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Dear Friends, I just rad the follwoing on interfax which I know is a Russian biased news agency. Can anyone on the forum provide any info on this parish? I find it odd that a parish in Ukraine would choose to join the OCA and secondly if true that the Patriarch of Moscow would allow it. We all know how territorial the P of M is. http://www.interfax-religion.com/print.php?act=news&id=1859 2006-08-16 A Greek Catholic congregation in western Ukraine converted to Orthodoxy Moscow, August 16, Interfax - A Greek Catholic parish of the Intercession of Our Lady in the village of Kontsovo, Uzhgorod district, has gone over to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. A spiritual leader and mentor of the parish archimandrite Grigory, who is a vicar abbot of a monastery in the USA, sent a petition to the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America Metropolitan Herman, Moscow Patriarchate official website reported on Wednesday. Archimandrite Grigory and the brethren were accepted in the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church in America, and he gave his blessing to his congregation in Ukraine to convert to Orthodoxy. Thus a new Orthodox parish appeared in the Mukachevo diocese. All necessary papers have been drawn up recently. While in Ukraine, archimandrite Grigory asked Bishop Agapit of Mukachevo and Uzhgorod, who currently exercises spiritual care for the parish of the Intercession, to pay a pastoral visit to the village of Kontsovo. Bishop Agapit celebrated his first Divine liturgy in the Intercession church on August 13.
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Dear Miller,
The article is definitely quite scant on details. I checked the OCA website and there is no such announcement. Even if it was to be considered, I would dare speculate that such a move would not be in the best interest of the OCA as it would violate their territorial limits as defined by the Tomos of Autocephaly, thus causing problems with the Church of Russia. Also who this Archimandrite Gregory is a mystery.
I am sorry, but that is the limit of what I can find.
In IC XC,
Father Anthony+
Everyone baptized into Christ should pass progressively through all the stages of Christ's own life, for in baptism he receives the power so to progress, and through the commandments he can discover and learn how to accomplish such progression. - Saint Gregory of Sinai
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This would be extremely irregular!! The OCA has no jurisdiction in Ukraine or Russia. The OCA church is Moscow is considered an "Embassy" Church, for visiting American Orthodox. I can't, for the life of me, see the MP allowing this, especially on the heels of the irregular situation in the Sorouzh Diocese. I will check the Russian language sites and see if I can come up with more.
A somewhat confused Alexandr
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Thank you Fr. Anthony and Alexandr for your speedy responses.
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Michael, I do notice that on the Photos & Events [orthodoxmonastery.com] page of their site, Archimandrite Gregory and others did pilgrimage to Ukraine, including specifically Uzhgorod, sometime in the last few months. Many years, Neil
"One day all our ethnic traits ... will have disappeared. Time itself is seeing to this. And so we can not think of our communities as ethnic parishes, ... unless we wish to assure the death of our community."
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This is an aside to the thread, but what was the outcome of the investigation? I can't find anything saying anybody was found guilty of criminal wrongdoing (aside from the one novice). I did find this interesting at the tail end of the article posted: The source close to the Congregation for Eastern churches said that the academy and monastery were removed from Pataki's control and transferred to Bishop Judson Procyk of Pittsburgh. Procyk died April 25. One Vatican official says that, as far as relations with Pataki are concerned, the priests of Holy Cross may well have been mistreated. "These people appealed to me ... to mediate this dispute in a way that would do justice to all sides," said Fr. Robert Taft, vice rector of Rome's Pontifical Oriental Institute. "I did because I felt they were getting a raw deal." Andrew
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Maybe this "former Greek Catholic church" was just some property and a chapel in Transcarpathia owned by Archimandrite Gregory and his monastery from the time they were Byzantine Catholic, a sort of "metochion" or a "home away from home" for him and his monks that has now been officially accepted into the Orthodox Diocese of Uzhhorod and Mukachevo? I can't really think of any other reason why Metropolitan Herman would be involved. Also, notice that the article doesn't mention any clergy aside from Fr. Gregory--if a regular, functioning Greek Catholic parish church became Orthodox, one would assume that a local priest would be mentioned. As far as I can tell, the commute from North Carolina to Uzhorod is pretty heavy.  Dave
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Here are some related news stories in Ukrainian: http://orthodoxy.org.ua/uk/node/3250 (Notice the icon by Mila Mina behind the altar. Since she lives in America and did the iconography for the now-closed Holy Cross Monastery in Florida, I think it's safe to assume that her work was brought to Ukraine by Fr. Gregory.) http://orthodoxy.org.ua/uk/node/3284 Dave
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Glory to Jesus Christ!
The book "Churches of Ukrainian Sub-Carpathia" by Michajlo Sirochman (pub. Lviw, 2000) says this:
KONTSOVO: UZHGOROD DISTRICT
Church of the Dormition of the Most Pure Theotokos
Was consecrated in 1906; consecration was delayed due to difficulties finishing the interior decoration of the building. Built in basilican style. The population of the village in 1940 was mostly Magyar speaking, and consisted of 317 Roman Catholics, 186 Greek Catholics, and 19 Reformed Protestants.
In 1953, this church was taken off the roster of active churches and was converted into a storage facility. Many metal barracks were built around the church. In the 1970s, the baroque tower of the church was destroyed.
On 6. Aug. 1995, the Greek Catholic priest Fr. Alexander Legeza held the first GC service outside the church building. In 1996, local engineer Vasil Yurets restored the dome and tower to the church building.
The article gives two photos: one of the much-run-down building in 1955, and of the restored church and tower in 1998.
There is no further or more up-to-date information in the book about this church. It does state that it is a church of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Diocese of Mukachevo, in the Bezhovetskyj Deanery.
Prof. J. Michael Thompson
Byzantine Catholic Seminary
Pittsburgh, PA
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I just new as a follow up to the original news release. It has to be read carefully. The monastery under Archimandrite Gregory was accepted by the OCA, and it is located on the territory of the OCA.
The parish in Ukraine was accepted into the UOC-MP. It is in their Mukachevo diocese. Thus there was no transgression of Orthodox canonical norms.
The only issue is that both the monastery and the parish left the Byzantine Catholic Church. They both left the Byzantine Church for Orthodox Churches on their respective territories.
As to prevent this from going into a lot of speculation as it has already done so to some degree, I am closing this thread.
In IC XC,
Father Anthony+
Administrator
Everyone baptized into Christ should pass progressively through all the stages of Christ's own life, for in baptism he receives the power so to progress, and through the commandments he can discover and learn how to accomplish such progression. - Saint Gregory of Sinai
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