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Fr. Serge,
With all due respect, my studies were in the field of Politics and History. Those accusations were not off the mark. The Roosevelt and Truman administrations were full of Soviet sympathizers and/or NKVD operatives (i.e. Harry Dexter White, Alger Hiss, and a whole host of others-see the book "Witness" by Whitaker Chambers). This was later confirmed in hearings by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. They indicated, in a report, that, at the time of the Truman Administration, that there was a network of Soviet spies still remaining to be uprooted within the bureaucracy of the U.S. Government. General Marshall boasted of having disarmed Kuomintang forces in favor of Mao's forces. I've had considerable contact with Chinese Nationalists over the years. I agree with them that they were, in fact, betrayed.

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

Being, by "conversion"=ex-Latin, a Russian-Catholic myself,I
have a considerable interest in this topic, but am somewhat
confused as to how we became so involved with China and the
Kuomintang.The restoration of the Harbin exarchate seems to me
to be neither likely nor desirable.I agree with Simple Sinner
that not rocking the boat is Rome's policy at the moment and expect this will remain so for a long time to come.
The continued survival of the Russian-Catholic Church would seem quite improbable from a common-sense point of view: our congregations are widely scattered; we have no bishops, no seminaries, little communication among ourselves, are a stumbling block to
improved relations with the Moscow Patriarchate and the
Orthodox Churches in general and so on. Most of our congregations
in the Diaspora depend on Latin bishops who sometimes seem to
regard us as an anomaly or an irritation. We have lost our congregations in Boston and Montreal.Yet, we are still here.

We are also once again in Russia. Not many of us, to be sure,
but there never were many of us. In Russia, our congregations
have finally obtained canonical status by being placed under
the omophor of Bishop Werth, a hierarch known to be sympathetic
to Byzantine Catholics. Not an ideal solution, for we hoped for
an exarchate. We will continue to hope. Certainly nothing is
likely to happen until there are radical changes in the
positions taken by the Moscow Patriarchate and the Holy Synod,
and for that we have to wait on the Holy Spirit.

I have said
that our continued survival is improbable. Our God is a God
of the improbable. How many of us would have thought the election
of a Pole to succeed JPI was probable? Or that Cardinal Ratzinger
could be elected? These are only little improbabilities. Much greater improbabilites may occur to you. The history of the
Church is full of them. Come to think of recent events, the
reconciliation (for which God be praised)between the Patriarchal
Church and ROCOR seemed pretty improbable.

So, we abide. We will continue to abide while God so wills.
Condsider my own parish. Our first pastor expected the parish
to be dissovlved after his death. It wasn't, and that was long
ago. Father Deacon has told me that he expected the place to be
closed down on many occasions. It wasn't. It has been credibly
reported that on at least one occasion the Dicastery was asked
to dissolve the parish. They declined to do so. I cannot but
conclude that we are here because the Lord wants us to be
and will continue to be here while His purpose for us - whatever
it may be, the salvation of a single soul for all we know -
abides.

Greetings to Mitrophoric (did I spell that right?)
Archimandrite Serge of Dublin who has on several occasions
confused our choir during Litugy by praying in Irish.
Two parishioners do indeed speak Irish, but neither of them are in the choir.

Glory be to God for all things.

Edmac

Edmac,

Thank you for your comments.

As small as it is, the Russian Greek Catholic Church (RGCC) has an important role to play in Catholic-Orthodox relations. Of all the Eastern Catholic parishes that I have visited in the Los Angeles area, it is the Russian Catholic parish (Saint Andrew's in El Segundo) that fully expresses what the Holy See wants: to be fully Eastern in union with Rome.

There was an attempt in 2004 to re-activate the exarchate in Rusia:

COUNCIL OF RUSSIAN GREEK CATHOLICS APPOINTS ADMINISTRATOR OF RUSSIAN EXARCHATE [stetson.edu]

But, this was declared invalid by the Holy See:

Greek-Catholics in Russia restricted [stetson.edu]

OPEN LETTER TO HIS EMINENCE ARCHBISHOP ANTONIO MENNINI [stetson.edu]

In the late 1990's, there was discussion among the then three RGC parishes in the US to unite themselves under some sort of vicariate but it was never followed through.

I believe the offering of Blessed Leonid Feodorov's life for unity between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Chuch will ensure that the RGCC will survive despite all obstacles. I truly believe that.

I am only disappointed that Blessed Leonid was not given seperate recognition - as was done for Blessed Theodore Romzha-on the day of his beatification on June 26, 2001. He was included as one of the companion martyrs of Blessed Nicholas Charnetsky.

It's about time that a miracle happen through Blessed Leonid's intercession so that he can be universally glorified by the Church.

Holy Martyr and Exarch Leonid, pray for us!

Greigo;

Thank you for your post. In fact, the Russian-Catholic Church
dates from 1905 and, unlike most other "Uniate" Churches
was solely the result of a group of Orthodox people wishing
to be in commmunion with the See of Peter without any prompting
from outside sources. What is actually amazing is that the
Holy See welcomed this little group and recognized them as a
Local Church within the Catholic communion, and, upon being
queried, directed that they continue to live and celebrate
as they had as Russian-Orthodox "neither more nor less nor
differently". We therefore consider ourselves to be
"Russian-Orthodox in Communion with Rome."

I spoke much of improbability above. How improbable was that?

Have we had and do we have a raw deal from Rome since? Yes.
Does Rome prefer to pretend that we do not exist? Yes. Have
the Jesuits abandoned us? Mostly yes, but we owe them much
notwithstanding. Do we survive? Yes. Will we continue to survive?
I too believe we will. Russia desparately needs the witness of an Orthodox Church, which is what we are, that has never abandoned itself to a godless state,Rurik, Romanov, Communist or Putinist. This is in no way to forget the hundreds of thousands
(or it may be millions) of Martyrs and Confessors of the Patriarchal Church and of the Old Believers. We are at one with them in praying that Russia may once again become Holy Russia.
Great spiritual power lies latent in Russia, such absolute
devotion to God, such self-abnegation, such courage, such
endurance!

Through the prayers of the Most Holy Bogoroditsa, of
Prince Vladimir the Great, Grand Prince of Rus', Equal to the Apostles, of St. Olga,of our Fathers Among the Saints Anthony and Theodosios of the Monastery of the Caves of Kiev, of Saints Sergius of Radonesh and Seraphim of Serov, of the Holy Great Martyr Barbara, of Saint John of Kronstadt,of the Holy Confessors Leonid and Clement, and of all the Holy Martyrs
and Saints of Russia, may Russia come to herself and manifest the
Light of Christ to a dark world.

Voistinu Voskrese!

Edmac

One can recognize the authoritarian and corrupt reality of Chiang's regime while still opposing the Communists.

It bare consideration that our American ideals and sensibilities on good government might (in a nation that just two decades before had been a monarchy)not have been as important of concearns 70 years ago in China... This does not excuse all atrocities, or abuses... BUT when chosing between the two factions, I think one is a lesser evil than the other.

Father Deacon Robert supports the notion that the US Government "betrayed" the Kuomintang to the Communists. To strengthen his arguments, he recommends:


As it happens, I also have qualifications in Political Science and History. But perhaps it is appropriate to refer to Whitaker Chambers at this time of year - his revelations were contained in the "Pumpkin Papers", and Hallowe'en is only a few days off.

There were far more intelligent people, having no connection with pumpkins (beyond the possible consumption of pumpkin pie on occasion) who openly advocated cutting support for Chiang Kai-Shek and his motley crew at the time - try reading the US White Paper on the subject.

But again, the KMT, Chiang Kai-Shek, his loony wife and his incredible rump of support all had one thing in common: they had not the faintest connection with Byzantine Russian Catholics, and the remaining shadow of the KMT on Taiwan also has no connection with Byzantine Russian Catholics. So let us leave them all to the Great Pumpkin and get back to the subject.

Fr. Serge

The welcome news of the restoration of the Orthodox Cathedral in Shanghai (where Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco served) is itself a joy, and encourages the hope for the restoration of the Greek-Catholic Exarchate in China.

Fr. Serge

It is basic Catholic morality that one cannot choose evil to produce a greater good at any time. However painful, one must look at the abuses of each side and not call black, white. This is , to me, what people like Cardinal Spellman did with Chiang's regime.

Dear Fr. Serge:

Since I cannot upload the link provided by Alexandr, is there another accessible link that can be used as a reference?

Knowing that the Communist authorities have designated the following religions as "native" to China, it's difficult to imagine a sudden change of heart by allowing the "restoration" of the Orthodox Cathedral of Shanghai:

(1) Confucianism;
(2) Buddhism;
(3) Islam;
(4) Protestantism; and
(5) Catholicism (the CPA, that is).

Unless, of course, it is part of the charade the Beijing regime now plays to buttress its "recognition of religious freedom" in time for the 2008 Summer Olympics?

Am waiting to see what Edward Yong comes up with. I'm also aware that where the Chinese government is concerned, patience is usually wise - they dislike being second-guessed (so do most people, in fact). Right now, I recommend prayer.

Fr. Serge

Turns out that there was a quite active Greek-Catholic parish in Shanghai during the inter-war period. I wonder if the church edifice is still intact.

Fr. Serge

Lyceum St. Nicholas, Harbin, 1929-1949 http://rumkatkilise.org/lyceum.htm

Anybody know much about Archimandrite George? He looks like he would have an interesting back story to him!

Father Archimandrite George led his people to Australia and founded the Russian Greek-Catholic parish in Melbourne (which probably explains the photograph of Bishop Andrew visiting there). Last I know of, Father George (whose full surname is Brianchaninov, incidentally) is still alive but retired.

Fr. Serge

Ah thank you Father.

There was an interesting webpage I stumbled accross last week or so... but cannot find it now. It is a Russian Catholic priest's site that is mostly in Russian, with an article he wrote on the history of the Byzantine Russian Catholics that was in English. Father of four (so I am pretty sure he is married, heheh) serving in Russia. 90% was in Russian, the article on the history of Russian Catholics was also in English though...

Ring any bells? I forgot to book mark it.