www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West St.Theodore Romzha:Greek Catholic Martyr

www.carpatho-rusyn.org/spirit/romzha.htm [carpatho-rusyn.org]

Glory to Jesus Christ.

Vladyka Teodor hasn�t been canonized by the Catholic Church (yet?) but I think he is as much a martyr for Christ (killed by the Communists) as, if not more than, the Tsar was.

http://oldworldrus.com

[This message has been edited by Rusnak (edited 07-27-2000).]

To me he already is a saint! In this day of Greek Catholic bashing, every mother/father or grandmother/grandfather of the Greek Catholic faith, should make sure that our Holy Martyr Theodore is a household name. His icon should have a special place of honor in every household. And we, the simple and struggling people of God, should continue to take the initiative and treat him as our Saint- from our soil and from our faith. Blessed Theodore, make us strong in the Catholic Faith, our great joy!

It appears that the tradition of the Byzantine/Constantinopolitan community is that the parish/diocese recognizes the sanctity of one of its members. It is legitimate for the parish to establish a place of veneration for the blessed son/daughter. Should the veneration expand, then it is clear that the Holy Spirit is working in the people of God.

So, for the holy Theodore, should his icon be presented in the church (or other shrine), and people continue to venerate it, then the church can legitimately endorse the actions of the people. (Hey, the Medievals had the aphorism: "Vox populi, vox Dei" ('the voice of the people is the voice of God'.)

There doesn't appear to be any legitimate reason to wait for the pipeline in Rome to start the whole process. We can start it ourselves; it is our right. And our bishops, who are not only ecclesiastically competent to encourage the veneration of a potential saint, but who are also (in the case of the Carpathians) closely allied to the holy bishop and his incredible fortitude in the defense of the Gospel, should not shrink from encouraging the faithful to study the life of the bishop, the facts of his witness, and to pray for his intercession. No sense waiting. There are also many who are strong in their support of our holy mother Teresa of Calcutta for the unwavering love she showed to the least of God's people. We shouldn't wait for the official paperwork to begin. This daughter of Albania set an example for all of us to emulate.

Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints.

I realize that Vladyka Teodor has not yet been "officially" raised to the honors of the altar as a Blessed but I don't seem to recall anyone mentioning the heroic witness of the Blessed Martyrs of Pratulin. Their sacred, martyred blood is a gift beyond price to the Church. Holy Martyrs of Pratulin pray for us!
Only blessings, Silouan

Brother Silouan, I don't know anything about the Holy Martyrs of Pratoulin, but if there are members of the community who honor their sacrifice, then perhaps a cult of devotion might develop as their reputation spreads. There are certainly many, many holy people whose lives would edify us and whose intercession would benefit us. But, alas, (I like that word) much of public devotion is directly related to publc relations. The icon of the Virgin of Mariapoch is a prime example. As a student in Vienna, I saw the icon in the Cathedral of St. Stephen and had no clue as to its significance. And I suspect that other visitors had no idea either. Would that I had known.

Mother Teresa was certainly a very public figure because of the press' interest in her life and work. And it's hard not to find both respect and admiration for an older lady who worked to care for abandoned infants, low-caste people who were dying, and outcasts like people with AIDS or leprosy. Her 'fame', as it were, gives witness to her faith, but it will also serve well toward her canonization. It's unfortunate, but the Ruthenian bishops and the Martyrs of Pratulin don't have Ogilvy Public Relations keeping their story alive.

But, I guess it is our job within the Church community(-ies) to make sure that the stories of these holy people are spread among believers.

Blessings!

For those who do not know the inspiring story of the Blessed Martyrs of Pratulin, here is an excerpt:
BIOGRAPHIES OF NEW BLESSEDS 6 October 1996

BL. WINCENTY LEWONIUK and 12 COMPANIONS were Byzantine-rite Catholics living in Podlasie, the eastern region of present-day Poland. After the 18th-century partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita), this area was governed by the Russian Empire.

It was the intention of successive Russian sovereigns to incorporate all Eastern-rite Catholics into the Orthodox Church: in 1784 Catherine II suppressed the Greek Catholic church in Ukraine; in 1839 Nicholas I did the same in Belarus and Lithuania; and in 1874 Alexander II pursued a similar policy in the only remaining Byzantine-rite Eparchy, that of Chelm. The Bishop and those priests who refused to join the Orthodox Church had already been deported to Siberia or imprisoned. The laity, deprived of their pastors, had to defend their Church, their liturgy and their union with the Pope.

On 24 January 1874 an extraordinary event took place in the village of Pratulin. Soldiers came to the village to transfer the local parish to the Orthodox Church. The faithful said "good-bye" to their families and friends and took new clothes for, as they said, they were going to fight for "the holy things".

At first the officer tried to disperse the people, but they refused. Then he promised some "favours of the tsar" for joining the Orthodox Church, but this they rejected as well. Then he started to threaten the people with many kinds of punishment but they remained in their places around the church. The officer understood that he was not having any success, so he ordered, his men to prepare their guns. The people knelt down, waiting for death and singing hymns. They said nothing offensive to the soldiers, but repeated among themselves: "It is sweet to die for the faith". The order was given and the soldiers fired, killing 13 of them. The martyrs were all laymen, most of them married and the fathers of families. They ranged in age from 19 to 50, with the majority in their 20's and 30's. They were ordinary people; we do not have much information about their lives. The general opinion was that they were persons of strong, deep faith.

The martyrs were buried by the Russian soldiers without any respect; their families were not allowed to take part in the burial. After their bodies were interred, the persecutors hoped that they would be forgotten. The tsar officially suppressed the Eparchy of Chelm in 1875.
They were solemnly beatified by John Paul II in 1996.

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Glory to Jesus Christ.

One of the thornier issues about proposed restoration of communion is what one does about saints on one side who were opposed to/killed by people on the other side. What of the men who resisted Chalcedon and were canonized by the Copts for so doing? What of Josaphat? Peter the Aleut? Alexis Toth? And what about the men of Pratulin? (I don�t put Bishop Theodore Rom�a in this problematic category because he was killed directly by Communists, not by Orthodox, and the puppet Orthodox Church he nearly was forced to join didn�t really represent Orthodoxy.)

I can sympathize with the plight of the Pratulin martyrs � they rejected schism � but hate it when such stories are repeated to put down the Orthodox Church.

>The laity, deprived of their pastors, had to defend their Church, their liturgy and their union with the Pope.

If they�d stayed Ukrainian Catholic they would have been Byzantine Rite. If they�d joined the Russian Orthodox, like a few Ukrainian Catholic clergy did at that time and others in the 1800s, they would have been Byzantine Rite. So, lowback chasubles and different music notwithstanding, how were they defending their liturgy? They were defending their union with the Pope.

http://oldworldrus.com

Glory to Jesus Christ ! The martyrdom of Bsp. Theodore certainly sealed the Union of Uzhorod in blood. His death brings to mind the martyrdom of another saintly prelate, Absp. Josaphat of Polotsk. Pope Pius XI, so concerned for the reunion of East and West, held him up as a "Apostle of Union " in his encyclical Ecclesiam Dei http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P11ECCLE.HTM

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 07-29-2000).]

Glory to Jesus Christ ! Rusnak, I think that it is fair to say that Ukrainian and Belarussian Byzantine Catholics who resisted incorporation into the Russian Orthodox Church were motivated by both concerns. By the 19th century the 1596 Union of Brest was very popular with many Ukrainians and Belarussians. They felt that communion with Rome preserved their national Orthodox religious cultures. They feared schism and Russification. They were right. Muscovites forced their typikon on these peoples. After WWI the Orthodox church in Poland faced an identity crisis. 1) The clergy had allowed themselves to be used as instruments of Russification: sermons were preached in Russian; Russian pronunciation was used for the Old Slavonic; catechisms were printed in Russian; popular hymns were forbidden during services, etc. I suspect that the priests, deacons and their familes formed little Russian speaking enclaves or colonies in these regions. 2) In addition the rural population mantained a vivid memory of the brutality used by the government to take over churches. These factors combined to make the missionary work of the Redemptorists and the Jesuits much easier. You might want to take a look at Stefan Bachtalowsky " Nicholas Charnetsky, CSSR, bishop-confessor " for accounts of such conversions and the hostility of the populace to the Orthodox Church. Some of the missionaries active in Poland during the interwar period include Fr. Walter Ciszek, S. J., Fr. Volodymyr Sterniuk, CSSR, Fr. Vasyl Velychkovsky, CSSR, and the most sucessful Fr. Nicholas Charnetsky, CSSR. Between 1926 and 1936 he and his fellow missionaries caused 50 "dissident" parishes to return to union with Rome. The Redemptorists later became bishops and all served time in Soviet prisons and gulags.

[This message has been edited by Doulos of Fatima (edited 07-29-2000).]

>Between 1926 and 1936 he and his fellow missionaries caused 50 "dissident" parishes to return to union with Rome.

I understand you�re a good person who wants to be loyal to Catholicism, but this approach to the Orthodox 1) is outdated and 2) never was right to begin with. Such �missionary� approaches to the Orthodox only widened the Schism further.

http://oldworldrus.com

Dear Rusnak,

Glory to Jesus Christ!

What do we do with these saints? I think the only solution is to revere them all!! In our (Byzantine Catholic) monastery we mention St. Josaphat of Polotsk and the holy hiero-martyr Theodore in our Litija prayers, but we also observe the feast of St. Peter the Aleut when it falls.

I don't what else we can do. Our theology tells us that the Eucharist all these saints received was the true Body and Blood of Christ. It follows that all this blood was shed for the sake of the one Christ. That's good enough for me!

And if all this veneration of each other's saints makes us more ashamed of our disunity, so much the better

unworthy monk Maximos

Why can't your Churches canonize these folks on your own? Why do you need to wait for Rome to act before its official?

Pax Christi,
John

Rome has taken away this right and reserved to itself the right to canonize saints.

quote:
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Why can't your Churches canonize these folks on your own? Why do you need to wait for Rome to act before its official?
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Rome has taken away this right and reserved to itself the right to canonize saints.

Yikes! All the more reason for the Orthodox to fear and distrust Rome. (N.B. This is not an attack on Catholic teachings as such, only on present Roman practice re: the Eastern Catholics.) Each particular Church can and should canonize its own saints, announcing new additions to the other Churches as they happen. This is how the Orthodox do it. Nothing in Catholic teaching about the papacy demands the Pope or his Roman Church usurp this from other Catholic Churches, or prohibits Orthodox praxis here from being the Catholic norm.

<A HREF="http://oldworldrus.com">Old World Rus�</a>

[This message has been edited by Rusnak (edited 01-07-2001).]