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Administrator:

I would have preferred that you kept your editorial characterizations to yourself, or at least, dealt with them privately through PMs. It would have been more appropriate, elegant, and fair. It would have been less stressful.

I question why you ask that an ethnic affiliation survey of the Uzhorod Seminary be done to maintain status on this board/forum. Who else on this board has been asked to do a similar survey, for comparable reasons--what is the precedent? How would this task be proportional to whatever the perceived misdeed was? How would such an exercise affirm our Communion and Orthodoxy, or even resolve long-standing ethnicity issues of the region?

And finally, who are the "we" in we will consider his status as a member of the Forum community. Is this a royal "we", and you will act unilaterally? Or is this an invitation to a participative and transparent democratic process? If so, I want no part in being "we".

It is obvious that you feel strongly about this situation. I suspect that perceived ethnocentricity is the culprit. My reading of the postings is different. What I see is an ongoing theme of Grand European geo-politics impacting on the individual religious and social reality of Eastern Europeans--a situation that is so vividly evident in Ukraine, even to this day.

You are right about Mukachiv, and its a prime example. That eparchy is not part of the UGCC; it is directly subordinate to the Patriarch of the West--quite an unorthodox situation that developed out of past political and dynastic realities, and I doubt that the religious aspirations of the faithful directly involved were ever considered.

Now lets get back to the status quo ante, and play by the rules (be nice and be charitable).

Anthrodox

Anthrodox does have a legitimate point. Anyone who is not interested in the ethno-nationalist quarrel under discussion has not the slightest obligation to read the stuff. On this sort of forum, silence does not indicate tacit consent, it can indicate lack of time, unconcern, an unwillingness to become involved, and so on. There are sections of the forum that I've never opened, and no doubt others behave similarly in that regard, just as most people do not read the daily newspaper from cover to cover.

Incognitus

Anthrodox,

Thanks for your post.

I submit that it is Hritzko, not me, that is causing stress on the Forum. In past weeks I have received many PMs and e-mails complaining about him. Most of them give reasons very similar to what djs posted above. Hritzko states something as fact, claims its well documented and then ignores points that others have made that disagree with his opinions.

You ask:
I question why you ask that an ethnic affiliation survey of the Uzhorod Seminary be done to maintain status on this board/forum. Who else on this board has been asked to do a similar survey, for comparable reasons--what is the precedent?

Who else on the Forum has taken upon himself to determine that a particular ethnicity does not exist?

What are the reasons for asking Hritzko to do a survey? To encourage Hritzko to actually talk with people who live in Uzhorod who believe that they don�t consider themselves to be Ukrainians (Hritzko claims such people don�t exist).

Is there a precedent? No. Does there need to be? Why? Is it not reasonable to ask someone making a claim that a particular ethnic group does not exist talk with people in the geographic region where the natives believe that they do exist?

But you are correct. I did not mean to make taking a survey a requirement for participation on the Forum. I meant to indicate that anyone making a claim should back it up with rock-solid source materials. Scholars recognize Carptho-Rusins as one of four ethnicities that make up the East Slavic group. The UGCC also recognizes this. Hritzko rejects it. He has a right to his opinion on the issue but he should not continue to present his opinion as fact without providing indisputable evidence. My comments about his future participation here were based on his recent nastiness towards others.

You ask:
How would this task be proportional to whatever the perceived misdeed was?

Proportional? I�m not sure it is a question of proportionality. It�s more of a question of speaking with the �source material�, the real people involved in the issue.

You ask:
How would such an exercise affirm our Communion and Orthodoxy, or even resolve long-standing ethnicity issues of the region?

Such an exercise would not directly affirm our Communion and Orthodoxy.

Such an exercise could convince one Ukrainian ultra-nationalist that the people known as �Carpatho-Rusins� actually exist, wish to continue to exist, and expect the right of self-determination regarding their ethnicity. Acknowledging that others have the right of self-determination is always a good step towards healing long-standing ethnic issues.

You ask:
And finally, who are the "we" in we will consider his status as a member of the Forum community. Is this a royal "we", and you will act unilaterally? Or is this an invitation to a participative and transparent democratic process? If so, I want no part in being "we".

Whenever a Forum participant generates ill will among other participants (to the point where other participants and readers start regularly complaining to me or the moderators) I discuss the situation with at least one of the moderators (always Hieromonk Elias and usually one other). Since I don�t follow every thread there are also occasions where moderators bring issues to my attention and recommend corrective action. In the more than six years of the existence of this Forum I have never suspended the posting privileges of any Forum participant without first consulting with at least one moderator. The �we� is definitely not a �royal we�. The opinions of participants are always considered but participants do not make the decisions. Several Forum participants can testify that I am extremely loathe to suspend the posting privileges from anyone.

You wrote:
It is obvious that you feel strongly about this situation. I suspect that perceived ethnocentricity is the culprit. My reading of the postings is different. What I see is an ongoing theme of Grand European geo-politics impacting on the individual religious and social reality of Eastern Europeans--a situation that is so vividly evident in Ukraine, even to this day.

You might be correct.

One thing no one has ever accused me of is being a �super Slav� (a super slob, maybe, but never a �super SLAV�). For the most part I stay away from ethnic discussions. When someone asks me about my ethnicity I always respond simply with �American�.

What does annoy me greatly is when I see someone giving great disrespect to another person or group. The Communists very much violated many ethnic peoples (including Ukrainians) with their forced Russification. Some Americans still violate the rights of others based upon their skin color or ethnicity. In this case we have someone stating that the Carpatho-Rusin ethnic group does not exist yet I know people from that group who live in Uzhorod who say they do. Hritzko eyes are closed to their testimony and he believes they don�t exist. From my read of what he has posted he is blinded to respecting their testimony by his excessive Ukrainian nationalism.

Thank you for the reminder about charity. It is always the first rule of the Forum.

Admin

Dear All,

I'm on vacations this week and away from both of my offices, and that is why I'm not posting more than once per day. Cape Cod is great as usual.

Will print survey tomorrow when it is complete.

Hritzko

Hritzko�s study is flawed. Nowhere does he ask the seminarians what ethnic group they considered themselves to belong to. How can one do a survey on ethnicity without asking such a question?

Questions 6 and 7 are identical. These seminarians live in the nation called Ukraine (6). These seminarians are nationals of the country of Ukraine (7).

One could easily reword it and ask a group of seminarians who are children of Ukrainians who were forcibly relocated by the communists and who are now studying in Moscow similar questions and anticipate similar answers:

(1) Question: What church do you belong to?
Answer: All of the students responded that they belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church.

(2) Question: What is the language of teaching in your schools and seminaries?
Answer: Russian

(3) Question: Where you required to learn any other languages ?
Answer: About 2/3rds study English and 1/3rd Greek as a second language.

(4) Question: What is the liturgical language?
Answer: Church Slavonic

(5) Question: What is the language of communication between the students?
Answer: Russian

(6) Question: What language do you speak at home?
Answer: Russian

(7) Question: What nation do you belong to?
Answer: Russia (I carry a Russian passport)

(8) Question: What is your nationality ?
Answer: Russian (I am a citizen of the Russian nation)

(9) Where do you plan on serving once you graduate ?
Answer: Varied - Russia.

(10) Who is the head of your church ?
Answer: Patriarch Alexis

Based on the design (including sample size) of the study, how it was conducted and the congruency of the results between the three pollers, the following conclusions can be made:

(1) The seminarians who are children of people forcibly relocated by the Communists consider themselves to both ethnically Russians and citizens of Russia. They speak Russian when they return home to visit their families.

(2) The language of the liturgy is Church Slavonic and instruction at the seminary is Russian.

(3) It seems most of the students want to remain in the Russia where there home are. Three said they would like to experience assignment in other areas of the country, Europe, or elsewhere.

OTHER COMMENTS:

I hope that this small well designed and executed survey will bring closure to the issue of the nationality of the students at the seminary.


Hritzko�s study is meaningless. In a survey on ethnicity he failed to ask even one direct question about ethnicity. Asking what nation one lives in doesn�t cut it. It also appears that he used three people to ask questions with no monitor from an independent group to assure balance.

I ask Hritzko to provide me with the name of the person he spoke with so that I may contact my friend at the Uzhorod seminary and ask him to ask the questions about ethnic identity that Hritzko chose not to ask:

Question (11): Do you believe that the Carpatho-Rusin people constitute an ethnic group that is distinct from the Ukrainians?

Question (12) � What ethnic group do you consider yourself to be part of?

My post dated 9-01-2004 at 11:04 PM was a response to Hritzko�s earlier post, (at about 10:30 PM) which he has now removed.

I am letting my response to him stand. The section of my post above that is in italics is the list of questions Hritzko says he asked in his telephone conversation with 16 students at the Uzhorod seminary. I had edited the responses as if he were asking the questions of Ukrainians living in Russia. My point in doing so was to highlight that his questions did not address ethnicity. A survey seeking information on what people believe about their ethnicity should necessarily include questions on the ethnic group they believe they belong to.

A friend of mine who is Ukrainian wrote this in an e-mail to me yesterday:

The Carpatho-Rusyns are a separate East Slavic group, one of the four that there are. They have their own Church and life and they are NOT Ukrainians! The UGCC recognizes this fact as well. � The sociologist Prof. Isajiw at the University of Toronto once wrote that ethnic identity is, first and foremost, experienced in the heart.

SLAVA ISUSU CHRISTU!

Why don't we just have Incognitus call Fr. Taras at the Seminary or even Fr. Zajac and ask them if any of the seminarians talked to HRITZKO. It would be a simple yes or no answer....

I'm willing to chip in for the phone call...

works for me...

mark

Mark,

I have thought about calling directly since both Father Taras Lovska (the rector who often visits the United States and spent part of a summer a few years back visiting my pastor) and Father John Zeyack (a visiting professor from the United States) speak English. I may do that at some point but my �things to get done or else� list at the moment is very long. For the moment I think I will rely on e-mail. Father John Zeyack writes a regular column for the Eastern Catholic Life newspaper. It�s written as a travelogue of Fr. John�s life in Uzhorod. While its purpose is not to document differences between the Carpatho-Rusin and Ukrainian ethnicities it often touches on the differences and similarities. Fr. John often describes a very friendly relationship between the Carpatho-Rusin and the Ukrainian Churches but the Carpathian Church is always described as a different Church and the Rusins as a different people.

I had hoped that Hritzko would use the opportunity of a survey to ask the people at the Uzhorod seminary what they thought about their own ethnicity. His account of the questions he asked indicates that he is not interested. But the idea remains a good one and might be conducted so as to be useful to scholars if developed on a professional level.

Admin

Let me recap this:

From an recent ad hoc survey of some sixteen participants at what I assume to be the Blessed Theodore Romzha Greek Catholic Theological Academy in Uzhorod, those respondents declared themselves to be:

• of Russian ethnicity,

• with Russian passports,

• affiliated with the ROC(MP),

• and the language of instruction at the Academy is Russian.

Did I get it right?

No

Not quite. Please re-read my reposting of Hritzko�s survey results, especially the part where I noted that the same questions asked of Ukrainians living in Russia could not logically be used to consider them to be Russians.

In reposting Hritzko�s survey I changed �Ukrainian� to �Russian� to highlight that his questions did not begin to address the ethnicity of the people at the seminary in Uzhorod. The example used was some of the over 1 million people Ukrainians deported to the Soviet Union in the 1940s. They may today speak Russian in their everyday lives, carry a Russian passport and be part of the Russian Orthodox Church. They are still who they are and still who they wish to be � Ukrainians living within the borders of Russia.

One could find any number of similar examples. Ukrainians living in Poland may speak Polish in their everyday lives, carry a Polish passport and be citizens of Poland. Yet they should be free to continue to be ethnic Ukrainians and live the Ukrainian way of life.

Using the logic Hritzko has promoted the Ukrainians living within the Russian borders would not be ethnic Ukrainians living in Russia but ethnic Russians.

Using the logic Hritzko has promoted the Ukrainians living within the Polish borders would not be ethnic Ukrainians living in Poland but ethnic Poles.

I hope my point is understandable.

The borders have changed. The people of Transcarpathia have not. They are still the same ethnic group they have always been � Carpatho-Rusins.

Administrator, I don't mean to be obtuse on purpose.

What then were the responses to the survey, as submitted to you? I'm specifically interested in responses to question 1 and 10.

Anthrodox

I'm not trying to be obtuse either - but I honestly do want to know whom Hritzko spoke with, what questions Hritzko asked, and what answers he reports.
My linguistic attainments are such that I could probably carry on an intelligible - if not intelligent (on my part) conversation with someone in Transcarpathia over the telephone, but until I know what Hritzko has reported, I would be a little worried about what, precisely, to ask, and how to phrase the questions in such a way as to seem as neutral as possible. I would also want to find one of those gadgets that records telehpone conversations directly from one's telephone.
On the other hand, I've all too often had the experience of finding myself with a telephone connection that drastically reduces the intelligibility of the conversation (this happened only a week or so ago when I was trying to converse with a friend in L'viv). The result is an annoying waste of money and little or nothing to show for it.

Incidentally, on the linguistic front, there are quantities of material written in what was then known as Carpatho-Russian (and is still called by that name in some circles) in the nineteen-thirties to do with the ecclesiastical "bor'ba". While the content is dated, a study of the language used could be of considerable interest, since much of these materials would have been written in a rush and will thus represent the idiom in which these people actually thought.

Incognitus

Dear Folks,

I'm hoping to post survey results once they are completed - and they are far from completed. To be safe, you may want to wait until Saturday, or Sunday. I have to question 600 more students between now and then.

Preliminary information indicates nobody is 'Soviet' oriented. phwewww !!


Thanks.

Hritzko

The responses were not submitted directly to me but posted in this thread. Hritzko then deleted them in the time alloted by the forum software.

If I remember Hritzko�s post from last night correctly, the answer to Question 1 was simply the �Greek Catholic Church� and the answer to Question 10 was the name of their local bishop. (Except for changing �Ukrainian� to �Russian� and adapting some of the answers most of the section in italics was an exact reposting of what Hritzko originally posted).

Hritzko announced last night that based upon the 10 questions and interviewing 15 of the 95(?) seminarians the people of Carpathia considered themselves to be ethnic Ukrainians, not Carpatho-Rusins and that he considered the matter closed. But he removed that post and now seems to be in the process of contacting the seminary again to ask questions of 600 more students at the Uzhorod Seminary. [I knew they were ordaining about 12 priests a year but hearing they have 600 students is incredible!]

If Hritzko is indeed planning to contact the seminary again I highly recommend he post the questions he intends to ask once again and allow discussion. The questions he posted last night did not indicate any questions about what the Carpathians thought about their own ethnic identity. Without such questions the survey is totally meaningless and a waste of Hritzko�s time. I am also hoping that he provides a few names so that his study can be verified. [A much better way of conducting the survey is to assemble the questions (with input from the Forum community), get them vetted by experts who have no direct involvment in Slavic issues, and work with one or two individuals at the seminary to gather the information. A printed survey could easily be printed and mailed, etc.]

I expect that a well done survey will find that the seminarians consider the Carpatho-Rusin ethnic identity to be different from the Ukrainian ethnic identity and are proud of who they are, but that they feel they are indeed �ethnic cousins� as are all Slavs. I further expect that such a survey would indicate that, because there is no effort to protect the Carpatho-Rusin ethnic minority, the Carpathians living in Ukraine are already starting to assimilate into the larger Ukrainian nationality and ethnicity (just like the Carpathians living in Slovakia are very much �Slovakized�).