www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Bishop Named for Byzantine-Rite Catholics of Serbia-Montenegro

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
I have just one question. Is this and the eparchy in Croatia really a Serbian Catholic Church in everything but name? The reason that I ask, is that back when I was living in Minnesota (Pergatory), a friend of mine told me that she and her family were Serbian Byzantine Catholics.

Poosh BaShlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
Yuhannon

VATICAN CITY, AUG. 28, 2003 (Zenit.org).- John Paul II has established an apostolic exarchate in Serbia and Montenegro for that country's 22,000 Byzantine-rite Catholics, the Vatican press office reported.

Until now the territory, whose see will be in Ruski Krstur, was under the Eparchy of Krizevci in Croatia.

The Pope appointed Bishop Djura Dzudzar as the first apostolic exarch. He has been Byzantine-rite auxiliary bishop of Mukacheve, in Ukraine.

There are 17 parishes of Byzantine rite in Serbia and Montenegro, served by 16 diocesan priests, two religious priests and 55 women religious.
ZE03082802

As far as I know, most of the faithful in Serbia are ethnic Rusyns (as they say, Rusnaci; in Serbian, Rusini). Ruski Krstur is their cultural center.
http://members.tripod.com/~Papica/
http://www.geocities.com/ruskikerestur/
http://rdsa.tripod.com/

There are also Ukrainians there, e.g., in Novi Sad.

Yuhannon,

The following is from Fr. Ron Roberson's The Eastern Christian Churches and may help to clear up confusion on the origins and ethnicity of the Eparchy of Krizevci and Exarchate of Ruski Krstur

"Catholic Eastern Churches: From the Orthodox Church – Byzantine Catholics in former Yugoslavia

The first Greek Catholics in what would later be Yugoslavia were Serbians living in Hungarian-controlled Croatia in the early 17th century. In 1611 they were given a bishop who served as Byzantine vicar of the Latin Bishop of Zagreb. He had his headquarters at Marcha Monastery, which became a center of efforts to bring Serbian Orthodox faithful in Croatia into communion with Rome.

After a period of tension with the local Latin bishops, the Serbs in Croatia were given their own diocesan bishop by Pope Pius VI on June 17, 1777, with his see at Krizevci, near Zagreb. At first he was made suffragan to the Primate of Hungary, and later (1853) to the Latin Archbishop of Zagreb.

The diocese of Krizevci was extended to embrace all the Greek Catholics in Yugoslavia when the country was founded after World War I. The diocese included five distinct groups: some ethnic Serbs in Croatia, Ruthenians who had emigrated from Slovakia around 1750, Ukrainians who emigrated from Galicia in about 1900, Slavic Macedonians in the south of the country who became Catholic through missionary activity in the 19th century, and a few Romanians in the Yugoslavian Banat."

In my experience many, if not most, of the Serbs have come to identify themselves as Croats, at least those in the US. They have a parish in Cleveland , St. Nicholas, and had another in Chicago, SS. Peter and Paul which closed. St. Nicholas calls itself Croatian Byzantine Catholic.

In Christ,
Subdeacon Lance

I found this interesting:

"The church's artistically valuable iconostasis (icon screen) has been declared a cultural monument protected by state law."

[Linked Image]

Now, only if the US had such laws! We would have been protected from our own group of iconoclasts.

Joe

The bishops of Krizhevci have played an important part in the recent history of the Greek Catholic churches.

Bishop Dionisii Nyaradi was a close friend of Metropolitan Sheptytsky and was a strong supporter of his liturgical restoration and his work on the Ordo Celebrationis. He offered St. Leonid Federov land for a Studite monastery. He also ordained Kyr +Isidore Borecky of blessed memory to the priesthood before the outbreak of World War II.

Both he and his successor Kyr Gabriel Bukatko were responsible for assisting the Greek Catholic Church during the Nazi and Soviet oppressions by ordaining married priests for the UGCC in the diaspora. Until Patriarch Josyp was released and exiled to Rome Kyr Gabriel Bukatko ordained several married US and Canadian men to the priesthood to "loan" them back to the UGCC in North America.

There is at least one married priest from the Eparchy of Krizhevci currently serving the Ukrainian Eparchy of Stamford.

Kyr Slavomir Miklosh paid an extended visit to Metropolitan Stefan Soroka last year, and after that there was some chatter about the erection of a new eparchy. There is still very close cooperation between Krizevci and the UGCC as several of their seminarians are being trained in the US, Rome or Ukraine with assistance from the UGCC and they have reciprocated by sending some married priests to the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the diaspora.

May God grant many years to Kyr Djura. Eis polla eti, Despota!

CIX!

Lovely news! I hope they use Slavonic in services and follow Serbian practice... and that lovely traditional Serbian chant...

Next, time to re-establish the exarchate for Russian Catholics!

in Domino,

Edward

Amen!

Dobar Dan!

Kako se? Ja sam dobro.

Gdje je Krizevci? Im Hrvaska? Bog blagoslovjena Hrvaska tvoja Grecko-Katholika Crkvu!! 22,000 Grecko-Katholika? WOW! Hvalijen Isus i Marija!

Ja govorite Hrvaski srlo mali.

Zobogom,

SPDundas
Deaf Byzantine

I would agree with Lance above that the majority of the faithful of this eparchy would likely not identify themselves as ethnically Serbian but as mentioned previously Croatian or Coratian descendents of Rusyn/Ukrainian immigrants.

The Serbs have a very strong identity with the national Orthodox Church and the Greek Catholic Church has never had the appeal or following as in Croatia or Macedonia.

Zdravo!!

I might be able to shed a little light on this topic, being both a BC and a Croatian (mother's side is from Bosna...Hungarian and German on my father's).

The subject of ethnicity and of ethnic identity in the former Jugoslavija is quite complex. The actual differences between Serbs and Croats are very small. Both groups (and the muslim Bosnjaci) have nearly identical literary languages. True, the history of their development is different and they use two different alphabets, but they are mutually-intelligible. However, since the wars of the 90's, it has been the trend to list the language as Serbian or Croatian or Bosnian. This has replaced its previous (and in my mind, more correct) name of 'Serbo-Croatian., Really they are two dialects of the same language. Think of the difference as akin to that between British and American English usage. There is greater difference between the three main dialects spoken amongst the people in Croatia (labelled stokavski, cakavski, and kajkavski based on their respective word for 'what'), than between literary Croatian and literary Serbian.

So, if language doesn't make a Croat a Croat, or a Serb a Serb, what does? Geography?....Nope. There are Serbs in Croatia proper and many Croats in the northern autonomous province of Serbia called Vojvodina. In Bosnia and Hercegovina they are (or were, rather) quite mixed.

What makes one a particular ethnicity amongst this particular group of three (we cannot forget the Bosnjaci- Bosnian muslims) is Religion. Not only religion, though, but a subscription to a certain cultural mythos. Croats view themselves as a bastion of Western culture. The last outpost of Europe in the Balkans. The Serbs see themselves as an eternally-suffering sainted people who have (nearly single-handedly) kept Europe free from Islamic conquest. Etc. Etc...

Speaking as a Croat, and one whose family comes from Bosnia, I can without a doubt say that these particular cultural myths are very powerful, and are also mostly BS. There is very little that is 'European' in Bosnian Croatian peasant culture. The Serbs of Vojvodina and of Belgrade were far more cosmopolitan.

Anyway, I wanted to say this to illustrate the very tenous grounding of ethnicity in that area.
Really the only true demarcation was religion. This poses a host of problems, however, when discussing questions like the one you posed. This is also why BC's are not more popular, or numerous, in the area. They blur the lines of what is Serb or Croat. A good general rule of thumb, if they are in communion with Rome they are Croat. If they aren't, they're Serb. I know of a normally kindly old lady at the Croatian BC church in Cleveland that would punch your lights out if you ever called her a Serb.
That's just how things are. However sad that may be. (My wife is Serbian....were having business cards made that say "Rebuilding Jugoslavija one family at a time" :p )

Anyway, one can see how difficult it would be to identify discreet ethnic groups centuries ago. Could not a group of Croatians been Orthodox? Could not a group of Serbians become Catholic? Objectively speaking, do these distinctions actually exist on some sort of genetic level? Or are the differences between the two like I said? Since there is no BC church where I live, and I have been going to the Orthodox church, does that make me Serbian? Does this sound really stupid to anyone else?

I love my peeps but they aren't the most logical folk.

Anyway, that's my view on the matter. Also, the diocese of Krizevci which is located centrally in Croatia, to the east of Zagreb, uses the chant of Mukacevo. At least that's what my Irmologion says (I've never had the chance to visit )

Ajde bok!
-Drazen (Dylan)

p.s. spdundas: Da li ste Hrvat? Odakle ste?

Hej Sokol! Thanks for the explanation.

I was told that Elder Josaphat, a former Serbian Orthodox cleric who had a monastery in Banja Luka at the time of Kyr. Leonid, was an ethnic Serb. The monastery was closed and Elder Josaphat, if I'm not mistaken, was taken to a Serbian Orthodox monastery where he died some years after those events(?).

It's my understanding that while in Macedonia there was no latinization and the Slavonic liturgy with some hellenic elements prevailed, the Krizevci region as ba result of the ethnic problems, Eastern Rite Russyns, and Ukrainians were assimilated by Croats and their liturgical tradition latinized.

Ethnic Serb Greek Catholics did exist at the time of WWII, but the Ustashe regime persecuted Eastern Christians with unbelievable cruelty. It was not a dispute between Catholics and Orthodox, but the attempt by Latin-Rite Christians to destroy any vestige of Byzantine culture and tradition. While forcing the conversion of Serbs, conversion to the Byzcath Church was explicitly forbidden. They could only convert to the Roman Church, and the Eastern Bishop was replaced by a Latin Vicar.

Very nice post Dylan. You touched on some very important inconsistencies of the Southwest Balkans. You and your wife are very correct that ethnographically, the case that Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks are three separate peoples is very thin, and really politically motivated. Unlike the Balkans Turks (who ethnographically are different) the three groups are divided by religion. Prior to the term Bosniak becoming vogue, that particualar "ethnic group" was know as ... Muslim! Despite the fact that the characteristics of a separate ethonographic group (language, physical stature, complexion, documented origin of elsewhere) do not exist. And if you or your wilfe converted to the Mosque, you would become members of the Muslim race. You're right Dylan, that is incredible.
The Bulgarians differentiate between their many ethnic Turks and Slavic converts to Islam from Orthodoxy, whom they refer to as Pomaks.
Back to the Southwest Balkans (the former Yugoslavia and Albania), the Albanians regard everybody in the Republic, Kosovo, Presevo Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Greece and Southern Italy who speak Albanian (or can clearly be proven to have Albanian roots) as Albanians! The will not ethnographically divide themselves, even though they now have functionally six religions: Sunni, Albanian Orthodox, Bektashi Shia Dervish, Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic in Southern Italy (with a group that used to worship in Elbasan), and now ... Protestanism! The only thing consistent about the Southwest Balkans is their inconsistency! And of course ... bizarre politics!

Christ Is Among Us!

Three Cents

One could also argue that the Serbs and the Croats are differentiated from each other by which alphabet they choose to use. Incognitus

Dear Mexican, the resistance to the Studite monastery from the Serbs was significant. This opposition was partly due to Metropolitan Sheptytsky status as a Count in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it was he who was responsible for the presence of the Studites there.

His presence and activity intensified the opposition from the Serbs who were opposed to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and saw the Greek Catholics in general as sympathizers to the empire as many had emigrated from there. St. Leonid Federov often in his later days lamented the failure of the Studion in the Eparchy of Krizhevci because of political intrigue at the time.