From liquidation to renewal:
Greek Catholics in modern religious life in the Transcarpathia Region |
| In the Transcarpathia Region, Christianity of the Byzantine rite was accepted prior to the schism of the churches in 1054, at the time of the missionary activity of Sts. Cyril and Methodius (863) and their disciples among the Slavs. As a result of the Reformation and Catholic reform, on 24 April 1646 in the chapel of Uzhhorod Castle, 63 priests headed by Basilian monk Partenii (Petrovych) renewed unity with the Universal Church by accepting the Catholic Creed and taking an «oath of allegiance» before the Latin bishop from Eger. After a long period, on 19 September 1771 Pope Clement XIV by his bull Eximia Regalium Principum canonically founded the Mukachiv [Mukachevo] Eparchy. The establishment of the Mukachiv Eparchy, which occurred at the same time as the Enlightenment reforms of the Austrian Habsburgs, was conducive to the development of the religious and cultural life not only of the historic land of the Rusyns but also the neighboring regions of Upper Hungary. The great eparchy of the time of Bishop Andrii (Bachynskyi), the religious enlightener [according to the census of 1806, it included 63.8% Ruthenians, 20.89% Romanians, 6.23% Hungarians, 0.95% Slovaks, and a large group of bilingual population (7.91%)], was divided according to ethnic and geographic principle in the age of nationalism. |
| The Mukachiv Eparchy also became a cradle from which new Union Church eparchy-provinces grew: Krizevci (1777), Presov (1818), Cluj-Gherla (1857), and Hajdudorog (1912). In view of the wave of immigration from Mukachiv and other Greek Catholic eparchies of Hungary to North America from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries, the Holy See opened in 1924 an Apostolic Exarchate centered in Pittsburgh; in 1963, the Passaic Eparchy; in 1969, the Byzantine Metropolitanate in Pittsburgh and the Parma Eparchy; and in 1981, an eparchy in Van Nuys. Today, all eight Greek Catholic eparchies which historically belonged to the Mukachiv ecclesial tradition have become very distant from the ecclesiastical and ritual norms and practices approved for the Greek Catholics of Hungary by the Council of Vienna in 1773. From 1771 to 1937, the Mukachiv Union Eparchy was in canonical union with the Latin dioceses in the metropolitan’s jurisdiction of the archbishop of Esztergom, primate of the Catholic Church in Hungary. As a result of the signing in 1928 of a modus vivendi between Czechoslovakia and the Roman See, on 2 September 1937 by his bull Ad Ecclesiastici Regiminus, Pope Pius XI subordinated the Mukachiv and Presov eparchies to the direct supervision of the Holy See. | | 
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| Before the beginning of the persecutions of the Greek Catholic Church (GCC) in the Transcarpathia Region, as of 1 June 1944 its faithful made up 54% of the population of the land and were cared for by 354 priests. Even according to Soviet information (as of 1 June 1947), Eastern Catholics still made up the majority of the territory. In 1945-52, 127 Greek Catholic priests were arrested and deported to camps, four were shot, and 20 died in camps and prisons. As of 1 January 1949, the Mukachiv Eparchy included 270 pastors, of whom were 132 neophytes or 48.24% «reunited» with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Of all the priests repressed in 1945-1950, only 20 (!) persons lived to see the legalization and revival of the GCC in Transcarpathia. Twelve of them died in the 1990s. |
| | According to the calculations of Stefan and Danyil Bendas, active apostleship in the underground was conducted by 42 priests and a nun. They were repressed in 1951. In addition, from the 1950s to the 1980s, another 40 former Greek Catholic priests lived in Transcarpathia. They did not provide pastoral care, even though they had not «reunited» with the ROC. According to the information of the commissioner of the Council on Matters of Religions attached to the Council of Ministers of the USSR for the Transcarpathia Region, as of 1979 there were 65 Union priests here, as of 1981 there were 52, as of 1985 there were 47. |
| In 1982, 20 monks and nuns lived in the region. Bishop Oleksandr (Khira, + 1983) could not head the Mukachiv Greek Catholic Eparchy, which was «voluntarily terminated» in February 1949, as he was in exile in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Therefore, it was administrated until 1978 by Fr. Mykola Muranii (died on 12 January 1979), and later by Bishop Ivan (Semedii). Priests were trained in «home seminaries» by fathers Muranii, Ivan Margitych, Elemyr Ortutai, and Yosyf Holovach. The priests were secretly ordained by Mukachiv Bishop Oleksandr Khira (until 1983) and Bishop of Ivano-Frankivsk Pavlo (Vasylyk). Before his death, Oleksandr Khira ordained Yosyf (Holovach) in Karaganda. All in all, 53 pastors were trained and ordained in the underground. |
| On 4 August 1987, Greek Catholic bishops Pavlo (Vasylyk) and Ivan Semedii together with 24 priests in a letter to Pope John Paul II announced «withdrawal of part of the Ukrainian Catholic Church from the underground.» Interestingly, in 1988 the Communist Party authorities of the Transcarpathia Region were concerned about the activity of 51 Union priests and 20 monks and nuns in more than 30 places, who influenced 25 to 30 thousand faithful. To «combat» the «secret ‘anti-people’s’ nationalistic essence of Uniatism,» in the middle of 1989 (!) a special group was established. It was attached to the regional committee of the party and included 450 persons who acted through the Znannia [«Knowledge»] Society. |
| According to the futurological forecasts of party officials, in the event of the legalization of the GCC (which happened on 13 December 1989), about 30-35% of the faithful of the ROC and 15-20% of the Roman Catholic Church would to return to Eastern Catholicism. In four years (1993), the number of religious communities in Transcarpathia doubled and totaled 1210, including 459 of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, 209 of the GCC, 91 of the Subcarpathian Reformed Church, 48 of the Evangelical Baptists, 45 of the Evangelical Christians, 27 of the Seventh-day Adventists, 207 of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, 8 of the Jews, and 8 of the Reformed Adventists. As of 1993, there were only 716 religious buildings, of which 212 were to be returned to the ownership of the GCC according to a decision of the regional executive committee of 1989. | | 
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Today (2006-2007), the GCC in the Transcarpathia Region has 377 communities (of which 9 were registered in the last year) and 320,000 faithful, owns 184 religious buildings. 20 churches are shared with the Roman Catholics and 19 churches are shared with the Orthodox. From 1990 to 2006, 81 churches were built and 65 new ones are being built. In the territory of the Mukachiv Greek Catholic Eparchy, there are 9 men’s and 17 women’s monastic communities. The eparchy has 200 eparchial priests. Bishop Milan (Sasik), who was ordained by Pope John Paul II on 6 January 2003 at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, has been its administrator since 12 November 2002. Pastors for the eparchy are trained at the Blessed Teodor Romzha Theological Academy, which renewed its activity in Mukachiv under the headship of Bishop-rector Yosyf (Holovach) and then, since 1 February 2003, under the headship of the protosyncellus of the eparchy Fr. Taras Lovskyi. As of 2005, 111 students have studied at the academy; in addition, another 30 students study in a catechetical school in the town of Khust, and more than 30 pupils in the Bishop Oleksandr Stoika Greek Catholic Lyceum.
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Only after the legalization of the GCC in the Transcarpathia Region in 1990, at the initiative of the national-democratic forces of the land (Prosvita [Enlightenment], the T. Shevchenko Society of the Ukrainian Language, regional centers of the People’s Movement of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Republican Party, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and so on) and with the active support of Bishop Ivan Margitych, the question of the subordination of the Mukachiv Eparchy to the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Lviv and the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was raised. In October 1992, the Roman See delegated to the Transcarpathia Region its representative Cardinal Francesco Colasuonno. After his detailed report, on 8 January 1993 the Holy See in its letter to its nuncio in Ukraine, Archbishop Antonio Franco, decided to preserve the status quo of the Mukachiv Greek Catholic Eparchy, which had been defined on 2 September 1937, namely, direct subordination to the Vatican. Appealing to «historical traditions» and seeking to duly meet the spiritual needs of the multi-ethnic flock, it appointed two auxiliary bishops to assist Bishop Ivan Semedii: for the faithful of Ukrainian nationality, Ivan Margitych, and for faithful without or not recognizing Ukrainian identity, Yosyf Holovach. The final decision on this issue was approved in Uzhhorod on 29 March 1993 by all three bishops and the apostolic nuncio in Ukraine.
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| | At the same time, the Greek Catholic hierarchy tries to consider the historical traditions of the Mukachiv Eparchy which, according to Ernst Christoph Suttner, «was more closely connected with the Presov and Hajdudorog eparchies than with the Galician church province.» In view of the fact that the Greek Catholic faithful of all eparchies ecclesially originated from the Mukachiv Eparchy are Rusyns, and taking into account the recent sharpening of the issue of «recognition of Rusyn nationality» in the Transcarpathia Region, new study prospects are opening for researchers of national identities of Greek Catholic communities. In particular, one can mention the request of Bishop-emeritus Ivan (Semedii), set out in his letter to Pope John Paul II of 1 July 1990, for the Greek Catholic Church in the Transcarpathia Region to be in «future the Church of the Rusyns... a church ‘sui juris’ subordinated directly to the Holy See,» and a desire «to preserve our originality and church identity at any expense». |
| One should also take into account the words of present Bishop Milan Sasik about the necessity for the GCC «to dominate historically in the region» (2003) and the results of the latest sociological research of the early 2000s. When asked the question «To which religious denomination do you belong ?» (more than 2000 respondents were questioned, not including Romanians, Jews, Germans, and Gypsies), 57.74% of Rusyns, 50% of Slovaks, 41.25% of Ukrainians, 30.77% of Hungarians, and 16.67% of Russians called themselves Greek Catholics. About 37% of the population of the region identify themselves with the renewed GCC. Whereas 50% of questioned Russians, 47.50% of Ukrainians, 33.33% of Slovaks, and only 28.57% of Rusyns identify themselves with Orthodoxy (on average, 38.84% of all the respondents identify themselves with it). |
#:,#? g to sociologist Oleksandr Pelin, the tendency to an increase of the number of denominationally-identified Catholics of the Eastern rite in the Transcarpathia Region «is of a specific ethnic address.»
The modern canonical status of the Mukachiv Eparchy, together with the gradual renewal of the historical domination of the GCC in the Transcarpathia Region, gives one every ground to maintain that «the project of a Rusyn Greek Catholic Church sui juris» is still at the stage of implementation…
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