www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Ukrainian Stations of the Cross

Glory to God for all things.

Dear friends,

The local Ukrainian Catholic parish will be restoring the Stations of the Cross as part of their Lenten services. The Stations have been gone for nearly five years. They were removed when the present pastor took over the parish. He was born and raised in Odessa. A small but influential group in the parish missed the practice.

The pastor resolved the "controversia" by allowing the laity to hold the service at noon during the Fridays of Lent. The pastor will not be present. I spoke with the sacristan. He is not looking forward to the upcoming Fridays. He must remove 14 icons and then replace them with the 14 stations. Then after the service he must remove the stations and replace the icons. He is "convert" from Orthodoxy and did not understand the Way of the Cross.

What do members of the forum think of this development?

Most Holy Theotokos of Fatima, save us.
RusOrthCath Martyrs and Confessors, pray for us.

[ 02-26-2002: Message edited by: PaulOrthCathConfessor ]

Paul,
Ahh yes Nativity of the BVM Ukie Cathoic Church. I am very supprised because Fr. Oleh and his parish is one of more eastern one in our eparchy. Yes will have to take down the icons for the stations. At least Fr. Oleh won't be there for the service. Other than these stations, this parish up the coast from me x() is very eastern with processions and all. I think their website is www.ukrainiancatholicla.com [ukrainiancatholicla.com] or .org Its amazing that these small little groups has such influence. I thik the problem is that our priests need to get more firm on these matters. If you let this go, then next comes Sacred heart or whatever. Are the people that will be going anti Vatican 2 or just latinized eastern catholics? thanks
-ukrainiancatholic

its www.ukrainiancatholicla.org [ukrainiancatholicla.org]
-ukiecath

Just to let you know: the served the Stations of the Cross in Moscow Patriarchate churches in Galicia throughout the "occupation" period, or whatever you want to call it (1946-1990).

There is an alternative to this service for the Orthodox. It was composed by (St.) Peter, Metropolitan of Kyiv (Kiev) to be an alternative to the Stations of the Cross. It is called Pasii, and it was served everey Sunday during Lent after Sunday night Vespers at Sviato Georgivsky Sobor (MP) in Lviv.

It is quite an interesting service and I think that we should offer it instead of the Stations of the Cross, since the Pope himself did say that we should stop serving Stations of the Cross and Suplicatsii.

Daniil

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Dear Ukrainian Catholic and Daniil

Yes, Fr. Oleh has really done much to de-latinize the parish. many of the younger generation have really embraced the more Orthodox practices.

Allow me answer your qestions. The people who want the Way of the Cross are older latinised Ukie Catholics. They tend to complain about every little change. They want Stations. They want to pray the rosary before the liturgy. They prefer to kneel during the anaphora and after Communion. They want a Nativity display of statues for Christmas. They prefer to go Confession in the old Confessional, etc.

I don't think that substuting "Pasii" for stations would satisfy these people. Their notion of tradition comes from their childhood. Most of these parishoners came up during the 1940's and 1950's. These were the same decades when the push for latinisation was the strongest in the Ukrainian Church. Such is their spirituality.

Where might I acquire the text for this service?

Most Holy Theotokos of Fatima, save us.
RusOrthCath Martyrs and Confessors, pray for us.

I think that one aspect of serving the people is to recognize that when people grew up with a particular devotion, it is cruel to remove it from them. Fr. is right in allowing this, and he is also correct in not serving it himself. The Church must always meet people where they are, and try to lead them to Christ. Education is a part of this process. But the older folks are not interested in education, they are interested in their relationship wity God as they understand it.

Permission for this does not mean more Latinizations, but can instead become a way to lead the people to a deeper understanding of the mysteries in our Churches. It's a "negotiating" point if you will.

Edward, deacon and sinner

I think the fact that the pastor is not presiding at the Stations of the Cross says something. Perhaps that is the response necessary to meet the needs of this group, which may not be the needs of everyone.

We have Stations in Ukrainian here a few weekday mornings for the older people, once on Wed. evening in English and the Presanctified Liturgy on Friday evenings in English.

It took quite a bit of nagging to have the evening Presanctified Liturgy. We had a good turn out for the first Friday, and the numbers dwindled a bit this past week.

I myself disapprove of the Stations in English. A significant majority of the folks that are not "bilingual" are coming to our parish to learn about Eastern Christianity, and I think having Stations of the Cross, (even with prostrations) is not giving them the best example of Byzantine Lenten Services.

On the other hand, I really only have time to attend the evening Presanctified during the week. Most of our long time parishioners are really only familiar with the Liturgy of St. John Chrysosotm since we were a mission for so many years and not really interested in "de-latinizing" much. Any change seems to erupt into some major squabble.

Hope others are having better luck!

With Best Wishes;
Stefan

What is the Ukrainian term for "Way of the Cross"?

Have any of you Ukrainians actually seen Ukrainian stations? By this I mean stations which resemble icons. Have you ever seen stations with Ukrainain inscriptions? In the Roman Church Stations was often followed by Benediction. Was this also true in the Ukrainian Church?

I might actually attend. I have never attended Stations in an Eastern Church.

Most Holy Theotokos of Fatima, save us.
RusOrthCath Martyrs and Confessors, pray for us.

GLORY TO JESUS CHRIST!
GLORY TO HIM FOREVER!

PaulOrthCathConfessor wrote:"...Have any of you Ukrainians actually seen Ukrainian stations? By this I mean stations which resemble icons..."

Yes, Paul I have. My ikon teacher just completed several sets of ikon Sations of the Cross. They turned out very well, surprisingly...

I'll see if he has any pics of them posted.

the least servant of the servants of God
mark

Dear Paul,

What an interesting discussion!

The Passiyi or "Passion" that St Peter Mohyla instituted were actually a remake of the Stations of the Cross which, as a private devotion, were very popular among Orthodox Christians of the Kyivan Baroque period.

As a matter of fact, St Tikhon of Zadonsk ONLY had a life-size series of icons or pictures depicting the Way of the Cross in his cell - and no others.

The "Way of the Cross" rather than "Stations" is "Khresna Doroha" in Ukrainian.

Orthodox Churches in western Ukraine and elsewhere DO hold this devotion and actually place 15 pictures of the Way of the Cross AROUND THE CHURCH. The 15th is the Resurrection.

I have a copy of the Stations or Way of the Cross in Ukrainian. If you would like it, I would gladly mail you a copy, just send me a mailing address.

Some pastors, to avoid breaking the rule that services must be done facing East, do the Stations at the Tetrapod before the Cross.

It is interesting that Eastern Catholics have qualms about this devotion when certain Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe are not only practicing this "glorious devotion" as the booklet says, but actually hopes that ALL CHURCHES adopt it! Orthodox prayer books also have suplicatsiyi at the back and these are practiced "over there" today as well.

Whatever the Holy Father said about these, his ruling was not "ex cathedra" and, as Fr. Deacon Ed said, the wishes of the people will be respected.

St Alexis Toth was most careful with his former Catholic converts to Orthodoxy and did nothing to dissuade them from their Catholic private devotions so as not to do them spiritual harm. It was because of his attitude on this score that some Russian bishops suspected him of "Jesuit leanings." (He was a former Basilian priest and so "Jesuit.")

The Kyivan Baroque period also produced the Orthodox devotion to the Rosary, the Little Office of Our Lady, the Psalter of Our Lady and other purely Western devotions.

Remember that Latin was the "lingua franca" of the intellectual classes of that day and many Orthodox students went to Paris where they even brought back with them the devotion to the Immaculate Conception and there were Orthodox Brotherhoods devoted to the Immaculate Conception whose members made the "bloody vow" or the vow to defend to the death the Immaculate Conception.

Their prayer was "All Immaculate Mother of God, save us!"

And they wore the medal of the Immaculate Conception.

This isn't a weakness of the Orthodox Church, but one of her many strengths.

That we get our noses out of shape over these things speaks to our unnecessary hang-ups.

We should take as our example, in my view, that of Reader Sergius, an Orthodox Christian who is dedicated to Orthodoxy and yet is someone who feels at home in the Western religious cultural milieu as well.

Alex

Dear Friends:

The devotion to the Stations of the Cross amoungst Roman Catholics is relatively recent.

I have yet to see a set of Stations that are older than 100 years.

I think that the devotion was promoted by the Redemptorists and St.... [for the life of me I can't remember his name] wrote a devotional guide.

Considering the history of western Ukraine it's understandable that the older parishiners want to maintain the devotion.

I must compliment their priest for being so understanding and hope that the sacristans are very patient.

As long as this is just a Lenten occurance there really is no harm in it.

This too will pass.


defreitas

Dear Jose,

Actually, it was the Franciscans in the Holy Land that first set up the Stations.

They were the custodians there and the original "Way of the Cross" from which the Stations were derived dates back several centuries.

St Louis de Montfort was famous for setting up his "Calvaries" with the Stations and the real promoter of this devotion was St Leonard of Port-Maurice who placed hundreds of Stations in Churches throughout his life-time.

It is truly popular among Eastern Catholics and Orthodox in Western Ukraine and elsewhere.

If I were a priest (and not "just a layman" although, as I've said, I don't believe that is entirely my fault ), I would leave a Stations of the Cross in a parish where it is popular.

At the same time, I would promote the Passiyi, as our dearest friend Daniil has said, and the Akathist to the Passion and to the Cross at the same time.

This is what I've seen other Eastern priests do.

Alex

Dear Alex:

I know about the Holy Land origins of the Stations of the Cross devotions. I also must assume that it was the Franciscans who promoted the idea.

But as far as I know the devotion did not really become common in Europe till the 19th century.

As a example, none of the Churches in Portugal have old Stations and most just put up 19th century framed prints. We do have a somewhat older tradition in the country, where large towns or cities have out-door stations placed in individual Chapels around the town. These were used only during Holy week as part of Easter processions.

I remember reading that Canadian artist Antoine Plamendon was commissioned to paint a set of Stations for Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal in the late 1830s. Not being familiar with the devotion he painted biblical scenes from the passion of Christ. These stations were put up in the Church but were later replaced because the images did not correspond to the newly printed books coming from Europe.

P.S.
The Redemptorist saint who wrote a very popular Stations devotion, which I was trying to remember, was St. Alphonsus Liguori.


defreitas

I wonder if the Stations developed in three stages, rather than two, as often assumed. The first, the processional stations in Jerusalem, second, outdoor procession brought to Europe by the Franciscans, third, moving it indoors in the cold climates such as Germany, Austria, Ukraine, etc.

Axios

Paul,
St. Nicholas Cathedral has mosaic Icon Stations. In Ukraine, Icon stations were flowing everwhere, especially in the Basillian institutions.
-ukrainiancatholic