www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News The new UGCC's particular law

Deacon Peter,

For those of us who do not read Ukrainian, could you tell us a bit more about this document? Does it replace the CCEO?

Messdiener

The first rule set down by this document is that if you don't understand Ukrainian - then you must learn it!

Alex

It does not replace, but supplement the CCEO. For example, it specifies that the person who is elected Head of the UGCC must be at least forty years old and have been a priest for at least ten.

Why is there a rule for minimum age and number of years ordained? Even a laymen theoretically could be elected Pope, why bother with such a written rule?

To be honest, I don't know why that was their choice. On the other hand, though, I can't see any reason that it needs to be the same as the Roman policies.

This is a prudential judgment. Not just everyone is elected Pope, so not just everyone is elected head of the UGCC. The UGCC is perfectly within its rights to define who can be elected head of the UGCC.

I'm not sure that such a 'rule' is prudent. Sure, in practice or a guideline, but canon? What happens in a hypothetical emergency and a faithful 38yr old imprisoned priest is selected underground? Is he canonically unelectable?

Granted, I'm not favorable toward minimum age requirements for deacons or priests either. I prefer the individual judged on his character first, then ability, and finally possibility to be educated not necessarily in a formal academic manner. I'm also not favorable toward mandatory resignation at whatever age either.

Of course not - and it couldn't just because of its size. CCEO has 1546 canons while the Particular Law in question has only 146 canons.

Generally this is the second version (the first one was published in 2001) of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic "attachment", "appendix" or "supplement" to the CCEO. There are some places in the Code mentioning "the particular law of a sui iuris Church" - and this PL in general applies to those. For example can. 247.2 of the CCEO states: "The protosyncellus and the syncellus are to be celibate presbyters unless the particular law of their Church sui iuris has established otherwise" and our Particular Law has established otherwise (in both versions).

My own opinion is that this second version is somewhat better than the first one. Some prescriptions may have significant effect in the life of an average parishioner. I have in mind feasts' and fasts' regulations, which show a clearly Easternizing tendency. Fasts has been made more severe, feasts of obligation are the 12 great feasts (dvonadesyati svyata) and so on. In this aspect our authorities made IMHO a very bad mistake ignoring the proper and rational vacatio legis. Just imagine - the law formally promulgated at the end of March, published in the Web on April 2nd, comes into effect on April 7th. April 7th is both Annunciation and Great Tuesday - and the new law makes the whole Great Week period of abstinence from meat (former regulations of 1960s mention only the Great Friday as a day of abstinence from meat and dairy products, which of course has been maintained). In my opinion it is a manifestation of Bolshevik mentality, a phenomenon not unusual in Ukraine, but very painful if met in the UGCC, a church severely oppressed by the Bolsheviks in the past and trying to spread in present-day Ukraine values of the Western civilization.

This seems to be just an urban legend. Who is the Pope of Rome - he's a bishop/, and in fact the most important bishop in the whole Church (Caholic Communion). So IMHO it is obvious that the candidate to the papacy should be a bishop or a clergyman who meets canonical requirements for episcopacy: unmarried presbyter for at last 5 years, age 35 or more and so on.

I do wholly agree with you. BTW, this canon was a part of the previous version (2001) as well.

Let's check the history of the Church who adheres to the tradition od the Brest Union of 1596. Do you know who the last primate elected from presbyters was? Michael Rahoza, i.e. that Metropolitan of Kyiv-Halych who entered into the Union (died 1599). All his successors were bishops at the time of election/nomination! Without any canons enforcing such a policy!

And if we check the dates of life of the Servant of God Andrei Sheptytskyi, our greatest primate ever (or one of two-three top primates), we easily find that he was ordained bishop at the age of 34 and appointed Metropolitan of Halych at the age of 35. So he would be excluded for such an appointment under the particular law mentioned above. I think that any further comment is needless...

Canons establishing minimum ages for ordination are among the most ancient canons.

The new particular law is now available in English as well:

http://catholicukes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Particular-Law-of-the-UGCC.pdf

It certainly is unlikely to happen, but I don't think there's a true impediment to a layman being elected. It most likely could only happen like it did in the middle ages - rampant abuse in the Curia. Pope Benedict IX was elected somewhere between ages 11 and 20 in 1032; John XI, John XII and Gregory V were also all under 25. So it's been a millennium since something like this happened, but it remains possible.

The canonist Edward Peters brings forward some interesting mid-20th century canonists [canonlawblog.wordpress.com] who assert that any baptized Catholic male with the use of reason and the capacity and willingness to accept ordination to the episcopacy could be validly elected. This (even more theoretically!) includes married men.

What!? Who ever heard of a married Pope??