www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Interesting Article on the Ruthenian Church in its homeland

This article was recently published in the National Catholic Register. It provides an interesting update on the Ruthenian Church in its homeland. That we should be so blessed with a revival of spirit as they are.

Ruthenian Renaissance http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/ruthenian-renaissance

I did find this a very interesting article, and inspiring story of faith unafraid. But, would someone please tell me why the Ruthenian and UG Catholics can't be a united sui iuris church in this country? I'm a non ethnic transplant from the OCA, so perhaps I just don't understand.

That's a, "Why on earth would we do that kind of thing . . . given the size differences, the Ruthenians would quickly become a rounding error.

Fr Christopher Zugger is cited as saying that there are over 300,000 Ruthenian Catholics in the US. I’m not sure of his source, but the 2017 Annuario Pontificio listed the number as 80,795. Those numbers are self reported by the Archeparchy of Pittsburgh and the 3 suffragan eparchies of Passaic, Parma, and Phoenix.

Sounds like all the more reason for a team-approach. "Ecce quam bonum..."

I think the "300,000" figure was total immigration of Greek Catholics from the Ruthenian eparchies in Europe. The number of practicing Ruthenian Byzantine Catholics in the United States is probably close to 35,000 today.

The numbers from Catholic-Hierarchy.org are as follows:

Eparchy------Population---Parishes
Pittsburgh---57,407-------74
Passaic------11,828-------84
Parma---------9,084-------30
Phoenix-------2,706-------19
--------------------------------
Totals---------81,025-----207

That equates to an average of 391 souls / parish.