www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Will St. Nicholas Monastery in Mukachevo ever be returned to Ruthenian Catholics?

Nobody has title deeds dating back to Adam and Eve for any piece of property - shall we discuss how the settlers obtained land from the Native Americans?

But perhaps one might suggest a couple of practical guidelines:

1) was a property transfer which we might today consider outrageous nevertheless legally accomplished under the recognized laws of the time and place?

2) To what extent is there a living memory of the earlier/original ownership of the property in question?

Applying this to Saint Nicholas Monastery: in 1646 or thereabouts, the transfer of the monastery and other then-Orthodox ecclesiastical properties was certainly accomplished legally under the recognized, existing laws of Hungary. Similarly, Protestantz gained possession of a lot of Catholic properties under the same rule, usually stated as cuius regio, eius religio. That principle has no validity now, but it did then - so the Catholics cannot go before the courts and demand the return of everything the Protestants got at that time.

After World War II, however, the situation was different: the USSR belonged to the United Nations (and participated in the Nuremburg trials) and therefore accepted international law on freedom of religion. The monks at the monastery were unceremoniously and forcibly removed from their monastery and trucked off to a "concentration monastery", whence they were eventually got rid of in unpleasant ways. There was not even the pretense of any legality about it.

In this present year of grace, 2006, there are still people alive who can remember the Greek-Catholic monks at Saint Nicholas Monastery and who themselves have connections to the place.

So it might be reasonable to suggest that the monastery be returned to its use as a Greek-Catholic monastery and, at the same time, that a new monastery be constructed for the Orthodox nuns. The result would be that the Orthodox nuns would have a new church and monastery complex, with all the mod cons, and the monks would have the historic monastery. So both communities could feel better off.

Fr. Serge

Dear friends,
From the following article, it would appear that the monastery has been in Orthodox hands longer than in Catholic hands. Also I think that the Orthodox recently spent money rennovating the monastery church. The Orthodox nuns were persecuted in the time before WW2 going back to the Catholic Hapsburg government. The Feast day from the pictures are well attended. What is the point of opening up this can or worms. It will only lead to more bitterness and fighting. The area as you know is divided between Orthodox and Catholic believers. Since the buildings have been burned or destroyed and rebuilt so many times, please let us avoid further fighting. Let's all pray for re-union and follow the example of Metropolitan Nicholas of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese.

Mukachevo Monastery of St. Nicholas
http://www.rusyn.org/?root=rusyns&rusyns=religion&article=155

Mukachevo Monastery of St. Nicholas � one of the oldest monasteries and certainly the most important religious and cultural center in Subcarpathian Rus� located on a small hill (Chernecha hora/Monk�s Hill) along the Latorytsia River just outside the village of Rosvygovo, today a suburb of Mukachevo. The monastery�s founding date is unknown, although local legend speaks of its beginnings in the early eleventh century. The oldest surviving documentary evidence about its existence dates from the fourteenth century. During the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries the monastery was supported by Prince Fedor *Koriatovych and his wife Domenika/Walha. However, an official document by which Koriatovych ostensibly granted landed properties to the monastery was subsequently proven by the Russian scholar Aleksei L. *Petrov to be a later forgery. From earliest times until 1766, the monastery was the episcopal seat of the *Eparchy of Mukachevo, since its archimandrites (superiors) were simultaneously bishops. The monks copied books, built a significant library, and maintained contacts with Orthodox centers in the Balkans and eastern Europe. The monastery also had its own chronicle and was the site of a school.
Like the rest of Subcarpathian Rus�, the Mukachevo Monastery faced difficult times after the fall of the Hungarian Kingdom in the mid-sixteenth century and the subsequent struggle for control of the country among the Austrian Habsburgs, princes of Transylvania, and the Ottoman Empire. In the course of the protracted Habsburg-Transylvanian wars the monastery�s wooden buildings were burned (1537) and then rebuilt (1538-1550) with the help of the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand I (r. 1526-1564). It was not until the following centuries that the wooden structures were gradually replaced by stone structures, beginning with a rotunda church (1661) by the architect Stefan Piamens, and followed by the Baroque-style complex (1766-1772) by Demeter Racz/Dymytrii Rats�, whose design was used for the construction of a new church (1798-1804). The monastery was largely destroyed by a fire in 1862, but rebuilt within three years. In the mid-seventeenth century the monastery accepted the *Unia/Church Union, after which it became a leading Uniate/Greek Catholic *Basilian cultural center in the service of Rusyn religious and secular life.
The Mukachevo Monastery survived the reign of Emperor Joseph II (r. 1780-1790), a time when numerous monasteries were closed throughout the Austrian Empire. The Basilian monks were able to convince the authorities that they performed cultural and enlightenment work for the region as a whole; for instance, the *Mukachevo Theological School functioned on its premises (1757-1776), and several of the monastery�s *hegumens/superiors were among the leading Subcarpathian cultural activists of the nineteenth century (Ioanykii *Bazylovych, Anatolii *Kralyts�kyi).
In the twentieth century the Mukachevo Monastery was restructured after reforms introduced by Basilian (mostly Ukrainophile) monks from Galicia. When, after World War II, the new Soviet regime set out to abolish the Greek Catholic Church, the monastery became Orthodox (1946) and was transformed into a convent for Orthodox nuns from monasteries in other parts of Subcarpathian Rus� and the Soviet Union that were closed by the Communist government. At present there are about seventy Orthodox nuns at the Mukachevo Monastery.
Bibliography: Arkhimandrit Vasilii (Pronin), �K istorii Mukachevskogo monastyria,� Pravoslavnaia mysl�, Nos. 2, 3, 4 (Prague, 1958)�in Ukrainian translation: Chernecha hora (Uzhhorod, 1991); Mukachevskii Sviato-Nikolaevskii pravoslavnyi monastyr�: kratkii istoricheskii ocherk (Uzhhorod, 1998); Dmytro Pop, Istoriia Mukachivs�koho monastyria (Mukachevo, 1999).
Ivan Pop
Entry courtesy of Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture.
http://www.uoftbookstore.com/online/merchant.ihtml?pid=137163&step=4