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I need a history lesson please.

When (what year) did the Byzantine Church join the RC? and Why?

When: 1596

Why: I'll leave that up to the Byzantines on this board.

Logos Teen

That depends on which Particular Church you are speaking of. The Ukrainians reunited in 1596, Subcarpathian Rusyns reunited in 1646. The Melkites reunited sometime in the 1700's. There wasn't one big reunion, but several local Particular Churches who re-established communion with the Roman Church at different times since 1054.

Ung-Certez

Let's not forget the Italo-Greek-Albanians (2 dioceses) in Southern Italy and Sicily who were never separated at all! Their presence predates the split!

In Christ,
Andrew

Слава Ісусу Христу!

1700 marked the union of the for the Romanian Greek Catholic Church (Biserica Rom�nă Unită cu Roma, Greco-Catolică). 1861 marked the birth of the Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church.

The current Armenian Catholic Church (ACC) and hierarchy dates from 1742. However, numerous unions with Rome dot Armenian church history, starting with the Crusader period. The union of the Armenian Christians in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (with their centre in L'viv/ЛЬВІВ) with Rome dates from 1630 or 1635.


God bless,
Christopher
Armenian Catholic

And, can anyone explain why they were united/reunited?

Слава Ісусу Христу!

Another question: was - and is - separation justifiable and holy?

God bless,
Christopher
Armenian Catholic

Dear Anastasia,

One Ukrainian historian's view of the Union of Brest is at the link below:

Professor Oleh Turiy of the Institute of Church History of Lviv, Ukraine, at a conference in Freising, Germany on September 15, 2000.


http://www.ugcc.org.ua/eng/ugcc_history/history/

John
Pilgrim and Odd Duck

Sorry to be a pest on this subject, but can someone direct me to a site where i can find out "why" the Byzantine Church united/reunited with the Papacy?

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Dear Anastasia, the most definitive work on this subject is a book written by Fr. Borys Gudziak, who is currently the Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in L'viv, Ukraine. It started as his doctoral dissertation at Harvard and grew into a much larger work. It is called "Crisis and Reform" and is published by Harvard University Press: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/GUDCRI.html

You can also get it from Icon and Book Service www.iconbook.org [iconbook.org] which is a nice Greek Catholic bookstore and is an outreach of Holy Cross Monastery in Washington, D.C.

Here a couple of books that might help:

1)Borys A. Gudziak. Crisis and Reform. The Kyivan Metropolitan, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Brest. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1998.. 489 pp.
The author analyzes the movement of spiritual and cultural reform in the Kyivan Metropolinate in light of its traditional relationship with the Great Church of Constantinople and in the face of the vibrant challenges presented by the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Reform movement and in the broader European context. He investigates how faith, culture, and politics were intertwined in the decisions that faced the lay and clerical leadership in Ukraine and Belarus' in the period before the Church Union.
Available at Amazon

2)Fr. Michael Lacko, S.J. The Union of Uzhorod. Out of print but possibly available through library loan.

3)Cyril Korolevsky. Uniatism. The Definition, Causes, Effects, Scope, Dangers and Remedies of Uniatism by , translated by Serge Keleher. 80 pages.
Available from Eastern Christian Publications
http://www.ecpubs.com/index2.html

Dear Anastasia,

There is no one view on the question of why the various church unions with Rome occurred.

One's own religious perspective will often colour one's views.

As far as the Union of Brest-Litovske is concerned, Ukrainian Catholics have a number of views as to why the Union occurred.

Some say it was merely a "reaffirmation" of a union that never died out, notwithstanding Kyiv's ties to Constantinople.

Others say the Orthodox bishops were inspired to "return to the true Church."

Still others say the Orthodox bishops had had enough of being controlled by church brotherhoods backed by the Church of Constantinople.

Others maintain there was a growing Latinization among the Orthodox bishops, appointed, as they were, by the Polish King who always appointed his allies among the Orthodox clergy to the episcopate.

Others say there was a growing "inferiority complex" among the Orthodox bishops who saw in the West the bastion of religious, cultural and economic progress.

The actual truth is perhaps somewhere in between all these reasons.

And this was NOT a "reunion" of Churches.

The Church of Kyiv that entered into the Union of Brest-Litovske did NOT reestablish itself, in ANY way, in the same relation to Rome that the Orthodox East had BEFORE the breakup that finally occured somewhere between 1054-1204 AD.

The Union of Brest-Litovske, good intentions and documents notwithstanding, placed the Kyivan Orthodox Church that entered into it in a position of subservience to the Pope and the King of Poland.

The rest is "l'histoire" as they say.

Alex

Slava Isusu Christu!

A good book to read that gives a rudimentary history regarding the unions and is a great Eastern Catholic catechetical work is: "Catholic Faith Guide: Presenting the Catholic faith in the context of the Byzantine Ukrainian rite." It can be purshased through the St. Joseph School for Boys Bookstore:

http://www.auctionworks.com/store/s...omJumpPa ge=2&intPage=1&c=103559 [auctionworks.com]

It is an excellent online Bookstore for Byzantine and Orthodox Christians.

In Christ,

Robert

Thank you, dear brothers in Christ!