www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News New apostolic administrator for Eparchy of Mukachevo

VATICAN CITY, NOV 12, 2002 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Appointed Msgr. Antonios Aziz Mina, official of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, as bureau chief of the same congregation.

- Accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the eparchy of Mukacheve of the Byzantine Rite, presented by Bishop Ivan Semedi, in accordance with Canon 210, para. 2, of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.

- Accepted the resignation from the office of auxiliary bishop of the eparchy of Mukacheve of the Byzantine Rite, presented by Bishop Ivan Marghitych, in accordance with Canon 210, para. 2, of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.

- Appointed Fr. Milan Sasik, C.M., as apostolic administrator "ad nutum Sanctae Sedis" of the eparchy of Mukacheve, raising him to the dignity of bishop. The bishop-elect was born in 1952 in Lechina, Slovakia and was ordained a priest in 1976.

Many years, to the retiring bishops and the bishop elect.

Friends,

I wonder if, with the raising of Fr. Milan to bishop yet naming him apostolic administrator, we are seeing the beginnings of the intergration of the Eparchy of Mukachevo with the Ukrainian Catholic Patriarchate?

In Christ,
Lance

Dear Lance,

One could only hope . . .

Kidding, kidding! Please put that letter-opener down, Lance!!

You will recall the appointment of an Apostolic Administrator for the UGC Eparchy of Eastern Canada a few years back?

I don't know why Rome does those things, since there was no need to treat our Eparchy as if we were a mission outpost - and certainly Mukachevo isn't either.

Do you sometimes wonder what we are doing "in communion with Rome" Lance?

I do.

Alex

Lance just might at that Alex, but I do not, as it is this "in communion with Rome" that makes us Orthodox! :p

David

Lance,

Won't know until it happens, will we?

From the Ukrainian Catholic website we read the following:

"The autonomous status of the Greek Catholic Church's Mukachiv Eparchy has been preserved. It is formally a sui juris church not subordinated to the Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The Mukachiv eparchy, with its center in Uzhorod, is lead by Bishop Ivan Semedy and his auxiliary Bishop Ivan Margitych."

http://www.ugcc.org.ua/eng/ugcc_structure/structure/

... though Mukachevo's bishops are listed as bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on the very next page with no special notation of their sui juris status.

We shall see.

Alex asked this question:

"Do you sometimes wonder what we are doing "in communion with Rome"...?"

I would like to field answers to Alex's question. What are the reasons for our communion with Rome?

In addition, what would be the benefits of Mukachevo being "under" Kiev ... if this takes place?

Dear Cantor Joe,

The Mukachevo bishops always make it a point to tell Husar that they are not under him etc.

I have yet to meet ONE Ukrainian Catholic that questions that Mukachevo is sui juris etc.

We do venerate St Theodore Romzha and St Paul Goydich.

If that's O.K. with you guys .

Again, if Rome doesn't respect your status, it doesn't respect our status either.

And as I've said before, we have all the priests and faithful we can handle already, with more on the way, including Orthodox.

And if Rome ever DID want to unite your Church with ours, I would be among the first to say, "Now wait just a minute here!"

Alex

Alex,

What about your question about our Catholic communion? Do you see anything positive there? You seem to have a lot of negative vibes on this issue. Am I reading your posts wrong?

Dear Cantor Joe,

O.K., here goes with my list of the top ten benefits of being in Communion with Rome:

1) Someone else will do all the thinking for your bishops so they can avoid all those face wrinkles and grey hair that results from too much pondering and the worrying that results from it;

2) Our people can be constantly reminded how lucky they are to have the "fullness" of enlightened faith which they would not have otherwise had without Rome;

3) Costs can be saved on administrative matters like the appointment of your own bishops;

4) You will receive the promise of maintaining a married priesthood - again and again and again and. . .;

5) The maintenance of your Particular Eastern theology is assured - as long as it is in total sync with the only true Latin theology;

6) You will receive the blessing of all sorts of monastic Orders - Basilians, Redemptorists, Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Sister Servants of the Ray emanating from the Immaculate Heart of Mary and other long-standing Orders of the true Eastern tradition;

7) You can be a "sui juris" Church which means that all decision-making is in your own hands - dependent on the approval of the Curia, Vatican subcommittees, Prelates of the Congregation of the Eastern Churches. If your decision makes it through all these levels, there are still some Cardinals who may want to review it before letting you have your own way . . . one can't be too careful about schismatic tendencies among Easterners you know, invincible ignorance and all that;

8) While under Rome, your Eastern Church can have the benefit of having its saints canonized by the Pope himself - when he's done canonizing the Italian, French and Spanish saints - oops, almost forgot the Polish! Why settle for those insignificant Orthodox local canonizations . . .er, "glorifications" - is that what you Easterners call your canonizations?

9) Your Patriarchs and Metropolitans can receive the great honour of not only being appointed by Rome, but being consecrated by Rome, pallia et alia, in the company of many Latin bishops! Who wouldn't jump at the chance for such glory?! Some might even get to be . . . CARDINALS!!

10) AND, one more great benefit is that, while under Rome, we will let you pretend that you are equals and "in Communion." There is nothing that Rome would not do to make you Easterners happy to participate in the true light of the REAL Church!

Am I overly negative? Sometimes, I guess . . .

Alex

Dear Cantor Joe,

I apologise if I've gone over the top with my last post.

But I got a few things off my chest and will gladly receive correction.

I get set off this way whenever I hear the term "Apostolic Administrator."

It's like what happened to "Curly" of the Three Stooges whenever he saw a mouse and had to be pacified with some cheese - his father was a rat.

Back to unpacking.

Alex

Alex,

All the things you mentioned are basically jurisdictional. Even with all this, we are still the only Church were a Copt, Byzantine, Latin, and Armenian Catholic priest can share an alter. This is why the communion works. It means we can share praxis both objectively and sacramentaly. Plus, as far as I can see, the Latin idea of superiority in matters of the Faith are not as prevelant as they once falsely were. Thanks not only to Vatican II and HH John Paul II, but also to the continuing determination of our people to embrace their religious and spiritual heritage. Also, we must not allow the example of EAstern Catholics in America to cloud our judgement.
At least we know who to report to canonically. Some of our other Eastern bretheren are not so blessed.

Dmitri

I would not pretend that everything is as it should be between the Western and Eastern Catholic Churches...it isn't. That's a given.

Yet, why be Catholic? If I believed that only the Byzantine Church had grace, then there'd be no point to communion with Rome. Being officially "agnostic" as to whether other Churches had grace is not enough for me. I faced that dilemma once. It was not enough for me to say that I personally believed that these other Churches had grace but that officially our Church had no position (and that many of our people said they did not have grace!)

The Church is bigger than the Byzantine Church. It is bigger than the visible confines of those Churches in communion with Rome. The Church is "catholic" (note the small "c")--it is universal.

Staying where we are and working to improve the Church Universal is worth the effort, IMHO.

Dave Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

Alex,

No friend, I don't wonder about being in communion with Rome as I believe in my heart this is what the Lord wants. And besides, my Slovak Greek Catholic ancestors claim we were never out of communion with Rome anyway.

However, I do wonder about some of the curial and canonical anomalies we have to put up with. :rolleyes:

In Christ,
Lance

Just another observation...

Normal procedure upon death or resignation of a bishop is the eparchial college of consultors convenes, elects an administrator and forwards a list of three candidates for the vacant see. Also normally, if an auxillary bishop is in the diocese he is normally to be the one elected administrator.

Futhermore, where I come from (Cambria County, PA) Sasik is a Slovak name. So the Rusyn Eparchy of Mukachevo has a Slovak(?) bishop pending the finding of a suitable Rusyn candidate, which may be difficult because almost all the clegy are married?!

Just pondering aloud and digging for info from anyone in the know.

Hello everyone. I've been very busy these days, and mostly lurk here, but speaking of resignations, I thought this might be the appropriate time to ask if anyone has heard of the status of Bishop Pataki? Did he not also turn 75 a few months ago?
Thanks,
Bernadette