www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Recent interview with Fr. Taft

The western Ukraine is the home of Ukrainian nationalism and the Ukrainian Catholic Church. My friends 30 years ago, a family, gave me the impression the country was like them but it's not. Ukrainianism according to them: a few Russianisms to show they're not Polish; lots of Polishisms to show they're not Russian. (Like I said, they said don't call them Russian.) Most of the rest of the country's like Russia proper, mostly secular with a big Russian Orthodox (MP) minority. That, the KP and the UGCC are jockeying to be the country's state or at least national church, which is why the KP cozies up to the UGCC vs. the MP (the enemy of my enemy is my friend). The UGCC understandably is not interested in relations with the Orthodox other than pragmatically, living in an Orthodox country. That's why they made that aggressive move, against Catholic long-term strategy trying to reconcile the Orthodox to Catholicism, moving their HQ to Kiev. Understandable given the last 70 years, being banned by the Communists, who tried to force them into the then-state-controlled Russian Orthodox Church.

Adam, you're right that OicwRs are microscopic. For nearly 20 years online they've been consistently represented by byzcath's own StuartK. Other than him it's a small, high-turnover cast of converts from the Roman Rite or Protestantism who eventually get fed up with Greek Catholicism because of the latinizations and second-class treatment, eventually buying Orthodoxy's claims and converting.

P.S. American foreign policy is still anti-Russian, which I think is stupid. Russia's a great, old-fashioned Christian nationalist 'Nyet!' athwart Western European and American secularism and political correctness. It's still strong thanks to nukes and its size. Anyway, in the Ukraine about 10 years ago the US backed President Viktor Yushchenko, who belonged to the KP; I think the US backs the KP vs. the MP, an unacceptable meddling in the Orthodox Church. The American government obviously wants to attack Russia by keeping the Ukraine turned against Russia. It's as if California seceded and Russia or China meddled, trying to turn it against the US.

That's the Russia of your imagination, Sergei, not the Russia of reality, of Putin, of rampant corruption, of thugocracy, of spiritual malaise, a place where everyone and everything is for sale. You would be better off actually spending time in Russia than romanticizing it. As for your views on Ukraine, you're simply delusional.

I'm not saying Russia's perfect or that I'd necessarily want to live there. Putin's a badass, which has its good and bad. I mostly mean it's best for America and conservative Christians to support rather than hate Russia.

I believe you'd have to go significantly further back for it to be "the Ukraine".

Yes, if you define Eastern Catholic to mean only the ones that use the Byzantine Rite (UGCC, Melkites, etc., aka "Greek Catholics"), not including Maronites, Syro-Malabarese Catholics, etc.

I'm sure the Orthodox would call it propaganda (assuming they were aware of it -- I don't know how many of them watch EWTN) . Personally I prefer to suspend judgment.

P.S. For the record, I don't automatically embrace everything that comes from EWTN.

That war-refugee/displaced-person family I knew 30 years ago coached me on 'Ukraine', not 'the Ukraine'. No, in English it's the Ukraine. The other makes me sound like I'm putting on a Boris-and-Natasha accent.

I know there's a non-Byzantine Eastern Catholic church comparable in size to the Ukrainian Catholic Church; I think it's one of the Indian ones. But I think the Ukrainian Catholic Church is still No. 1.

If he said that, it takes a lot of spin to make it Catholic. It's doable. If he means 'all Orthodox defined doctrine is true', that's fine.

I can understand the Orthodox accusing him of lying, though, since the different beliefs about the nature and scope of the papacy are important.

What in the world makes you think I hate Russia? If I truly hated Russia, I would not care who governed it, nor about the oppression of its long-suffering people, nor the moral degradation of its society, nor of the compromised state of its Orthodox Church. In fact, I would rejoice in all of those, since they simply accelerate the pace of Russia's impending collapse. But I do not hate Russia--I love it, its culture and its people deeply. And unlike you, I am fully capable of looking at Russia with eyes wide open, without the Tolstoyan sentimentality and rose-colored nostalgia for a place which does not exist and actually never did. If you love something or someone, and you see it following a destructive path, you do and say what you can to correct it, you don't blithely accept it as the "last best hope of man" (nor do you call the vicious former Chekist who runs the country as a personal organized crime syndicate "a gift from God" just because he dons a three-bar cross and tosses breadcrumbs to the Church).

It's so nice that you've come along to define for us who are not good Catholics and good Orthodox.

According to Wikipedia (not that Wikipedia is infallible) "Though the form "the Ukraine" was once the more common term in English,[24] it has become less accepted after the Ukrainian government officially requested that the article be dropped in 1993, shortly after independence.[25][26][27] Most sources have since dropped the article in favour of simply "Ukraine".[24]"

Oh, I thought you were talking whether it's has more than 50%. Yes, I agree that it's the largest single EC Church.

I never said you hate Russia, Stuart, nor that Russia and Putin are perfect. Simply that American foreign policy and American public opinion (understandably, because of the Cold War) are still anti-Russian, which is wrong.

I think that will go the way of the Irish government's serious attempt to rename Ireland 'Eire', the Gaelic name, in English.

Ha ha ha. It's not me; it's what each church teaches. If you know it, either you accept it or you don't. The few OicwRs think they know better than either. Gnostic really. The churches' teachings are for idiots; only a little circle knows the truth.