Dear Friends,
Just my two cents' worth with respect to the issue of saints and their canonization in history.
There always were controversial saints (and still are). When Pope Benedict recently canonized almost 500 Spanish Martyrs, there were those who considered this a political act given that the Martyrs were killed by one specific political side during the Spanish Civil War.
St Jan Sarkander in Bohemia and others canonized and beatified by Pope John Paul II likewise attracted negative comment for any potential political axes that were perceived to be ground . . .
In the (often sad) history of the conflict between the EC and Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe, there were also martyrs killed by one or the other side. Josaphat and Athanasius of Brest come to mind.
Both of these were villified by the side that opposed them. In dealing with this issue, I think that Christians can and should rise above the "natural" inclination to simply shout along with one's own particular side in the historic "debate."
Just a comment on the veneration of St Josaphat in the UGCC however. There is no one view of him or his context in the UGCC, only the viewpoints of those who write books. And just because someone wrote a book about him, this does not constitute the "final word" on interpreting this or any other historical person. Theologians have a tendency to deal with historical interpretations as if they were "proven facts" and this is simply never the case.
In the UGCC, those who promote Easternization and a return to our Eastern roots tend not to make the cult of St Josaphat a major issue. The reasons for that are clear enough. The "Latin camp" on the other hand will have none of the reduction of the cult of St Josaphat - also for reasons that are clear enough. And this is only within the UGCC itself - I make no comment about other jurisdictions or Churches.
That the Polish Kingdom had a vested interest in promoting the canonization of St Josaphat - that is true enough and even the book by Fr. Wysochansky, I believe, contains a direct quote from the Polish administration promoting his canonization to this effect. That is a sad commentary on the times, that a religious person would be used for political ends. But it happened, and it happened in other Churches, both East and West.
When the Orthodox St Athanasius of Brest was martyred by the Poles - he became to the Orthodox Church of Rus' what Josaphat was to the EC and RC Churches in E. Europe. In fact, the Eastern Catholics at the time did not see it this way either and often went on pilgrimage to venerate ST Athanasius of Brest as THEIR hero and saint since he stood up to the Latin Poles for their rights as well.
And because EC's honoured Athanasius of Brest (every time I have ever mentioned him and his life to UGCCers, they ask me why he is not on our own UGCC calendar!), the Polish Jesuits concocted a new feastday for Josaphat that was on Sept. 16th, two days before that of Athanasius - ostensibly to try and prevent another pilgrimage to Brest (which, truth be told, is an important place for Eastern Catholics!) to honour St Athanasius.
It was Met. Andrij Sheptytsky who returned the feast of Josaphat to November (I have with me a prayerbook published in Lviv in 1893 that lists the feast of Josaphat on . . . Sept. 16th - a day that had absolutely NO relation to the life of Josaphat).
The same thing happened, as we know, in Bohemia with the cult of St John Nepomuk that was apparently used by the Jesuits to expunge the honour in which Jan Hus was held by Catholics there - Hus is still a national hero in the Czech Republic and today even the Catholic primate attends services at his memorial in Prague on July 6 and Pope John Paul II openly "repented" of the way he was treated - in 1963 the feast of St John Nepomuk was "de-universalized" and became a local one only).
There is no reason why St Alexis Toth should not have been canonized or St Constantine for that matter. That Eusebius was a Semi-Arian made no difference in terms of the "efficacy" of the baptism that he conferred on Constantine on his death-bed. Constantine is honoured for what he did for the Church and there are 20 Byzantine Emperors and Empresses who are in the calendar (not necessarily as a first or second class saint for public liturgical veneration) who are there for the benefits they bestowed on the Church as well. The same is true for Bl. Charlemagne who was canonized by an antipope and whose cult became sufficiently prominent locally for the Church of Rome to maintain it under the title "Blessed" (at Aachen, Germany, January 28th).
As for historical references against this or that saint - we ALL have particular axes to grind. There is NO such thing as an historian or other social scientist who does NOT have a particular perspective he or she is promoting. This is why, in social sciences, the writers usually explain what their particular perspectives are (read: biases) before going on to analyze this or that. It is up to us to see whether we agree or disagree with the analysis on the basis of this "sociology of knowledge."
So I will read Catholic explanations of the life of Josaphat knowing that there is a definite Catholic inflection in the analysis and discussion. We know this ahead of time, just as we know that other discussions will go out of the way to villify him. That he made errors, that he was the child of his age etc. All this must be kept in mind. I've also come across at least two Orthodox priests who are professors who have started a conversation about St Josaphat with me. And when I remained perfectly neutral and silent on the matter, it was they who told me that in a united Church, there is no reason why Josaphat could not continue to be venerated locally etc. (!) So it is simply not true that Orthodox cannot be objective and sincere about such matters.
Saints were human and so were the people and processes that later officially established their cults of veneration.
And, once again, we should remember that there are, in our combined Catholic and Orthodox calendars, saints who were Arians, Miaphysites, Nestorians et al. as indicatd in Fr. Holweck's Introduction to his book "Dictionary of Saints" 1924.
St Nicetas the Goth was ordained a priest by Ulfilas, an Arian bishop who composed an Arian (or Semi-Arian?) creed. The Miaphysite Saints of the Church of Georgia, which entered into communion with the Orthodox Church, are now in the Orthodox universal calendar of Saints (including my favourite, St David of Garesja who was derided by Orthodox theologians of his day as "that putrefaction from Georgia."). There are other examples.
Even Arius himself was put into the Catholic calendar under June 6th as "St Artotis." When the Bollandists checked out the background of this "saint," they found that it was none other than the great heretic of Alexandria - and his name was expunged.
When a group of Ethiopians entered into union with Rome, they were obliged to expunge "Saint Pontius Pilate" from their calendar, even though both Pilate and his wife Procla (she is in the Byzantine Catholic and Orthodox calendars) are honoured in Ethiopia on June 25th.
Eastern Catholics, when they enter into union with Rome, must, as a principle, expunge those Orthodox Saints who were "vocally against Rome."
However, this did not prevent St Job of Pochaiv from having a Cause for his canonization introduced at Rome by the Basilians when they were in Pochaiv (and according to Fr. Keleher, this Cause was about to be completed when the Lavra returned to the Orthodox and it was then dropped - something also confirmed in the work of Met. Ilarion Ohienko).
That the Orthodox are not happy with the cult of St Josaphat - this too must be understood sympathetically by Catholics. St Josaphat was often "shoved down the throats" of Orthodox, even here in Toronto when I was growing up.
The whole thing unnecessarily added to unfortunate tension between EC's and Orthodox. When my piano teacher, who was Orthodox, once made a comment about a picture of St Josaphat she saw in our home, she was summarily fired . . . I still feel so badly about it as the whole thing was just so stupid.
At a church meeting before our Eparch, Vladyka Isidore Borecky (+memory eternal!) I once spoke up and said that we should simply not mention Josaphat at all to avoid offending the Orthodox. Well, let's say that comment was not appreciated by certain individuals - but our Eparch of holy memory said nothing at the time. He could have - and often did - speak to me in private. But he didn't say anything about this.
We know that the Eastern CAtholic Metropolitans of Kyiv historically opposed public displays of devotion to St Josaphat, as outlined in Fr. Ireney Nazarko's book on the metropolitans - such display was an "unnecessary provocation of the Orthodox" as one such metropolitan explained to the dismay of a particular religious order that didn't like his attitude.
And I think we EC's can today say that while we accept St Josaphat, that the nastiness surrounding the way his cult was promoted and used in history has badly, if not fatally, damaged his significance in a time when EC's and Orthodox are trying to emphasize the many, many things they hold in common.
Alex
Last edited by Orthodox Catholic; 11/15/07 12:30 PM.
