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Tim, thanks for the reality. If the current trend of decline continues for both, the end result will be the same, i.e. more "for sale" signs on church property, less places for our children and grandchildren to worship.

I still don't really understand the response to my question about the Mukachevo clergy working in North America. Were their attachment to the sui iuris identity so strong, and knowing English, I would think they would hasten to the Metropolia. They do not, and continue to identify themselves as UGCC. That is quite telling of how close the relationship really is.

But all the armchair ecclesiology aside, it is critical we really try to work together towards a common evangelical future as Greek Catholics and leave the wall-building alone.

Neil, reading your reply it seems to me perhaps it really is futile for us to ever consider a more Eastern ecclesiology after all, as Rome really has the final say in any small Church sui iuris.

The reality in Eastern Europe, political and sociological issues aside, is that the UGCC and Uzhorod have and continue to work closely together. It may not be formally a unified ecclesiastical structure, but informally there is constant interchange and sharing of greater UGCC educational, monastic, etc. resources to the Eparchy of Mukachevo, sharing of clergy.

It is very different than your example of Bishop John Michael studying with the Melkites. These churches share the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition, share the same liturgical rescension, etc. It is much closer than your analogy. In 1946 they were underground together, with the unity that comes from a common persecution and enemy.

One cannot deny the close working relationship between Blessed Theodore Romzha and Metropolitan Andrei, whom he was subject to.

There was also a time when Metropolitan Sheptytsky was able to garner a large and wide-ranging unity amongst Slavic Greek Catholics. Kyr Mikhail Mirov of the Bulgarians and he worked together to get some of the Russian Catholic priests (such as St. Leonid Federov) ordained, Kyr Dionisii Nyaradi of Krizhevci was one of his most staunch defenders in Rome, especially with regard to the Ordo Celebrationis.

I would hope we would try to point out the areas of commonality, instead of continually trying to point out the differences. If we cannot maintain internal unity, and strive towards an ecclesiology less directly dependent on Rome, we cannot realistically hope to achieve larger external unity with Orthodoxy.

Continuing to advance small microchurches sui iuris, who wait on Rome for every ecclesiastical decision, especially when these churches share a similar evangelical history, liturgical rescension, etc. weakens larger Greek Catholic unity, and gives much greater creedence to Orthodox claims that the intent of the Unia is to conquer and divide and make it all subject to Rome. That is certainly what has happened to a great extent.

I am not suggesting that the Rusyn churches give up anything, not language, not minor liturgical nuances they may have, nothing. I am maintaining if there is not a larger ecclesiastical unity, the same fate may befall the homeland that has happened here. If the church becomes too insular, "inbred", there will be a smaller and smaller pool of vocations, etc.

With a larger Greek Catholic unity, similar to the structure of the OCA, there could be a Rusyn Eparchy. There could be a Slovak Eparchy. There could be a Hungarian Eparchy, etc. etc. etc. But unified under a Greek Catholic Patriarch or Major Archbishop, working together and sharing resources, and not a club of red-headed stepchildren of Rome.

We may as well quit pretending we're Eastern at some point otherwise if the end desire is to become sui iuris directly dependent on Rome and completely abandon a larger Greek Catholic unified and Eastern ecclesiology. I'm just trying to brainstorm here and not advance any one triumphantalistic ethnic agenda over another, and look towards a future that is in the best evangelical interests of all.

Our Brotherhoods in America split apart in the 90's, the 1890's, and our episcopal structures here split just about as soon as there were started. So the effects of the perceived antipathy antedate quite some time, the cause you suggest.

I take your unresponsive, extended tangent on
"[t]he Ruthenian bishops of the Carpathians who were Magyarphiles ..." as a stipulation that your earlier comment is mistaken.

Whether, in the abstract, the Church has a mission to promote ethnicities, is a point which could be discussed at great (and boring) length. But another question is, I hope, clearer: in situaitons where the Church has actively assisted those who wish to deny people the right to determine their own ethnic identity, there is an obligation to make restitution.
Neil has offered some thoughts - including that interesting (if one-sided) web-site. I was amazed to find "iazychie" listed under languages - but enjoyed reading the entry. As to documented evidence and the whole issue of taking part in the Synod, please consider the matter of Blessed Basil Hopko, Auxiliary Bishop of Preshov (the throne was vacant, so there was no residential bishop for Blessed Basil to be auxiliary to). He attended, and participated in, at least the 1969 Synod which Patriarch Joseph held in Rome; there are photographs to prove it. There are also letters from Bishop Basil to the Patriarch, making it clear that Bishop Basil regarded himself as a full member of that Synod and continued to partcipate even though the Dubcek government would not let him travel to Rome for sessions.
Also in the way of documents, please check Patriarch Joseph's multi-volume series of documents. An entire volume is devoted to documents concerning the Eparchy of Mukachevo. Nobody else has published anything similar.
I have no reason to think that much of anybody is trying to convince everyone in Ukraine to become Galicians - and I'm at a loss to know where that bizarre idea could have come from.
It is not altogether surprising that an historical account of the Church in Ukraine before World War II might have failed to include dthe Eparchy of Mukachevo on a list - Transcarpathia was not in the same secular state as L'viv was at the time.
There seems to be a recurrent theme that the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church is seeking to deny the GCSSSCM their preferred ethnic identity - whatever it may be. But that seems based on some unclear thinking. It is entirely possible for several ethnic groups to coexist happily in one ecclesial body - several examples come to mind at once. It becomes even easier if even the would-be leadership of the smaller group has no serious ambition or program to create an independent country or a schismatic church.
Along that line, some questions intrigue me. Let us suppose, for example, that the students from Transcarpathia currently enrolled in the Ukrainian Catholic University / Greek-Catholic Theological Academy in L'viv requested their own chapel, which they would furnish with the best available examples of iconography from Transcarpathia and where they would use their distinctive chant (presumably in Church-Slavonic). Let us further suppose that the Rector permitted this chapel (and I have not the slightest reason to believe that the Rector would refuse, provided only that a suitable structure could be available) and that a good number of people from Transcarpathia living and/or working in L'viv began to attend this chapel. It is a safe bet that Patriarch Lubomyr and the ecclesiastical authorities in L'viv would be undisturbed (provided, of course, that the chapel and its clergy conformed to the rules of the local diocese - Mukachevo does not have world-wide jurisdiction). But would that please those expressing antipathy for Ukrainians? I wonder.
Or suppose that someone in L'viv organized a choir or a schola cantorum to sing some services in Church-Slavonic with Transcarpathian Prostopinije, recorded these services, and made CDs available. Would that please those expressing antipathy for Ukrainians? Again, I rather wonder.
As the Administrator has written, the Ukrainians are not sinless. But that, while theologically certain, does not in iteself prove that the Ukrainians as a community are guilty of such outrageous behavior against the GCSSSCM to warrant the assertion that "no self-respecting Ruthenian would have a Ukrainian in his house" (Time magazine, 1967).
I hasten to add that I have no personal stake in this discussion. But I have been following these matters for many decades, and I am strongly convinced that the division of the Church was artificial from day one, and has never served the best interests of the Church. This I am prepared to argue on historical and pragmatic grounds.
Now to plane a nice vacation at Verkhovyna - Transcarpathia is a gorgeous place, with lovely pure water, clean air, edible food (often quite delicious) - could easily become the vacation Mecca of Eastern Europe. But that will require a good airport at Uzhhorod and the development of essential tourist services - carefully done in such a way as to benefit the local community instead of destroying it, as has happened in far too many places around the world. Still, there's hope - has anyone visited the Hotel Cheremosh in Bukovyna?
Incognitus

For the record, really long postings without a space between the paragraphs are really difficult to read, especially on a computer screen.

--tim

No, but I hear the mineral baths of Rakiv are fantastic, with the mountains nearby, wonderful wooden churches in Seredne and Yasinya...ahhhhh

One could always teach for the Ukrainian Catholic Educational Foundation's summer English intensive which is in Zakarpattia and get an all-expense (except plane tickets) summer-long vacation.

I think it was appropriate for all bishops to participate in the 1969 Synod. Were they informed in advance that participation in said Synod was a formal renunciation of their Carpatho-Rusin identity and a formal acceptance of a Ukrainian identity?

Within the current borders of Ukraine today I think that all Catholic bishops should have voting rights in their equivalent of a �National Council of Catholic Bishops�. Observer status within the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Patriarchate would be nice but not necessary.

What I am trying to understand is why Hritzko won�t simply admit that Carpatho-Rusins are a legitimate ethnicity, one that is equal to the Ukrainian and other ethnicities that make up the current county of Ukraine. His insistence on forcing a single name and standard is something that no scholar is doing.

I don�t think so. There only seems to be a vocal small minority of people like Hritzko who seek to assimilate Carpatho-Rusins into the larger Ukrainian ethnicity and deny them their right of self-determination. People simply do not appreciate being labeled as something they are not. Why is it so hard to respect this?

Such a move would certainly help build up the patriarchate. It would also succeed in taking away a vehicle for the restoration of the Ruthenian Church in Mukachevo / Uzhorod. No. It is much better to help the seminary in Uzhorod flourish.

Since such a move would assist in building up the patriarchate (and its ongoing quest to gain legal status from Rome) I have no doubt that His Beatitude would welcome it. But it would not aid the building up of Mukachevo / Uzhorod as much as creating first class educational facilities within those eparchies.

I�m not so sure. Many of your posts in these threads are distinctly pro-Ukrainian. Your suggestions in this thread all seem to focus on how that Carpathians can assist to build up the Church in Lvov/Lviv.

This is as it should be. Christians are supposed to work with one another for the common good. It is not necessary for one group to try to assimilate the other in order for such fellowship and cooperation to occur. I am sure that most Ukrainians are unlike Hritzko and have no need to force people to be what they are not.

But Hritzko has stated that Carpatho-Rusins don�t really exist and that they are already identical to ethnic Ukrainians. Please be prepared for his attack of disagreement.

Yesterday afternoon, my girlfriend and I went to the Ukrainian Festival at the Ukrainian Homestead in Lehighton, PA. While in line for some pirohi, I was highly amused by the conversation of two elderly gentleman behind us.

"So, are you Ukrainian?"

"No, I'm a Lemko!"

"But that's Ukrainian."

"Look, I've been to my families villages, and they're not in Ukraine."

"Where were they?"

"Poland."

"Ooooh."

I was highly amused, and it reminded me of this thread.

Dave

Dear Administrator,

In reference to your statement about the Carpatho-Ukrainian Government of Monsignor Avgustin Voloshyn, please note that facts as you have presented them are not at all congruent with any history texts I have read.

Your belief that there "always were three (political) factions" in Subcarpathian Rus is not correct. There were many more, including notables such as the communists (minimum 25%), Hungarians, pro-Russian Rusyns (they often just called themselves Russians). However, the Ukrainians and Rusyns were counted as one group and not separately as you have mentioned.

Your belief that the term Carpatho-Ukraine "originated from Hitler and Voloshyn" is also incorrect. You are very much aware of the fact that the term 'Carpatho-Ukraine' in use during the WW1 era when a short lived republic was first established. The term 'Carpatho-Ukraine' was used in tandem with Carpatho-Rus throughout the whole interwar period.

You also claim that Ukrainian-Ruthenian president Voloshyn "was a nasty man". Yet he was one of the fathers of modern Czechoslovakis and was commonly refered to as one of the fathers of Czechoslovakia's Sub-Carpathian Rus. He seemed to enjoy the Pittsburg lime light. Only when he realized that a union with Czechoslovakia would not work to the benefit of his people did ne decide to support the establishment of a Carpatho-Ukrainian nation. At that point he fall out of favour with the 'Pittsburg crowd'. At the same time he became a hero to Ukrainian-Ruthenians in the rest of the world.

Monsignor Voloshyn was a highly respected Greek-Catholic Church elder who remained faithfull to his church and peoples. He was brutally murdered after the war by the Soviet SMERSH which was assigned with killing / assassinating 'political enemies'. In spite of what you claim, even the Soviets never accussed him of being a NAZI supporter. They killed him because he refused to join his independant 'Carpatho-Ukrainian' nation to 'Soviet Ukraine'. The plan had been to join to join Carpatho-Ukraine to a free, independant, and democratic Greater Ukrainian Republic where Rusyns would be masters in their own home - and not Soviet Ukraine.

Although President Voloshyn was tortured to death in a Soviet Prison, his legacy lives on in the hearts of the vast majority of the Carpatho-Rusyns around the world who are members of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. Your American belief that the USA is the center of Rusyn Greek-Catholic identity is nothing more than your opinion, but it does not reflect the vast majority of the Rusyns who have found, and continue to find, a home in the larger Ruthenian collective church known as the UGCC.

Although you claim that the USA Metropolia has "expressed great regreat", I sir have seen none of it in spite of the anti-Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church literature generated by your Metropolia.

When the USA Byzantine Metropolian was in Prajshiv (Presov) Slovakia recently, did he once ask for an appology from the Bishop of the now SLOVAK Greek-Catholic Church for having SLOVAKIZED and LATINIZED a Ruthenian Church he claims to represent ? It seems to me that when he visited, they had a nice chat, and that's it - why not ? he was after all among his people.

You claim that your Metropolia is the defender of the rights of the Ruthenians to self-determination, yet the USA Byzantine Metropolia watched as the Ruthenian-Ukrainian character of Slovakia was 'ethnic cleansed'. When will the Ruthenian deffenders of Slovakia demand that their language and rite is returned to Slovakia ?

Tell us what your USA Byzantine Metropolitan is doing to return the Ruthenian character of the Greek-Catholic Church in Slovakia ? or does he think the status quo is just fine (he seemed to be all smiles on the web site phote when sitting next to the Latinizer & Slovakizer )

Did the USA Byzantine Metropolia ever think about openly appologizing for the propaganda it issued against the Ukrainian Church which was the defender of the faith in Soviet Ukraine ?
Our Patriarch Joseph Slipyj was released after repeated requests by the Pope and President Kennedy from a Siberian Soviet hard labour camp where he had spent years suffering. In spite of his exceptionally poor health he managed to travel the world to promote the plight of the Greek-Catholic Church which was at the time the largest banned church in the world. He did this because of the renewed Soviet attacks on all dissidents and banned Christian churches. Yet at this very time the USA Byzantine Metropolia published anti-Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church propaganda. I believe in my heart that the pain you caused this near saint was far deeper than anything the Soviet gulags did to him.

WILL THE USA BYZANTINE METROPOLIA EVER ASK FOR FOR FORGIVENESS FOR THE HARM IT DID TO THIS GREEK-CATHOLIC ICON OF SOVIET PERSECUSSION ?

GET ON YOUR KNEES FOLKS AND ASK FOR FORGIVENESS OF THE ALL MIGHTY

I'm sorry you think my tone is harsh, but it seems to me, that your Metropolia is part of the problem and not solution to the preservation of Ruthenian identity - anywhere !

Hritzko

Neil,

Please do not quote me, particularly when I'm not in agreement with what you are saying.

Hritzko

I have asked to get addition information on these bishops with whom I'm not familiar.

But would it really matter DJS ?

Patriarch Husar supplied your Metropolia with proof that Ruthenian bishop Hopko had in fact declared that he was Ukrainian. Has this changed your Metropolia's web page. No... not one iota. You refuse to aknowledge that he was persucuted by the Slovak nationalists because he had declared himself to be Ukrainian (ie: Ruthenian nationalist).

Please see the following for more information:

Bishop Hopko - the Ukrainian-Ruthenian [ugcc.org.ua]

Hritzko

PS: There was a symposium recently at Kyiv National University concerning the whole Voloshyn era. It is available on audio tapes immediately and should be published by years end.

DJS,

I understand that the Ruthenian Church in the USA and the larger Ukrainian-Ruthenian Church split decades ago. However, I think you have to take these issues into consideration:

Outside of the USA, the Carpathian Greek-Catholics have always been part of the larger UGCC and are estimated to be no less than 30% of the church. This has never been an issue and we cherish our members whose roots are from the Carpathians. Rome has always aknowledged that outside of the USA the UGCC is representative of the Greek-Catholics from the Carpathian mountains.

You will be shocked to know, that the vast majority of Ukrainians I know in Canada and the USA (and I know a lot) have no idea that Mukachevo is a 'sui juris' jurisdiction. To them it's part of the greater UGCC. Their families shed blood to defend the church from both Hungarian & German facists and Communists. Now Rome parachutes 2 Latin rite bishop into the Byzantine see and tells the UGCC that it has no say in the matter.

The reality is that the couple of thousand 'distant acestors of Ruthenians' in the USA Byzantine Metropolia are not as representative of the Greek-Catholics in the Carpathians as you may think. We have more than earned our right to speak on the issue. Years of deffending, supporting, and building the Greek-Catholic church has more than given us this right in spite of what you think. It is after all a Greek Catholic Eparchy within Ukraine.

Hritzko

I have a great picture of me wearing a Hutsul costume. Unfortunatelly it was taken near Lviv and not in the Carpathians.

Hritzko

Dear Administrator,

I have already attacked your USA Metropolia - that's enough for tonight.

But I'm not attacking you when I say that I believe that Carpathian Rusyns are an integral group of the modern Ruthenian nation known as Ukraine. My opinion is the more common one, and the one I believe to be true.

I do not believe that the Union of Uzhorod is any more unique than that of Lviv of Przemysl Eparchies which entered into communion with Rome after the original Ruthenian bishops did in 1596. There are many who share my opinion.

I would respectfully ask that we agree to dissagree on this issue.

Hritzko