www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Ruthenia

Pavel,

Is that true about the Metropolitans of Winnepeg and Philadelphia? I would think that the Patriarch (not Metropolitan) of Kyiv-Halych would have jurisdiction over these two North American Metropolitan churches. After all, the Patriarch of Kyiv-Halych has jurisdiction over all Ukrainian Catholics, no?

-uc

Having done highly intensive geographic research in the past few hours, I have determined that Ruthenia is immediately adjacent to Molvania. Jet Lag Press is planning a travel guide to Ruthenia, to match their highly successful travel guide to Molvania. Further news as it comes in.

Incognitus

All Patriarchates have very clear boundaries and they do not include territories outside the defined area. Outside of those boundaries the Pope excercises juristiction over all diocese of whatever Rite there is. The Major Archbishops likewise can not claim primacy where the Pope alone has Primacy. Kiev and Halcicz like all the various diocese in them have boundaries as clear as any piece of real estate, or any country. The Pope appoints the bishops with advice from the synod of the senior hierarch for any particular rite. The Metroplitans are part of the hierarchy of their respective countries. They are encouraged to link in the with Bishops of the same tradition in other parts of the world.

Ruthenia is the Latin term for the lands which were inhabited (and some argue cotrolled) by the Rusyns (Ruthenians) roughly speaking over a millennium ago. There are several successor states to these lands, but the center was Kiev (or Kyiv).

During the 19th century when the Ruthenians (Rusyns) immigrated from areas such as Trancarpathia and Galicia to North America they were classified either as Galicians, Hungarians, Poles, Russians, and even Ruthenians - and seldom as Ukrainians. As Professor Peter Marunchak of the University of Winnipeg stated in his book 'Ukrainian Canadians' "most of these immigrants only became "Ukrainians once they arrived in the new World". It was only after they all met here in the new world that they understood that they had a common language and culture. The name change to 'Ukrainian' was an affirmation of a cultural and political support for a modern nation state for the ancient Ruthenians peoples. This first manifestation of a modern Ruthenian state know as the Ukrainian National Republic occured on January 22, 1918, and lasted until 1920 when the Soviets put an end to it.

In Canada the Carpatho-Ruthenians merged with the other Ruthenians groups such as Bukovinians, Galicians, and Volynians and over time merged to form a strong national identity using their 'nickname' Ukrainians.

This same phenomena occured everywhere in the world except in the United States where many (but not all) Carpatho-Ruthenians now identify as Slovaks because Carpatho-Rus was once the most Eastern part of the Czechoslovakia.

Also, as one poster stated, the clergy in Carpatho-Rus spoke Hungarian and the people in Rusyn (which is now known as Ukrainian). On the other side of Carpathian mountains the glergy spoke Polish and used it as the church language, whereas the people spoke Rusyn (now known as Ukrainian). Both the Hungarian and Polish Imperialists cultivated the 'Rusyn' identity which they were able to subjugate for centuries. The unified Rusyn nation known as Ukraine would be much more difficult if not impossible to subjugate.

I.F.

To all,

http://www.c-rs.org

Reference this link, and yes WE RUSYNS DO EXIST both here in America and in Eastern Europe. We are the "Kurds" of the Slavic world, we inhabit many countries but do not have our on geo-political state!

JA RUSYN BYL, JESM'I BUDU!

Ungcsertezs (proud to be 50% Rusyn, 3rd generation in America and frequent visitor to the Karpats'ka-Rus'homeland!)

If it's any consolation, most "Melkites" never consciously heard that word until they came to an English or French-speaking country!

Incognitus

To add to the mix,the Rusyns are often considered to be an offshoot of the Ukrainian nation.However, there is a group of Greek Catholic people living in Voivodina,Tugoslavia calling themselves "Rusnaks". They migrated there from the Carpathian homeland over 250 years ago.They have a literary language written with Cyrillic letters pretty much the same ones used in Ukrainian.However, the language itself is a variant of the Eastern Slovak dialect, and an archaic variant at that.They retain some Hungarian words such as "varos" for city, "farkas" for wolf, and"Kracsun" for Christmas, "Craciun" in Romanian, and "Karacsony" in Hungarian.Like the East Slovak dialects,"Rusnak" shows influence of both Polish and Ukrainian, as in Polish, "d" often becomes "dz", "t" becomes "c", and the soft "s'" sound found in Polish has evolved into a full-blown "sh" sound(Polish "sz",Magyar "s", and Czech and Slovak "s^".That language was codified by Fr. Gabriel Kostelnik who is famous(perhaps infamous might be the better word) among Ukrainian Cathoics for other reasons.BTW,Slovak in it's present form didn't become a literary language until the mid 1800's.

Hey ung, next time you fly over you're stuffing me in you carry on bag. I'm going to start loosing weight now.

Piroh,

You have the Great Fast and the Paschal season to do so, as I'm planning another trip in the last week in May '06 to the first week in June '06, just in time to celebrate "Rusalja"!

S'Nami Boh!

Ungcsertezs (a dobryj Rusnak/Ruten/MagyarOrozs/Rusin, etc., etc. :p )

I'll wave at you when fly over if I don't loose that weight!
Piroh-
asking why couldn't my forefathers have picked a warmer place to immigrate? It's a shame there weren't coal mines in Florida.

"Tugoslavia"? Huh?
If you meant "Yugoslavia", there is a family in my parish that is Rusin and traces its ancestry to what is now Serbia, where a Rusin minority lived...
-Daniel

Your rellies in Serbia may come from the area north of the Danube that was previously Hungarian territory and contains a number of peoples from all over the old kingdom pre 1918 who had been settled in the region.

"I know some Ruthenians are looking to have their Church raised to a Major-Archbishopric (a Roman invention - the East knows no such thing"

Actually the Church of Cyprus was made such at the Council of Ephesus. While not employing the term "major" the Archdiocese was made autocephalous without being granted the title of patriarchate. The same idea employed by the Catholic Church in creating the title major archbishop. The same was done for the Bulgarians and Serbs at different times in history as they went from under Constantinople to autocepahly back to Constantinople again.

I suppose the qualifier "major" was deemed necessary by Rome since among us Eastern Catholics there were many with the title Archbishop as an award.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Another Ruthenophile informs me that he has succeeded in proving that Ruthenia forms part of the dominions of Prester John.

Incognitus

Just a note: my parish choir just cut a CD. In the acknowledgements was a mention of someone who had helped prepare the music "of our Carpatho-Russian heritage."
-D