www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Difficulties for Orthodox in the Western Ukraine

LOL!! Hint taken Father Deacon Robert! Remember, I grew up spelling it Львов. Perhaps we should all just call it Lemberg and be done with it! Not to be funny, but how do you pronounce всегда? Do you say syehda? Gotta remember that the letter Г is an evil Russian letter, and should be avoided at all costs! All kidding aside, when I go to LVIV this spring, I will definitely prepare a report on the goings on there. While there I speak either my familial dialect or Russian, and am always treated well by one and all. It is quite a beautiful city, not really Slavic in nature, more Austrian or Germanic, with obvious Slavic touches. Reminds me of something that would be a good setting to film a Cinderella movie.

Alexandr

Actually L'viv/Lvov/Lwow/Lemberg/Leopolis or whatever one wishes to call the city in question is originally a Slavic and Rusyn city, although there seem to have been Jewish and Moldavian communities there quite early on.

Then it fell into the hands of Poland, and the locals began to find themselves unwelcome in their own town.

Came the partitions of Poland and Austria got the place. There is a definite Austrian stamp on the city as a result, particularlly in architecture but in other forms of culture as well.

Poland managed to get it again after World War I, with promises of autonomy which were never honored. The USSR got it after World War II, with results that most of us are only too well aware of. However, Stalin decided to "repatriate the Poles" in Galicia to Poland. Although a small minority of Poles managed to remain in L'viv/Lvov/Lwow/Lemberg/Leopolis or whatever one wishes to call the city in question, the large majority of the city's population was Ukrainian as a result of that shift, and remains so today.

Not that the city does not have some ethnic diversity - later in the Soviet period people came there from many parts of the USSR. Those who identify themselves as Russians tend to fall into three categories:

a) the "old russophiles", as I shall call them for want of a better term: These people are the remnant of the russophile movement which was faitly strong in the middle decades of the nineteenth century but then waned. It did not disappear entirely, and was organized particularly in the Michal Kachkovsky Society.

b) Russian refugees - these people came from the former Russian Empire during the inter-war period. In general they were welcome, but they did not play any organized part in local politics. Almost entirely Eastern Orthodox by religion, they tended to group around Saint George's Orthodox Church on Korolenko Street.

c) Russians who came to the city during the post-WWII Soviet period. Most of these people (aside from the plague of Communist bureaucrats) were working people seeking employment in the city, where the economy was somewhat better than in most of the USSR.

One can still find people of all three of these communities today, both in the city itself and even in the diaspora in the USA. There was a substantial contingent of Galician Russophiles in America. By now most of them have melded into the larger Russian community in the USA; many have forgotten their connection with Galicia (which is not surprising, since the present heirs of that tradition are descended from people who came to America before World War I). It would be helpful and good for a student with the necessary qualifications to write a serious history of the Galician-russophile movement in the USA and Canada.

On the Ukrainian side of the discussion, the dreadful Soviet atrocities in Ukraine tended to be blamed on the Russians, with the result that the russophile movement was already in its death-throes before the end of World War II. The remaining russophile leaders and spokesmen were severely disillusioned by the Moscow Patriarchate's willingness to aggregate to itself anyone who could be dragooned in that direction from the Greek-Catholic Church, and paid little or no attention to the indigenous russophiles. In any event, the Soviet authorities disbanded the Kachkovsky Society along with every other political organization (the Communist Party of Western Ukraine was simply aggregated to the CPSU, and many of the local Communists were shot out of hand by the Soviets).

Fr. Serge

Hmmmmmmmmm! I am surprised Magocsi hasn't done this already.
I remember he wrote a short essay on "Ruthenians" in southern Ontario may years ago.

Isn't that the same accusation the Moscow Patriarchate was throwing around against ROCOR (and vice versa) not too long ago? Why are they not considered Orthodox if they believe in exactly the same thing and are in communion with other Orthodox churches (i.e. the Georgians, for one)?

As for the "g" sound, ask a good teacher of Church Slavonic (such as Prof. McLellan) and he will tell you that it is actually between a "g" and an "h" (you know, a voiced frontal dental labial velar fricative, or whatever).

My point exactly Danill, the KP is not recognized by any Orthodox Church. Yes, the communists did try to say that ROCOR was schismatic, but ROCOR was in unbroken communion with the Church of Serbia. ROCOR was the free part of the Russian Church whilst the MP was the enslaved part. Now that the Church in Russia has been freed, there are no more nonsensical accusations against ROCOR. The very act of reconciliation is due to the MP repenting of it's past and rejoining the ROC. And the same would happen to the hierarchs of the KP. Repent of their schism, and come back to the Church. The Serbian schism and reconciliation is a good example. There are good people in the KP. But they are in schism from the Canonical Orthodox Church in the Ukraine. And there will never be an Autocephalous Church in the Ukraine whilst schismatics threaten to destabilize the entire country. No matter how much you or I (yes, I would like to see it) wish for it.

I know Joseph McLellan very well, as we attended Holy Trinity Seminary together. We were taught Slavonic by the same instructor. You are correct in what you say for Slavonic. Russians who sound like Bulgars drive me nuts! LOL! Drug druga is just as wrong, if not more so than dru druha. There is no easy way to write it in latin letters but druxh druxha is as close as I can demonstrate it. Ask Joseph about the KP. I amsure that he will echo my concerns.

Alexandr

The real truth: Filaret. Very few people trust or respect him.
One he goes the path will be smoother.

orthodox christians have dificulties in Western Ukraine ???hahah, rather greek-catholics have problems to receive back their own churches from Moskow orthodox church