Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church
Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church | |
---|---|
Metropolitanate | |
Pope | Francis |
Primate | William C. Skurla |
Associations | Dicastery for the Eastern Churches |
Region |
|
Liturgy | Byzantine Rite |
Headquarters | Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, Munhall, Pennsylvania |
Origin | 1646 |
Merger of | Union of Uzhhorod |
Congregations | 664 |
Members | 417,795[2] |
Ministers | 549 |
Primary schools | 1 in the United States |
Other name(s) | Byzantine Catholic Church (US only) |
Official website | archpitt.org |
Part of a series on |
Particular churches sui iuris of the Catholic Church |
---|
Particular churches are grouped by liturgical rite |
Alexandrian Rite |
Armenian Rite |
Byzantine Rite |
East Syriac Rite |
Latin liturgical rites |
West Syriac Rite |
The Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church,[a] also known in the United States as the Byzantine Catholic Church, is a sui iuris (autonomous) Eastern Catholic church based in Eastern Europe and North America. As a particular church of the Catholic Church, it is in full communion with the Holy See. It uses the Byzantine Rite for its liturgies, laws, and cultural identity.
Name
While not directly associated with the former Ruthenian Uniate Church, the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church also derives its name from the Rusyn and Ruthenian Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe and their communion with Rome.[3] While Ruthenian Catholics are not the only Eastern Catholics to utilize the Byzantine Rite in the United States, the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church refers to itself as the "Byzantine Catholic Church" within the US.[4]
History
The Ruthenian Church originally developed among the
Following the Great Schism of 1054, the Ruthenian Church retained its Orthodox ties[6][7] until the Union of Uzhhorod.
Union of Uzhhorod
The present structure of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church traces its origins to the 1646
Initially, the Union only included lands owned or administered by the noble Drugeth family; essentially, most of the modern-day
The resulting
– but the descendants of other nationalities are also present such as Slovaks, Hungarians and Croats as well as those of non-Slavic and non-Eastern European ancestry. The modern Eparchy of Mukacheve in Ukraine is mostly Ukrainian-speaking but remains part of the greater Ruthenian Church.After almost a thousand years of Hungarian rule the region became, in part, incorporated in
United States
In the 19th and 20th centuries, various Byzantine Catholics from
The dissatisfaction of many Ruthenian Catholics had already given rise to some groups placing themselves under the jurisdiction of what is today the Orthodox Church in America (at that time a mission of the Russian Orthodox Church). The leader of this movement was the widowed Ruthenian Catholic priest Alexis Toth, whose mistreatment by Archbishop John Ireland of Saint Paul, Minnesota, led to Toth's transfer to Eastern Orthodoxy. He brought with him many Ruthenian Catholics, around 20,000 by the time of his death with many who followed afterward, and was canonized a saint by the Orthodox Church in America in 1996.[citation needed]
The situation with Alexis Toth and the Latin Catholic bishops highlighted the need for American Eastern Catholics to have their own bishop. Pope Pius X appointed the Ukrainian bishop Soter Ortynsky in 1907 as bishop for all Slavic Eastern Catholics of the Byzantine rite in America. For this period the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholics were united to the Ukrainian Greek Catholics in the same eparchy. Ethnic tensions flared due to cultural differences (mostly of a political nature) between Ukrainians who came from Austrian-ruled Galicia and the Rusyns and other Byzantine Catholics who came from the Kingdom of Hungary.
This caused Rome to split the groups after Ortynsky's death, creating two ecclesiastical administrations for Eastern-rite Catholics in the United States, divided along nationality lines: one Ukrainian and the other Carpatho-Rusyn. Each was headed not by a bishop, but by an administrator: Father Peter Poniatyshyn for the Ukrainians and Father Gabriel Martyak for the Carpatho-Rusyns.[13][14] Later, the Rusyn priest Basil Takach was appointed and consecrated in Rome on his way to America as the new eparchy's bishop. Bishop Takach is considered the first bishop of Ruthenian Catholics in America, and his appointment as the official founding of the Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh.
Clerical celibacy of American Eastern Catholics was restated with special reference to the Byzantine/Ruthenian Church by the 1 March 1929 decree Cum data fuerit, which was renewed for a further 10 years in 1939. Due to this and other similar factors, 37 Ruthenian parishes transferred themselves into the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch in 1938, creating the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese.
Relations with the Latin Church Catholic hierarchy have improved, especially since the Second Vatican Council, at which the Ruthenian Church influenced decisions regarding using the vernacular (i.e. the language of the people) in the liturgy.[15] In its decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum, the Second Vatican Council declared:
The Catholic Church holds in high esteem the institutions, liturgical rites, ecclesiastical traditions and the established standards of the Christian life of the Eastern Churches, for in them, distinguished as they are for their venerable antiquity, there remains conspicuous the tradition that has been handed down from the Apostles through the Fathers and that forms part of the divinely revealed and undivided heritage of the universal Church.[16]
The Second Vatican Council urged the
Membership within the Ruthenian Catholic Church, like the other sui iuris churches, is not limited to those who trace their heritage to the ethnic groups affiliated with the church.[17]
Structure
As of 2016[update], the membership of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church was estimated at some 419,500 faithful, with seven bishops, 664 parishes, 557 priests, 76 deacons, and 192 men and women
- Sui juris(self governing)
-
- The archdiocese) by Pope Paul VI in 1969. The apostolic exarchate in Canada serves Slovak Greek Catholics.
- The
- Immediately subject to the Holy See
Saints
- Blessed Theodore Romzha, bishop and martyr
- Blessed Teresa Demjanovich, nun
See also
- History of Christianity in Ukraine
- Ruthenian Catholic Church (disambiguation)
- Slovak Greek Catholic Church
- Synod of Polotsk
- Union of Brest
People
Notes
- Latin: Ecclesia Graeco-Catholica Ruthenica.
References
- ^ Brockhaus, Hannah (19 July 2021). "Pope Francis to visit Slovakia during important anniversary year for Ruthenian Catholics". Catholic News Agency. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
- ^ "Eastern Catholic Churches Worldwide 2017" (PDF). Catholic Near East Welfare Association. 2017. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ Andrew Jackson Shipman (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).
- ^ Senz, Paul (1 May 2019). "Get to know the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church". Our Sunday Visitor. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
- ^ Kinder, Cole (March 6, 2022). "The Myth of the "Crusader Putin"". Corrispondenza Romana. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- ^ a b Paul Robert Magocsi. "Carpatho-Rusyn Americans".
- ^ a b "The Ruthenian Catholic Church". Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Archived from the original on August 6, 2007. Retrieved April 20, 2010.
- ^ Pope John Paul II (April 18, 1996). "The 350th anniversary of the Union of Uzhorod". EWTN. Retrieved April 20, 2010.
- ^ "Ruthenian Church". Eastern Catholic Pastoral Association of Southern California. Archived from the original on October 16, 2018. Retrieved April 20, 2010.
- ^ "Uzhhorod Union of 1646". Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
- ^ "Collectanea". n. 1966.
{{cite journal}}
:|volume=
has extra text (help); Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - ^ "Acta Sanctae Sedis" (PDF). 24. S. Congr. de Propaganda Fide. 1891–92: 390–391.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - ^ PAUL R. MAGOCSI. "Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America" (PDF). p. 36. Retrieved 2023-11-07.
- ^ "The Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh". Retrieved 2023-11-07.
- ^ KEVIN R. YURKUS. "The Other Catholics: A Short Guide to the Eastern Catholic Churches". Archived from the original on 2013-07-13. Retrieved 2014-05-30.
- ^ Catholic Church (Second Vatican Council) (November 21, 1964). "Decree on the Catholic Eastern Churches". Holy See.
- ^ The Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh. "Reverend Phillip J. Linden Jr. SSJ". The Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh. Archived from the original on 2021-01-28. Retrieved 2019-06-26.
- ^ Ronald Roberson. "The Eastern Catholic Churches Statistics". Catholic Near East Welfare Association.
- ^ Paul Robert Magocsi, Ivan Pop. "Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo".
Further reading
- Dyrud, Keith P. (1992). The Quest for the Rusyn Soul: The Politics of Religion and Culture in Eastern Europe and in America, 1890-World War I. Philadelphia: Balch Institute Press. ISBN 9780944190104.
- Marti, Federico (2009). I rutheni negli Stati Uniti: Santa Sede e mobilità umana tra Ottocento e Novecento. Milano: Giuffrè. ISBN 9788814145902.
- Magocsi, Paul R. (1997). "Adaptation Without Assimilation: The Genius of the Greco-Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo" (PDF). Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 38 (1–4): 269–281.
- Magocsi, Paul R. (2015). With Their Backs to the Mountains: A History of Carpathian Rus' and Carpatho-Rusyns. Budapest-New York: Central European University Press. ISBN 9786155053467.
- Pekar, Athanasius B. (1979). The Bishops of the Eparchy of Mukachevo, with Historical Outlines. Pittsburgh: Byzantine Seminary Pres.
- Procko, Bohdan P. (1973). "Soter Ortynsky: First Ruthenian Bishop in the United States, 1907-1916". The Catholic Historical Review. 58 (4): 513–533. JSTOR 25019169.
- Shipman, Andrew J. (1912a). "Ruthenian Rite". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company. pp. 276–277.
- Shipman, Andrew J. (1912b). "Ruthenians". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company. pp. 277–279.
- Slivka, John (1973). Correct nomenclature: Greek rite or Byzantine rite; Rusin or Ruthenian; Rusin or Slovak?. Brooklyn, N.Y.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Slivka, John (1978). Historical Mirror: Sources of the Rusin and Hungarian Greek Rite Catholics in the United States of America, 1884-1963. Brooklyn, N.Y.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Slivka, John (1989) [1977]. Who are we?: Nationality: Rusin, Russian, Ruthenian, Slovak? Ecclesiastical name: Greek Rite Catholic, Byzantine Rite Catholic? (2. ed.). Brooklyn, N.Y.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Véghseő, Tamás (2015). "Reflections on the Background to the Union of Uzhhorod / Ungvár (1646)" (PDF). Eastern Theological Journal. 1 (1): 147–181.
External links
General Information:
- Byzantine Catholic Church - The Carpathian Connection
- Byzantine Catholic Church in America (unofficial)
- What Is the Byzantine–Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church?
- Byzantine Catholics: Who are we? Archived 2016-12-20 at the Wayback Machine
- "Ruthenian Catholic Churches": article by Ronald Roberson (Catholic Near East Welfare Association)
- www.damian-hungs.de (in German)
History:
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
Eparchies:
- List of Ruthenian Eparchies
- (in Ukrainian) Мукачівська греко-католицька єпархія
- Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma
- Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic
- (in Czech) Apoštolský exarchát řeckokatolické církve v České republice
Parishes:
Documents: