www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Did Paul Newman have Greek Catholic ancestry?

I am always fascinated when I find out about people with Slavic/Greek Catholic backgrounds. Look what it says about Paul Newman's mother in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Newman

Paul Newman was half Jewish
Goldie Hawn is too...

Interesting...The article I read said that his mother was an Irish-Catholic, and indicated nothing about her either being of Slovak origin or a practicing Christian Scientist.

God bless,

Fr. Deacon Daniel

I thought truly ethnic Slovaks are either Roman Catholic or Lutheran?

Ung

I wonder if by "Slovak" they really meant "Rusyn"-that mistake is made all the time, even by those who don't know their true ancestry. His mother's family came from Eastern Slovakia - look at the area:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pti%C4%8Die

May God grant His mercy to him and his memory be eternal.

[Linked Image]

Eternal memory! Blessed repose!

U-C,

You thought wrong. How many times have we gone over this? There are actual Slovak and Hungarian Greek Catholics that are not Slovakized or Magyarized Rusyns. Slovak Lutherans and Hungarian Calvinists converted to the Greek Catholic Church in the 1800s. What is your reason for trying to deny this fact all the time?

Fr. Deacon Lance

Anna,

Not necessarily. Sometimes the Slovak or other ethnic identifier refers to the fact that a Latin Catholic parish was founded to serve a particular ethnicity. It is still common to find cornerstones and signs that say Polish, Slovak, Croatian, Hungarian, Lithuanian, etc. Catholic Church signifying this.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Other than a couple specific villages, there's not much evidence of a sizable Slovak ethnic makeup to the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia and the descendants of Greek Catholic Rusyns who emigrated to this country.

Most of the "Slovak" identity in this country in the Greek Catholic/Byzantine Catholic church is based on confusing geography with ethnicity in the setting of an American culture not interested in the fine distinctions of ethnicity.

In Slovakia, it stems from 1.) pressure during the World War II era Nazi puppet state, and, perhaps more importantly, 2.) Anti-Rusyn, pro-Ukrainiain pressure from the Communist regime. Without much of a Ukrainian ethnic consciousness among Rusyns in Slovakia, they mostly assimiliated into the surrounding Slovak identity, especially the East Slovak variant.

--tim

Tim,

They do exist and I am one of their descendents. My ancestors were Greek Catholic and Slovak. Letavic was the family name. They came from Bardejov. I've never seen a Carpatho-Rus researcher claim that name. I am not saying many or most claiming to be Slovak Greek Catholic aren't Slovakied Rusyns, just not all of them.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Sorry, my previous link did not work. Hi mother's people came from Pticie which is located in Humenne, in the Presov region.
However, it is a small village with a Roman Catholic Church:

http://www.pticie.host.sk/english.htm

So what's the difference between a Slovakized Rusyn and a Slovak? Just curious, I'm trying to wrap my head around this subject.

I would never argue with your specific family situation.

I'm speaking in general terms. Any study of ethnicity must generalize or we would be a planet of 6 billion ethnic groups.

--tim

I would say that someone expressing a Slovak ethnic identity is a Slovak. The term "Slovakized Rusyn" is better used broadly in a discussion of assimilation in the region than as a label for a specific individual.

I don't believe ethnicity is set in stone, but an evolving situation. Pre-1849, you would have been hard-pressed to find anybody proclaiming a "Slovak" identity, except for some intellectuals. Individuals would have generally identified by religion and by their village or maybe a larger region.

Broadening the discussion; pre-1900, the word Rusyn would have been applied to the people who now use the label, along with the bulk of the Ukrainian masses who had not yet accepted the ethnic identifier that is now standard.

Now it's more specifically tied to Eastern Slavs whose ancestral homeland was under Hungarian rule until 1918, and doesn't necessarily even include the religious identifier (first Greek Catholic, and later including Orthodox Christians) that it once did.

--tim