church during the interwar period was so strong that both bishops of Mukachiv and Priashiv supported the declaration of a Carpatho-Ukrainian Republic in 1939. They felt that only be joining the larger Rusyn umbrella group known as Ukranians could their Greek Catholic Church survive. They choose Monsignor Avgustin Voloshyn of the Greek Catholic Church as their president, but the Hungarians who were allied with the NAZIS put down the new government in a very brutal manner. In 1941 the Galicians proclaimed an independant Western Ukrainian Republic but had a whole 6 days before the leadership was arrested and send to concentration camps by the NAZIS. The Galicians lasted 6 days longer that Carpatho-Rusins when faced with NAZI brutality.

IMHO, the 'Closet Greek Catholics' hiding in the Latin Church were probably in the two eparchies of the Greek Catholic Church who in many ways had the most similar histories: Mukachiv and Lviv eparchies (now in Ukraine), but not Priajshiv (now in Slovakia). Priashiv eparchy is more similar to Kholm except for the fact that the Slovak Greek Catholics did not know 'forced' Russian Orthodoxy until after World War 2.

Kyiv and Chernihiv which were never part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth will have few Roman Catholic Parishes. The people that populate these parishes are either the progeny of business people who came to trade in the Russian Empire, old pre-revolution land owners or Latin Catholics who found themselves in these areas for one reason or another. There are relatively few.

POLAND:

(These adherance numbers are not found on the table you posted earlier).

The Khelm UGCC eparchy which is now in Poland, and which Fr. Peter represents, was part of Poland in the interwar period. Polonization (Latinization) occured in the interwar period, and then further after the war when the communists came to power. Most Greek Catholics became Latin Rite and some whent to the Polish Orthodox Church. This situation is similar to that of present day Priashiv (Slovakia) for Greek Catholics, but not Mukachiv (Ukraine).

I hope that clarifies things

(response: it's as clear as mud )

Hritzko

The communists had russified most of Ukraine so well that by the 1980's they use to joke in the press that "the Ukrainian language was no longer needed - unless maybe in Canada" - hardy har har. In those days the vast majority of schools in the Ukrainian capital were Russian. The situation has changed 180 degrees with a majority of Ukrainian Schools.