The Mystery of Father Damascene Polivka

Founder of the Ukrainian Church in Winnipeg

An article entitled Winnipeg’s First Ukrainian Catholic Church has recently appeared in The Winnipeg Free Press.  The piece is a good summary of the beginnings  of the mother of all Ukrainian religious congregations in the city.  Nevertheless, it does contain a few factual errors.  One of them pertains to the founder of the congregation, Father Damascene Polivka.

The figure of Damascene Polivka is shadowed in mystery.  Concrete facts about his life history continue to evade us.  I attempted to discover more about this mysterious missionary when assisting St. Nicholas Parish compose its centennial history book, but my quest was in vain.  The principal difficulty was that key archival sources were not made available.  Thus, when St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Celebrating 100 Years. Together for Tomorrow went to press, it left several historical details undiscovered, including the history of the parish’s own founder.

What little was known about Polivka came from publications of lesser historical value.  These contained precious few details about him, where he was mentioned at all.  His origins, details of his mission, and even the spelling of his name were not uniformly reported.  Photographs of him are extremely rare (I know of only a one). He has been described as a Ruthenian missionary priest but of Slovak origin, a Basilian monk sent to Canada by the archbishop of Lviv, Cardinal Sembratovych.  Many details about his person and work appear to be contradictory, and equally mysterious seems to be his role in the foundation of a church congregation shortly before he left the city of Winnipeg one-hundred and ten years ago, never to return. 

I have been able to resolve part of the the mystery surrounding Polivka, including details of his origins and mission, by consulting his personal file in the Archives of the former Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide for the Affairs of the Oriental Rite, now contained in the Archives of the Congregation of the Oriental Churches. The documents contained under the rubric Monaci reveal the following:

Our missionary was born Adalbert Francisk Polivka on 4 February 1869 in the Bohemian village of Hostin u Vojkovic. His father was of Hungarian-Slavic (Slovak) origins. At the time, Bohemia (Czech), northern Hungary (Slovakia) and Eastern Galicia (Western Ukraine) were all part of a single state, the Habsburg empire of Austria-Hungary.  Even in Cyrillic, he always signed his name Polivka (Полівка) and not the Ukraininized Polyvka or Polywka (Поливка) that appears in most publications.  

In early life, Adalbert trained as a medical doctor and surgeon.  He spent a few years in the Latin-Rite congregation of the Brothers of Mercy.  In 1892, upon entering the Ruthenian Order of St. Basil the Great, he assumed the religious name John-Damascene or simply Damascene after the great Saint and Church Father.  The young Polivka had been encouraged to join this order-in-reform by his eponymous fellow Bohemian, Jesuit Father Adalbert Baudiss.  Baudiss was one of the protagonists of the Basilian reform and served as master of novices in Dobromyl, Galicia.  He looked on the young surgeon as having been sent “by Divine Providence” to minister to the medical needs of the impoverished, fledgling religious community.  But the Church law of the time did not allow the hands of priests, consecrated for the holy service of the altar, to be stained with blood, neither to fight in war, nor to practice surgery, nor even to hunt. Baudiss had to ask for a special dispensation from Propaganda Fide, which accorded his recruit permission to practice his medical arts but only within the monasteries.

In order to help the Basilian reform, Pope Leo XIII had granted the Order the right of receiving Latin-Rite candidates without any canonical dispensation.  At their final profession, the pontiff decreed that these monks were automatically to be transferred to the Byzantine Rite.  Polivka was one of several non-Ukrainians to make use of this privilege.  He professed his final vows in 1896 and was ordained a priest on 12 September of the following year.   

Although the Roman Pontiff had intended to favour the Basilians, the extraordinary privileges that he had conceded elicited fierce criticism from Ruthenian-Ukrainian society, which saw the Order as one of its few national institutions.  It was feared the Jesuits would attempt to Polonize the Order and, through it, Ukrainian society. By seconding such criticisms, Metropolitan Josyf Sembratovych was forced to resign his see.  Rome and Vienna thought that the Byzantine-Rite Ruthenians could not reform their church without outside help.  And thus, in the first years of the Basilian reform, the Jesuits allowed the Basilian communities to become cosmopolitan, in typically Austro-Hungarian fashion. 

As long as the Jesuits governed the Order, ethnic conflicts were kept at bay.  However, nationalistic tensions were brewing within the empire.  The Polish-Ukrainian truce (the New Era) had come to an end in 1895 and the Basilians began to take sides.  The Jesuits had already begun to entrust the governance of individual monasteries to reformed Basilians but several young Ukrainian fathers felt this was not enough. They began to call for the Jesuits to relinquish the governance of their Order altogether.  Seeing that they were unwanted, the Jesuits asked to be relieved but the Apostolic See would not permit them to abandon the reform until 1904.  Father Baudiss was among those who believed that the young community was not yet ready to govern itself.  Amid such tensions, those who appeared to take the Jesuits’ side began to experience discrimination from their confreres.  Those who were not Ukrainian ethnics, like Damascene Polivka, began to feel out of place in a community which was becoming increasingly nationalistic.

In March 1899, Polivka wrote to Propaganda Fide explaining that the negative, divisive atmosphere in the monasteries had broken his spirit.  He asked for permission to work outside the order for five or six years, perhaps as a missionary in Brazil.  When Cardinal Ledóchowski, Propaganda’s prefect, consulted provincial superior Father Mycielski, the latter attempted to have Polivka dismissed from the Order. The Cardinal rejected the Jesuit’s proposal and on 15 April 1899 granted Polivka permission to work outside his community for three years, under the jurisdiction of his local bishop, Cardinal Sembratovych.  A month later, on 16 April, Polivka had changed his mind about Brazil and asked instead for permission to become a missionary in Canada, informing the Congregation that he had written to the Canadian bishops.  In June he obtained the blessing of the Ukrainian bishops of Galicia and the funds necessary for the journey.  On 27 July, Bishop Legal of St. Albert, Alberta informed Cardinal Ledóchowski that he and his fellow bishops would be very happy to receive another Ukrainian priest, especially since the previous one, Paul Tymkevych, had become a renegade.  The Congregation duly granted permission for the mission on 20 August.  Just before leaving for Canada, Polivka wrote to Archbishop Langevin of St. Boniface asking for particulars about the mission and itemized the liturgical items that each Greek-Rite missionary needed to purchase.  

There was some confusion on the part of the Canadian hierarchy as to what kind of missionary was being sent.  Legal had written to Ledóchowski that he hoped a Basilian monk would do better where secular priests had failed.  On the contrary, the Basilian Order had not yet accepted a mission to Canada and Polivka was being sent not under the auspices of the Order, but as a secular missionary under the authority of his eparchial bishop.

Damascene Polivka had been instructed to go to St. Albert, Alberta, but instead he remained in Winnipeg.  Upon his arrival, on 21 October 1899, he immediately presented himself to the archbishop of St. Boniface who conferred jurisdiction upon him.  Langevin then left for Montreal where he remained for four months. Polivka wrote to Propaganda Fide explaining that he had chosen to remain where the largest group of Ukrainians had settled, as it was impossible to serve in all three western Canadian dioceses.  The Congregation did not appear to be satisfied with Polivka’s explanations as several question marks were penciled-in next to them in the margins of his letter.  

In the meantime, the missionary was given liturgical hospitality at Holy Ghost Parish, administered by the Polish Oblate Fathers.  Father Damascene insisted on the integral practice of the Byzantine Rite and soon caused a scandal by administering the Sacrament of Chrysmation (Confirmation) to Ukrainian infants. Since these had already been baptized by the Polish Oblates, the Latin faithful concluded that Polivka was re-baptizing them.  The  result was that Polivka was soon forbidden to celebrate Mass at Holy Ghost.  

In the meantime, the Ukrainians had formed a committee. On 8 December they invited Polivka to attend a meeting at which they resolved to buy land for the construction of their own church. In what is probably the earliest Ukrainian church document in Winnipeg, Polivka redacted a petition in both old Ukrainian and Latin to Archbishop Langevin, asking him to bless the project.  This undated petition (December 1899) was countersigned by 27 of the members of the church committee (as they appear on the document): 

Андрей Зайло, Николай Маковецкі, Thеоdorus Stephanik, Прокоп Скіба, Wasyl Rudko, Ілько Бабій, Anton Czerkas. Jan Spizak, Alek. Książyk, Гриць Прокопишин, Julian Bohońko, Michał Lenczak, Стефан Волошиньский. Wasyl Tankowсky, Aleksa Roszko, Іван Сидор, Василій Турчинюк, Petro Krasiuk, Юрко Паніщак, Stefan Cinnyk, Jan Piskosz, Michal Doda, Юрко Кобітикъ, Nicholas Małachowski, Mikołaj Powawoznyk, Jełyjacz Kostiuk, Olexa Haluszczak, Michał Palamar, о. Дамаскин Полівка.

Under pressure from the committee, Father Damascene telegraphed the archbishop in Montreal, asking for his blessing.  Langevin replied that the diocese was already heavily in debt, especially with the newly-constructed Holy Ghost Church which was to serve several nationalities. He further suggested that Polivka’s services were not needed in the city of Winnipeg but in rural Manitoba, where a larger number of the Ukrainians were without the services of any priest.  In the end, Langevin ordered Polivka to assume the mission in Alberta for which he had been commissioned and for which Bishop Legal continued to plead.

Instead of going to Alberta, in the first days of the new century Polivka left Winnipeg for Chicago and thence to New York where he was reported to have come under the influence of the clergy responsible for Svoboda, a newspaper which staunchly opposed the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s jurisdiction over the Eastern-Rite Catholics.  From the US and later from Montreal, Polivka wrote to his Winnipeg flock asking for donations and offering to return to serve them on two conditions: that they would support him financially and that they would not place the church property under the control of the Latin bishop. 

Disappointed with his lack of cooperation, Langevin petitioned Propaganda to recall Polivka to Europe.  At the same time, the prelate penned a courteous letter to Vasyl Rudko of the Ukrainian church committee, explaining the reasons for opposing their project.  In this letter, the archbishop asked the Ukrainians to be patient and not to have any further contact with Polivka, whose jurisdiction he had withdrawn for disobedience.  On 9 February 1900, Cardinal Ledóchowski wrote to Father Mycielski asking him to recall Polivka to the monastery but Mycielski replied that he would be a bad influence in the reformed communities. Mycielski nevertheless promised to ask the superior of the unreformed Basilians if he could assign Polivka to the empty monastery-parish of Krasnopuschna.  Polivka, however, refused this proposal.  He argued that his three-year leave had not yet expired and that his congregation in Plymouth, Pennsylvania would be in danger of falling into schism if he abandoned them.

In June 1900, Polivka wrote to Propaganda’s Prefect from Plymouth, explaining his side of what had happened in Winnipeg.  He placed the blame on the Oblates who were worried about their church debt, and on the Ukrainian committee that had rebelled against the Roman Catholic authorities.  On 3 May 1901, this time writing from Northampton, Pennsylvania, Polivka informed Cardinal Ledóchowski that he could not find a European bishop to accept him so he asked to remain in the United States.  On 16 September 1903, Bishop Garvey of Altoona asked for Polivka to remain in his diocese and continue to minister at the Greek-Rite Church in Windbeer.  The same day, Polivka petitioned Ledóchowski’s successor, Cardinal Gotti, to become a diocesan priest.  Bishop Garvey confirmed that he was willing to accept Polivka as one of his priests in a letter to Cardinal Gotti dated 18 January 1904.

Previously, in December 1903, the Austro-Hungarian chargé d’affaires to the Holy See sent a curious document to Propaganda Fide.  This document contained a  list of Ruthenian Greek-Catholic priests residing in the USA that his government wanted to see recalled, undoubtedly for political reasons.  The first name that appears on the list is “Damascene Polivka, parish priest in Windbeer, Pennsylvania”.  Two other priests who had served in Winnipeg appear: Nestor Dymytriv in Northampton and Nicholas Strytynsky in Olyphant, Pennsylvania.  These priests had one thing in common: they were all connected with Svoboda and had, at one time or another, functioned as independents, essentially Greek-Catholics who did not want to become Orthodox but who had difficulties with the local Latin hierarchy.  Even though Polivka had agreed to serve at The First Slavish [Slavic] United St. Mary’s Greek-Rite Catholic Church in Windbeer, Bishop Garvey’s good dispositions towards him demonstrate that Father Damascene had never broken communion with the Catholic Church.  In this, his explanation to Cardinal Ledóchowski rings true: “it was a rebellion not on my part but on the part of the people... It was rather the people, but not me!”

On 8 October 1905, Polivka sent a petition to Pope Pius X asking to return to the Latin Rite, giving the reason that the married clergy and fanatical (Ukrainian) nationalists were persecuting him. On 16 January 1906, Propaganda released Polivka from his monastic vows, transferring him to the diocesan clergy.  On 29 February 1906, Bishop Garvey wrote to Cardinal Gotti that he had given permission to Polivka to return to his native Bohemia for health reasons.  The last letter in the file was written by Polivka from Krpy-Vrutic, Bohemia on 13 March 1906 asking for the indult to return to the Latin Rite because he had no way of supporting himself financially and all his money had gone to medical cures.  How ironic that a physician who had volunteered to heal and to alleviate the financial burden of a religious order was himself reduced to sickness and poverty.

After this letter, Polivka vanishes from history.  Even the renowned collector of historical data, Father Dmytro Blažejovskyj, was not able to obtain accurate information about Polivka and his whereabouts.  In his Ukrainian Catholic Clergy in Diaspora, Blažejovskyj erroneously listed Polivka as having been born in Subcarpathia instead of Bohemia, as having been stationed in Northampton from 1899 to 1900 and as having been in Galicia from 1901 to 1903.  No mention was made of his service in Plymouth or Windbeer. The last accurate news we have of Polivka places him in Bohemia in March 1906, but what happened to him subsequently?  After leaving the Basilians and returning to his native rite he no longer fell under the jurisdiction of Propaganda Fide for the Oriental Rites. Thus all further trace of him is lost in this Congregation’s archives.  Did he remain in active ministry? Did he serve as a Latin-Rite priest in his native land?  Where did he die and when?  Hopefully further research will solve these mysteries.

      Some of the mystery surrounding Polivka appears to be man-made. Perhaps embarrassed by the fact that Polivka had left their ranks and had fallen out with the Catholic bishops, Basilian chronologists have tended to play down, if not ignore, his role in the founding of their Winnipeg parish.  Facts pertaining to him have been glossed-over, as in a passage by the late Dr. Modeste Gnesko reproduced in St. Nicholas’ centenntial history, which was taken from the 1966 booklet commemorating the opening of the present church.  An English translation of the passage in question reads: “Residing far away from the Winnipeg congregation, he often wrote to it, encouraging it and supporting it spiritually and morally. In addition, he sent monetary offerings for the future church. Impressed by his advice and example, the people resolved to finish the work [that had been] initiated.” Vatican archival sources contradict this account, so the question arises: did Father Gnesko have access to primary sources which were not made available for the composition of the parish centennial history, or was this simply an well-meaning attempt to whitewash inconvenient facts?  

Polivka’s unsuccessful mission made Archbishop Langevin swear that he would never accept another Greek-Catholic priest.  However, following a meeting between his vicar general Father Lacombe and Metropolitan Sheptytsky, and the Vatican’s appointment of a Greek-Catholic apostolic visitor for Canada, the prelate was induced to change his mind. Propaganda Fide had been after the Basilians to assume the mission in the US and Canada since 1893, but the Order’s superiors had always refused.  Finally, in 1902, three Basilian missionaries were sent to Alberta, and two more arrived in Winnipeg the following year.

   And what about the church congregation that Polivka helped found?  In 1901, two years after his departure from Winnipeg, a tiny chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas was constructed on property acquired by the committee. Historical sources demonstrate that the congregation identified itself as Greek-Catholic, even though they did not accept Archbishop Langevin’s jurisdiction.  Despite this fact, clergy of various religious allegiances were permitted to use the chapel until the arrival of two Basilian Fathers in November 1903.  At that time, the congregation asked the Basilians to assume the direction of their church.  Archbishop Langevin paid for the construction of a larger temple (velyka tservka) which was opened in January 1905 and located directly across the street from the original chapel.

But not all segments of that single Ukrainian congregation agreed with the Basilians, nor did they like the fact that their church had been brought under the authority of the Latin archbishop.  Consequently, part of the congregation left to found Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral, which was consecrated by future Russian Orthodox Patriarch St. Tikhon in 1905.  Two years later, in 1907, a more nationalistic portion returned to the first tiny chapel (mala tserkva) and renamed it Sts. Vladimir and Olga, the future Ukrainian Catholic cathedral.  Another part of the flock formed the Greek-Independent Church and in 1917, a further segment helped create the Ukrainian Greek-Orthodox Church of Canada.  

The Basilians were far from alone in attempting to "remake" history.  In 1936, Father Vasyl Kushnir, the parish priest of Sts. Vladimir and Olga, published a commemorative Almanach that contains a fictional account of the beginings of his parish.  Orthodox publications went so far as to claim that the first church was not even Catholic or that the Uniates separated later.  It seemed to have been important that each successor church lay exclusive claim to the first church, just as their brethren in Ukraine fought over Hagia Sophia in Kyiv.  What is certain is that many if not all of the leaders of these churches were part of the original St. Nicholas congregation, co-founded and served by the mysterious missionary, the Bohemian-Slovak Greek-Catholic onetime Basilian Father Damascene Adalbert Francisk Polivka.

Abbé Quoëx and the Liturgy

On 2 January 2007, a man of great virtue, Father Franck Marie Quoëx, passed to his eternal reward in God.   Each year, those who had the great privilege of his friendship observe this day quietly, modestly but religiously.  And so it is fitting, as Abbé Quoëx was a modest man, a hidden soul.  His scholarly works, of great scientific value, are not yet known.  And still, many who did not know him in life have come to admire him and cherish his memory.  The power of his personality, the nobility of his character, the goodness of his heart continue to attract people who never met him.

An worthy reflection on Father Quoëx's life and work has recently appeared on New Liturgical Movement.  To this excellent article, I can only add that, as an authentic Christian liturgist, Abbé Quoëx did not limit his interest to his own rite; he also studied in the Eastern Liturgies, especially the Byzantine Rite and its various usages. He would often attend Byzantine Divine liturgies in Rome and examined the parallels between different rites and their authentic differences.  His scholarship was pure, motivated by the highest human and religious values, devoid of dependence on fashion or conformity based on self-interest.  He cultivated knowledge because it is man's purpose; it belongs to his natural and spiritual destiny. Quoëx's liturgy, whether studied or celebrated, was a participation in God's Beauty and mankind's desire to share and live that beauty.  

Father's Quoëx was not given the consolation to see his work recognized in this life.  He was, however, granted the grace to see the accession of Pope Benedict XVI, who shares his love and appreciation of the liturgy's culture. 

I encourage everyone to read the article in question in order to know him whose memory endures.  May he continue to challenge and encourage us to follow in his footsteps.

The Title of "Excellency" for Bishops

Throughout the ages, Catholic clergy have been styled by various titles.  The most common title is Reverendus.  In addition to the superlative degree thereof (Reverendissimus), clerical dignitaries also were styled with various secular titles such as Dominus (Lordship), Illustrissimus, and Amplitudinis (Grandeur).  Into the twentieth century, bishops continued to be addressed as Most Reverend and Illustrious Lordship, while, in the English speaking world, archbishops were  addressed, in the style of dukes, Your Grace.  Cardinals were and are styled Eminence after the highest officials of the Byzantine court, and the Pope is called Sanctitas (Holiness) or Beatissimus Pater (Most Blessed or Holy Father).

The title of Excellency is secular in origin and began to be given to civil officials such as ambassadors in the eighteenth century.  Thus apostolic nuncios (papal ambassadors) and other dignitaries of the papal court acquired the title Excellentia with the addition of Reverendissima to distinguish it from secular excellencies. Diocesan bishops began to acquire the title with greater frequency in the nineteenth century.  For example, Metropolitan Sheptytsky, who held various state offices in the Austrian Imperial system, was addressed as Excellency inside Austria but as Illustrissimus ac Reverendissimus Dominus by the Roman Curia or Amplitudo Vestra/Votre Grandeur by other clergy.

With the fall of the continental empires  at the end of the First World War, noble titles lost the universal legal force they once possessed and their use began to wane somewhat in civic circles.  The ambassadorial title of Excellency began to be attributed to bishops with greater frequency.  The solemn concordats concluded between the Apostolic See and new European regimes had force of law in both civil and ecclesiastical spheres, and granted state recognition to the Catholic Church and its structures.  Thus, following the conclusion of  the 1925 concordat with Poland, the Roman Curia began to address Polish bishops with the title of Excellency as opposed to Lordship.  Throughout the British Empire, however, the ducal style of Grace for archbishops and Lordship for bishops was recognized in civil law for Anglican hierarchs, the lords spiritual, each of which was a parliamentary peer of the realm. The same titles were used out of courtesy for Catholic bishops of the Empire.

Following the conclusion of the Concordat with Italy and the Lateran Treaty, the Holy See gained international legal recognition.  The Pope, as spiritual and temporal sovereign, was thus able to grant an internationally recognized legal title to all Catholic bishops throughout the world.  In the audience given to the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Ceremonial on 11 December 1930, Pope Pius XI decreed that, henceforth, the title of Excellentia Reverendissima (Most Reverend Excellency) was to be used to style both Latin and Oriental patriarchs, apostolic nuncios, archbishops and bishops, and certain  dignitaries of the Roman Curia.  The decree enacting this decision was issued by the Prefect, Cardinal Gennaro Granito Pignatelli di Belmonte on 31 December 1930 and was subsequently published in the Osservatore Romano issue of 24 January and on page 22 of the 1931 Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

Immediately, the problem of the Eastern Catholic Patriarchs arose.  As spiritual heads of their Churches they had been styled Beatitude in order to raise them above other metropolitans and bishops.  Since the mainstream Catholic theology and canon law did not yet understand the concept of Particular Churches, many Roman curialists considered the title Beatitude to be abusive, and proper only to the Roman Pontiff because it had been addressed by St. Jerome to Pope St. Damasus in 384.  Such was the tenure of the previous decree of the Ceremonial Dicastery (June 1893) and was the verdict of an article in the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

It appears, however, that the Vatican Congregation for the Oriental Church(es) had not been consulted on the matter.  Regarding the new title of Excellency, Monsignor Amletto Cicogniani, assessor of the Oriental, sent a formal thank you to Ceremonial on 22 January 1931.  Nevertheless, only two months later, the dicastery’s head, Cardinal Luigi Sincero, brought the matter to the attention of the Pope in an audience of 14 March.  He explained that the Cardinals of the Ceremonial Congregation had ignored the preparatory studies for the codification of Oriental Canon Law which had recommended that patriarchs retain a title distinct from bishops.  Perhaps not wanting to provoke further conflicts in the other curial departments, the  Pope ordered that, henceforth, the Oriental Congregation address Eastern Catholic patriarchs as Beatitude so that “in this way, this qualification would be introduced without issuing, for the moment, a special decree.”

In January 1938, papal secretary of state Cardinal Pacelli consulted the Oriental Congregation regarding letters to be sent to the Melchite Patriarch. The drafts in question had been addressed to “His Excellency”, at which Sincero’s successor, Cardinal Eugène Tisserant, remarked: “Why withold the title Beatitude for the Melchite Patriarch?  Is it someone from the Secreteriat of State?”  Pacelli, upon becoming Pope Pius XII, would  correct this oversight definitively for with his motu proprio Cleri Sanctitati in 1957, he finally granted the title Beatitude to Eastern Catholic patriarchs by full force of the law (canon 273, 10).

The Episcopal Conference of 1932

  The Synod of the Hierarchy of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church is scheduled to begin next week.  Before Pope John Paul II granted a synodal structure to our Church (in 1980), instead of synods the bishops held semi-annual episcopal conferences.  What follows is a translation of the opening paragraph of the decree issued by the bishops at the close of such a conference, which took place in Rome from 9-15 November 1932: 

“We the undersigned Ruthenian Bishops, congregated in this Alma Urbe [Mother Rome] express our utmost gratitude to the Supreme Pontiff for the kingly, nay magnificent Seminary building of St. Josaphat, the very building in which our Conference was held.  Besides those present, His Excellency the Metropolitan of Halych, afflicted by a grave illness, was absent from our midst, and also our bishops from America and Canada were impeded and could not come to Rome nor take part in our Conference.  Although absent, some bishops made their presence felt by telegraph and by sending delegates to the Holy Father, to the Sacred Congregation [of the Oriental Church] and also to the same Conference, for which they were deputized to cast their votes.”

The 1932 conference was significant, particularly for the drafting of a statute to be observed at all future conferences.   Following its conclusion, the Oriental Congregation asked the Apostolic Nuncio in Warsaw to comment on the Ukrainian bishops’ resolutions.  Writing to Cardinal Sincero on 22 December 1933, Nuncio Marmaggi observed that “the Conference was very occupied with matters of lesser importance, all the while leaving aside issues which should have merited the consideration of their Excellencies." The absence of Sheptytsky, their primate, might have been a factor in their inability to focus on more essential points.

Blessed of a Previous Pandemic

" I lay sick for a month with a cough and rheumatism, at the time when influenza was spreading through Canada."    

  

- Blessed Bishop Nykyta Budka to Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, Winnipeg, 22 November 1918.

The 1925 Concordat with Poland

It is time to lay to rest the claim that the 1925 Concordat between Poland and the Holy See granted practical autonomy to the Greek-Catholic Church.  This claim continues to be repeated by various authors. However, if we examine the historical evidence we discover that although the concordat granted legal status to the Greek-Catholic Church in interwar Poland, it also deprived it of several rights and freedoms.

Following the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, nation states in the nineteenth century delineated their rights and responsibilities by written constitutions.  After the First World War, the Catholic Church negotiated written concordats with the new states, each of which also sought diplomatic recognition for itself.  In this historical context, the Holy See considered the concordat arrangement to be the best way to secure the Church’s independence and to establish a working relationship with new regimes.

Several years of preparation went into the Concordat with Poland.  The first soundings for this treaty came in July 1918 from the Regency Government of Austro-German-occupied Poland. However, negotiations had to be put on hold due to the fall of the Regency that November.  Its successor regime, the Second Republic, appeared to be unstable so the Vatican waited to see if a durable government would emerge with which it could negotiate a lasting agreement.

The Holy See began negotiations with the Polish government in 1919 but ran into opposition from a group of Polish bishops (Teodorowicz, Sapieha, and Dalbor) which wanted to negotiate directly with the government.  A compromise was reached whereby members of the Polish episcopate and religious superiors were appointed to negotiate a draft text with government representatives.  The Polish parliament adopted a federal constitution on 21 March 1921, article 114 of which stated that “relations between the state and the Church will be fixed based on an agreement with the Holy See, which must be ratified by parliament”. 

Historically, Poland is looked upon as a bastion of Catholicism but the government of the interwar Second Republic often pursued policies detrimental to the Catholic Church. Many of its politicians, who were ostensibly Catholics, had been educated in the liberal or Josephist ideologies of Austria and Germany.  They made sure that Catholicism was not declared the official religion in the March Constitution, but merely the religion of the majority.  They also sought to reproduce in the concordat, clauses favourable to the type of state interference that had existed during the previous imperial regimes.  They were surprised that the Apostolic See was reluctant to give their ostensibly Catholic state the rights which had been previously accorded to the Lutheran kaiser and the Orthodox tsar. 

It is interesting to examine the Greek-Catholics’ issues that were discussed in the concordat negotiations and how much initiative Vatican representatives took to ensure the protection of Greek-Catholic rights. The Russian regime had confiscated a large  number of churches and large portions of revenue-producing lands, especially those belonging to Eastern Catholics.  When he was nuncio in Poland, Pope Pius XI had appointed two Greek-Catholic representatives to a committee charged with drafting a proposal for the parceling of church properties.  Perhaps the most intricate question, the land reform issue, took years to negotiate, further  prolonged by the frequent changing of governments, each with  its own views  on the issue. Finally, in 1924, a draft concordat was agreed upon by church and state delegates in Poland, following which the government sent its envoy, Stanislas Grabski, to Rome to make the final negotiations with Monsignor Francesco Borgongini Duca of the Holy See. 

Before the Vatican negotiations began, Francesco Marmaggi, the apostolic nuncio to Poland, sent the draft text to both Latin and Greek-Catholic bishops and major superiors, asking for their comments and concerns.  The Ukrainian bishops expressed two principal concerns.  The first pertained to government interference in church appointments.  The bishops proposed that the church be freed of any interference in these matters, and that bishops be appointed directly by the Pope.  The second concern  related to the Eastern Catholic faithful residing in the Kholm, Pidlasia and Volyn regions. Eastern Catholic eparchies had been forcibly supressed in these regions by the Russian Empire, and the Polish regime had not permitted them to be restored, hoping that the Eastern faithful would thus come to adopt the Latin Rite. 

Bishop Przezdziecki of Lutsk pointed out that the first draft of the constutition had not mentioned the Eastern Rites, except in the context of their obligations towards the state.  He suggested that more emphasis be placed on the equality of all rites of the Catholic Church.  Przezdziecki was also concerned that the Eastern Catholics in the former uniate eparchies not be deprived of any pastoral care, as the first draft of the concordat text seemed to imply by prohibiting Greek-Catholic bishops from exercising jurisdiction outside their eparchies. His solution was for the Latin bishops of those regions to coordinate the Eastern Rite missions outside of Galicia.

Marmaggi's report to the Vatican took into account this feedback from the episcopate, giving special concern to the Greek-Catholic issues. All of his suggestions were incorporated into the Vatican’s proposals during the first phase of negotiations. These took place at the Vatican over 17 sessions between 1 October and 5 November 1924.  The Holy See was able to obtain concessions for Greek-Catholics but in some cases the government imposed restrictions.  Let us look at some of the details in the Articles of the proposed Concordat.  This will reveal where concessions by the Polish Government to the Greek Catholic Rites were sought, and where restrictions against the latter were still to continue in force. 

Article 1  was changed to read:  “The Catholic Church in all its rites will enjoy complete liberty”. Article 9 stipulated that diocesan boundaries had to be readjusted so that no bishop outside Poland had jurisdiction within the republic and that religious superiors had to be Polish citizens.  Article 11,  while stating in principal that episcopal appointments were the prerogative of the Holy See, nevertheless conceded a veto to the president of the Republic for any candidate considered politically dangerous to Poland’s interests. Article 12 enjoined that all bishops would swear before the President an oath of allegiance to the Republic.  Although Article 13 required the use of the Polish language, Grabski  promised that the government would also ensure education in the mother tongue for elementary schools.  Article 14 protected Church property from state expropriation. Article 18 stated that Oriental Catholics outside their diocesan boundaries would be placed under the jurisdiction of Latin ordinaries, a restriction that brought some debate before being included.  Article 19 stated that those dangerous to security be excluded from parochial benefices. A clause was added that, if the government did not present objections within a 30 day period, the church could proceed with parochial nominations.  Article 20 mandated that conflicts between the government and the church over appointments had to be resolved within 3 months, after which the matter would go before a commission..  To article 22, on the use of the Polish language, the Holy See added the words “in the latin rite”, so as to avoid the government mixing into Greek-Catholic affairs. 

The nuncio sent these negotiated wordings to certain bishops and clergy in Poland for comments. A second set of 8 sessions of negotiations began on 5 January and ended 2 February, 1925.  During these sessions, changes to the text included the following: In Article 2, the Holy See insisted on emphasising the complete freedom for clerics to communicate with Rome and the freedom from government censure of episcopal letters (government officials had blocked Metropolitan Sheptytsky’s pastoral letter in 1923 and would do so again in 1938).  The Holy See had been asking for the Peremysl Eparchy to be divided in two.  In this regard, Grabski signed a secret note to article 9, promising that after parliamentary ratification of the concordat one Greek and one Latin diocese would be established in Galicia.  (These promises were never fulfilled).  A comment on article 12 stated that any further concessions for the Greek-Catholic bishops regarding the oath of allegiance to the republic could not be obtained.  At the last session on 5 February, an agreement was reached on article 18 regarding Latin patronage appointments.  Cardinal Dalbor’s proposal was accepted whereby the patron of the benefice or parish had to choose one of three candidates selected by the bishop.  Despite flexibility towards the Latin Church, the Government refused to concede any liberty on this point to the Greek-Catholics.

Bishop Szelazek had been sent to Rome as a delegate of the Polish episcopate, to assist in the final negotiations.  He wrote several letters to Nuncio Marmaggi, informing him of the final phases of the work.  Szelazek stated that the last days of talks had been very difficult and he was in great fear of the outcome. He nevertheless believed that the Holy See had obtained all possible concessions from the government.  While 2 February had been scheduled as the last session, Vatican representatives insisted on returning to the table, to further negotiate “grave issues”.  Interestingly, at the very last minute (6 February), Nuncio Marmaggi asked Szelazek to lobby for the division of the Peremysl Eparchy and submitted information regarding state persecution of Ukrainian schoolteachers. These interventions did not enter into the discussion, which were concluded on 8 February.  The final draft was signed by both parties on 10 February in the evening.  Following a single-session examination by a commission of cardinals, Pope Pius XI promulgated the concordat on 18t February. As had been stipulated in the Polish Constitution, the agreement was put before parliament, which duly ratified it on 23 April 1925.  The Concordat between the Holy See and Poland entered into effect as church and civil law on 3 August 1925.

Those authors who claim that the concordat granted autonomy to the Greek Catholic Church are likely following quasi-official publications which came out shortly after the ratification of the treaty.  Monsignor Olexander Bachynsky was probably asked by Metropolitan Sheptytsky to publish an officially positive pamphlet entitled “Konkordat”.  Bachynsky noted, among other things, that the state recognized the equality of all Catholics without distinction of rites, the state is not competent in Church affairs, and the Church had the right to govern its own internal affairs. 

Despite such publications, the Ukrainian reaction to the concordat was not favourable.  Even the nuncio noted that: “The Ruthenian Catholics are not satisfied with their situation resulting from the recent Concordat.”  In July 1925, the head of the ZUNR in exile, Jevhen Petrushevych, wrote to the Holy See protesting the subjugation of the Ukrainians in Poland.  Father Let Gillet also noted Ukrainian discontent in his journal entry of 26 August 1925.

The concordat had immediate repercussions for the Greek-Catholic Church.  First, all the bishops had to swear an oath of loyalty to the Polish state and abandon any official support for a Ukrainian separatist movement.  The liturgical prayers for the head of state in the Liturgy were modifed. In the first issue of his diocesan bulletin for 1926, Metropolitan Sheptytsky decreed: “In virtue of Article VIII of the Concordat of the Holy Apostolic See with the Republic of Poland and the decision of the Polish episcopate in Warsaw (1925), it is prescribed that, in future, on all Sundays and on 3 May, during the Holy Mass, after the dismissal during the prayer “ad multos annos” which begins with the words “through their holy prayers”, leaving aside the words: “to our most faithful emperor”, after the expression: “all of our fathers and brothers”, the following words must be said: “save, O Lord, our state and its president (N.N.)”, together with the words following to the end of the prayer. In all other places in the Liturgy, only the church authorities are to be commemorated.”

Perhaps the most disappointing feature  of the concordat for the Greek-Catholic Church was  the restriction of pastoral activities to the three eparchies of Galicia (renamed Little Poland). This meant that Bishop Josyf Botsian, who had been secretly consecrated in 1914, had to refrain from the public use of his title as bishop of Lutsk because it was not recognized by the concordat.  Although there was no specific mention of this eparchy in the negotiations, it was clear that the government was unwilling to lift its moratorium on Greek-Catholic clergy ministering in the borderlands of Poland,  fearing the people in such regions region would come to support Ukrainian nationalism. 

The Ukrainian bishops had warned the Holy See that a concordat would likely be used against the Greek-Catholics by government officials because in Poland the laws were not applied equitably.  This became more and more the case in the 1930’s as Poland’s ethnic minorities began to rebel and because, in the words of Bishop Szelazek, of the government’s “tendency towards totalitarianism”.

Except for a single school, Ukrainian-language elementary education was abolished at the beginning of the 1930s's. At the end of the decade, the Ministry of Religion began to refuse consent to the appointment of certain Greek-Catholic pastors and, without providing specific charges, ordered their removal from border zones. The Nuncio drew the attention of the ministry of foreign affairs to such arbitrary procedures, which were in violation of the concordat.  In turn, the government complained that the Ukrainian clergy were openly violating the concordat’s loyalty clauses. 

The veto for residential bishops began to be used against candidates who had disagreed with the regime over any issue.  The military regime was opposed to the the Eastern-Rite missions in Poland. In 1934, the president vetoed the candidacy of Auxillary-Bishop Cieslaw Sokolowski for the vacant Sandomierz diocese, simply because his bishop had placed him in charge of the Byzantine-Rite in Podlachia.  Nuncio Marmaggi informed the government that the Holy See could not even enter into a discussion regarding the existence of the Eastern-Catholics.  When the nuncio suggested another candidate, Pius XI replied that abandoning a worthy candidate would "bring shame on the Holy See". Even after local Polish notables testified to the worthiness of Sokolowski, the foreign minister told the nuncio that questioning the president's reasons was an offense against the dignity of the head of state.  After all negotiations failed, the Nuncio was instructed simply to inform the foreign minister of that the pope had appointed an interim apostolic administrator.

By 1937, the accord between the Vatican and Warsaw had become a burden to the ruling regime's anti-Catholic and totalitarian policies.  The state moved to grant similar legal status to non-Catholic confessions which were heavily under state control.  The concordat ceased to have any legal status with the German and Soviet invasions of 1939, following which the Holy See proceeded to appoint Polish bishops without the consent of any government. Perhaps the most significant was the appointment of Josyf Slipyj, secretly named archbishop-coadjutor to Metropolitan Sheptytsky in 1939.  This elicited a protest from the government-in-exile when it was finally informed of the appointment, after the war.  However, With the establishment of a communist republic in 1945, it was in the interest of both Church and State to declare the concordat as having been voided in 1940.

The Long-Awaited Complete Inventory of the Archives of the Nunciature of Vienna

The long-awaited Inventory of the of the Archives of the Nunciature of Vienna has been published (Archivio della nunziatura apostolica in Vienna, Collectanea Archivi Vaticani 64, Archivio Segreto Vaticano 2008). Over ten years in the making, this publication by Vatican archivist Croatian Father Tomislav Mrknonjić, OFM Conv. represents a work of meticulous erudition in archival science.  Many such inventories deal with only a portion of a given archive, whereas Mrknonjić’s work is a catalogue of the entire collection, from 1607 until 1939/1940, the current consultable limits of the archives sources of the Apostolic See.  

Previous to the release of this work, scholars had to make do with partial guides, the most recent of which were available for consultation in the Sala Indici of the Vatican Archives.  The last such inventory extended only to the late 1880’s.  Research of the nunciature’s contents posterior of this period had to be performed by guesswork or with the help of guidelines by scholars who had consulted beyond the indexed segments.  In 2006, a skeleton-preview of Mrknonjić’s inventory was made available internally, in anticipation of the definitive publication.

The eminent scholarship of Father Tomislav is manifested in many details of the present work. In it, a meticulous description of the contents of each archival box (numbered from 1 to 904) is given, together with the titles and dates of its contents according to the original classification given by the nunciature’s archivists. Internal divisions (fascicles) of each box are indicated and each document contained therein is individually listed by its folio number, together with a brief description of its contents.  The publication’s volume (910 pages) testifies to dedication and perseverence of the editor who, over the last decade, dedicated his energies to researching the history and contents of an enormous quantity of primary source material.

Tomislav Mrknonjić also merits great praise for his care and precision in reproducing the nomenclature of the various personages and places mentioned in the fonds’ correspondence.  Of particular mention is his faithful transcription of Slavic terms, which often are paid less heed by western scholars.  He has been careful and diligent in checking the current usage of names and places, sometimes indicating several versions, especially when the current usage differs from forms found in the archival sources themselves (for example, L’viv/ Lemberg/ Lwów/ Lvov/ Leopoli(s) or Szeptycki/ Šeptyckyj).  Unlike other recent publications of comparable calibre, the transcription of Ruthenian-Ukrainian names found in this work are virtually flawless. 

The particular history of the Vienna nunciature, described in the introduction to this volume, sheds light on the singular importance of its archives for both secular and church historians. The papal envoy to the (Holy Roman) emperor became a permanent legation in the sixteenth century.  With the the division of the Habsburg kingdoms following the abdication of Charles V, the Imperial Court settled in the city of Vienna as did the papal legation to the emperor.  This embassy or nunciature remained in place through the vicissitudes of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, at times when others had to be closed down.  For example, with the final partition of Poland, the nunciature of Warsaw closed in 1796 and its archives were conveyed to the Vatican.  With the fall of the Habsburg empire, the Viennese nunciature (thenceforth accredited to the Austrian Republic) transferred portions of its historical archives to the Vatican, first in 1921 and then in 1938 with the closure of the nunciature following the Anschluß (annexation of Austria).  The final portion of its archives were moved there sometime after 1940.  

With the suppression of the nunciature of Warsaw at the end of the eighteenth century, the Viennese nuncio took on the role of unofficial papal liaison for those Catholic communities ruled over by the Russian Tsar and the Ottoman Sultan.  Thus, the Viennese archives have come to form a key primary source for material relating to the history of Ukraine and Ukrainians, both in Austrian-Galicia (from 1772) and in Russian Ukraine.  In  consequence, the inventory of this nunciature will serve as an indispensable research tool, not only for researchers of Austro-German and Hungarian history, but also for that of all of central and eastern Europe. 

The vicissitudes of the Greek-Catholic Church are well chronicled in this nunciature’s annals, whether in the nuncios’ reports to the Holy See, in the correspondence with the nunciature of the Greek-Catholic clergy and faithful, or in the Latin clergys’ and civil authorities’ observations concerning the Greek-Catholics.  Various topics of interest include: information pertaining to the Eparchies of Lviv, Przemyśl, Stanislaviv, Lutsk, Chełm (Kholm); the negotiations and nomination processes of Greek-Catholic bishops and church dignitaries; the internal condition and reforms of the Basilian Order and its relations with the Ruthenian-Ukrainian Church hierarchy; the conflict over the attempted introduction of the Gregorian calendar in the Stanislaviv Eparchy; the attempts by the Hungarian Government to interfere with the nomination of the Greek-Catholic bishop for the United States; news about and relations with the nascent Ukrainian state; the return of Metropolitan Sheptytsky to Lviv (via Vienna) in 1923.  There is also one fascile containing reports about the nascent Ukrainian Republic's atitude towards Catholicism.

In contrast to the significant number of researchers belonging to Slavic nations such as Poland and Romania, very few Ukrainian historians are consulting the Vatican Secret Archives.  Unlike the the aforementioned countries, neither the Ukrainian government nor its academic institutions offer support for such research.  The single notable scholar to make prolific use of the primary sources contained in the Vatican’s numerous collections was the late Basilian Father Athanasius Welykyj.  Since his death, over twenty years ago, only a handful of Ukrainian historians have made any significant use of its fonds (foremost among these is John-Paul Himka).  With the publication of Tomislav Mrknonjić’s inventory, Ukrainian scholars who come to the Vatican in future, will be encouraged to access the documents of the Vienna Nunciature, which can now be accomplished with infinitely greater ease.

EVOLUTIO:  As if in contradiction to my dire but accurate observations, two Ukrainians made a brief consultation of the Vatican Archives, at the end of September.  Their funding, however, continues to come  from North America.  If Ukraine wants to stand with the rest of the world, then it needs to step up to the plate.  A great nation must give more than it takes.

A Witness of Faith - A Gift to Ukraine

The Greek word martyrios means witness. According to a Christian understanding, martyrs and confessors are not witnesses to anything else except to Christian Faith, Hope and Love. Although Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky did not suffer immediate death at the hands of his persecutors (he came very close), he did indeed suffer physical torture inflicted by those who opposed Christ’s Love. Sheptytsky bore witness before all people of good will, among them non-Catholics and even non-Christians. Yet, his actions were the result of a deep faith in the unique Mediation of the Saviour of mankind and of His Body the Church.

In order to reach out to all people, the metropolitan attempted to proclaim Gospel values in words that all could understand. Many times he was successful but sometimes he failed, more due to the fact that his hearers were not listening or did not understand. Foremost, Kyr Andrei's duty was to his Ukrainian Catholic flock. He understood that virtue and vice are two sides of the same coin; that the Ukrainian People had been given the gift of national awakening but sometimes, instead of being used for good, this virtue turned into chauvinistic nationalism, the typical vice of the age.

One of Sheptytsky's greatest achievements was his progress with Ukrainian national leaders and cultural notables. His patient efforts were directed, not towards their goals, but to making Christ's Teaching the inspiration for their achievements. His challenge was to draw them away from nation-worship to the worship of the God who loves all mankind.

Metropolitan Andrei's intelligent, moderate and virtuous approach was often misunderstood by nationalists of all colours. After his death, Ukrainian nationalists turned him into a mythical hero even though, during his lifetime, they sometimes clashed with him when he spoke the truth about hatred and selfishness. His opponents made him into a mythical foe but it was his own people's exaggerations that did him the most harm.

Beatification and canonization are proclamations about Christian-Catholic values found in the lives of individuals. By these two processes the Church, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, presents a person as a contemporary model, and discerns their ability to intercede for us before God. Canonization is not the same as creating a sports hero, a community hero, a mythical hero, freedom fighter or political dissident (Robin Hood, Dovbush, Shevchenko). It is about speaking the highest Truth (Istyna) which the World cannot give and often does not understand.

Like every human being, even the saints, Sheptytsky made his share of mistakes. However, speaking as someone who has performed extensive research in the various archives of the Apostolic See, I can only say that my impression, from the relative primary sources, is that he was a man of great virtue, of holiness of life, and of ecclesial (and ecclesiastical) wisdom.

It is true that Andrei Sheptytsky’s beatification has been much delayed. This delay has prompted Ukrainians worldwide to ask questions about the state of the Sheptytsky cause, but are they asking the right questions? Sometimes, it appears the metropolitan's message has not been understood by the very people that are attempting to honor his memory.

In the past, the reasons for the delay appeared to be extrinsic. Today, some question whether those now involved with Sheptytsky’s cause are being careful and diligent in their historical research? What is the quality of the sources they are presenting and, more importantly, are they addressing objections sufficiently and convincingly? Have the historical problems raised many years ago been historically resolved and have they been resolved on the level of Faith and Church teaching? These questions are simply the standard ones asked in all beatifications ad canonizations.

Some have chosen to resort to lobbying. On 13 March 2008, the Lviv Gazette launched an initiative called “Send a letter to the Pope” in an effort to prompt the beatification of Metropolitan Andrei. During a press conference held six days later, the vice-rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Myroslav Marynovych, stated that his institution actively supports the Lviv Gazette’s initiative. He explained that such letters should be written “for one’s self, for one’s historical memory”. He also suggested that this petition represents not “a narrowly denominational act” but an ecumenical one, "the glorification of a person who belongs to Ukraine and the whole world." He also noted that that several Orthodox intellectuals were among the first to send such letters. Marynovych added that many of Sheptytsky's contemporaries, even non-Christians, regarded him as a living saint.

Few would argue with Marynovych’s sentiments which are praiseworthy in themselves. However, if we look a little below the surface, we quickly realize that the Lviv initiative and the university's explanations bypass the principle issues involved in beatification. In reality, the Supreme Authority of the Catholic Church does not beatify someone because of our subjective historical memories, nor for ecumenical reasons (at least the latter is a Christian value), nor for their philanthropic deeds. It is not enough that we consider Sheptytsky an earthly hero; the Apostolic See must also consider him a supernatural one.

Returning to the natural order, some of the reasons which the Lviv Gazette suggested to the Pope for beatifying the metropolitan include: that he founded Ukrainian national and cultural organizations and that he defended the Ukrainian nation from its enemies (that is, from fellow Polish and Russian Christians). In welcoming papal Secretary of State Cardinal Bertone to Lviv, on 24 May 2009, Mayor Andriy Sadovyi made the following declaration alluding to Sheptytsky’s beatification: "for Ukraine the creation of the state is very closely interlaced with the establishment of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church and the activity of Metropolitan Andrei.”

Such statements and other facts suggest that segments of Ukrainian society could be leaning towards the very nation-worship that Sheptytsky spent his life to remedy. While wholeheartedly supporting every Ukrainian cultural and national aspiration, Kyr Andrei warned his people not to instrumentalize religion for secular motives or, worse still, attempt to use it as a weapon against others. Ukrainians today need to recognize that, just as in Sheptytsky's own lifetime, lobbying for him, when not rooted and grounded in Catholic Christian values, will do harm instead of good.

So what should be done to promote Sheptytsky’s beatification? Should we stop talking about his national and cultural activities? Certainly not, for continuing to examine his life and work from an historical perspective, organizing conferences, calling for articles and books, all these are all helpful to his cause. What is more urgent, however, is a miracle attributed to the Servant of God’s intervention. Instead of sending letters to the Pope about Sheptytsky's civic achievements, a prayer crusade should be launched. For without the required miracle, all of the signatures, petitions and even the historical analyses will be useless. Beatification is about God’s Grace touching our lives through the example and intercession of an individual, and Grace comes only through prayer. This is why Metropolitan Andrei’s glorification will only result from a consensus of prayer and of righteous deeds.

Let all Ukrainians, including churchmen, artists, intellectuals, professionals, civic leaders and politicians set an example by praying humbly before the Almighty Lord of Lords, and publicly before our people, promising to strive to acquire the virtues and moral integrity that correspond to the abundant cultural riches which God has bestowed upon our Nation spread accross the globe. Let us ask these things through the intercession of the great Servant of God Andrei Roman Aleksander Marya Sheptytsky, that the Lord would glorify his person so that we might follow his teaching.

A Prisoner for His People's Faith

Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky (1865-1944) was imprisoned no less than three times because of his defense of the Faith of his Ukrainian people. His personal background, spiritual journey, and persecution, closely parallel aspects of the history of the Ukrainian nation. Young Sheptytsky underwent his own process of national awakening, which resulted in his return to the Byzantine-Ruthenian Rite of his ancestors. Becoming Byzantine yet remaining Catholic placed him directly at odds with the political-religious ideologies of both the Russian Empire and the reborn Polish Republic, especially since he had assumed the mantle of spiritual leadership over the Galician Ukrainians. Kyr Andrei was deported to Siberia in 1914 as an obstacle to the Tsarist Empire’s plan to absorb the Ukrainian Greek-Catholics into the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1919, he was placed under house arrest, this time by Catholic Poland, and interned three years later by the same government when he attempted to return to Lviv. Based on correspondence found in the Vatican Archives, this article reveals hitherto unknown details of the metropolitan’s imprisonments. It also sheds light on the reasons why Sheptytsky was imprisoned so many times and chronicles the vigorous interventions of the Roman Apostolic See designed to defend the metropolitan and to secure his release and return to his archeparchy of Lviv.

This article may be found in the newly-published issue of Logos (vol. 50, 2009).

The First Ukrainian Catholic School in Winnipeg

According to Recently Discovered Archival Sources

in Progress Ukrainian Catholic News, n. 15/2617 (23 August 2009). p. 7.

While doing research on Blessed Nykyta Budka, I discovered some interesting pieces of correspondence in the Vatican Archives pertaining to St. Nicholas Ukrainian Greek-Catholic School in Winnipeg, known today as Immaculate Heart of Mary School. The letters in question, English translations of which are produced in this brief history, contain hitherto unknown details relating to the construction of the first school.

At the time St. Nicholas School was founded in 1905, some fourteen years after the arrival of the first Ukrainian immigrants to Canada, there were already five thousand Ukrainians living in the city of Winnipeg. Sometimes referred to as Ruthenians or Galicians, our Ukrainian ancestors came from what was then Austrian Galicia, which is part of present-day Western Ukraine. Although virtually all of these immigrants belonged to the Greek-Catholic Church, without priests or churches of their own they were obliged, initially, to attend Immaculate Conception and later Holy Ghost Roman Catholic Church.

At first, the Roman Catholic clergy had attempted to integrate the Ukrainian settlers into the local Latin-Rite parishes. Observing, however, that their spiritual needs were not being met, the Latin bishops, led by Archbishop Adélard Langevin of St. Boniface, requested Ukrainian Greek-Catholic clergy be sent from Austrian Galicia. In 1899 an itinerant missionary, Father John-Damascene Polivka (of Bohemian-Slovak origin), had founded a religious community in Winnipeg named after St. Nicholas. In two years this fledgling congregation raised enough money to build a tiny chapel on land they had purchased. Unfortunately, the church had neither resident clergy nor religious instructors. Various Orthodox and Protestant missionaries offered worship and education, in an effort to entice the Greek-Catholics to join their congregations and to abandon their Catholic Faith.

Eventually, in 1902, three Basilian Fathers and four Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate arrived in Canada and settled in Beaver Lake, near the present-day town of Mundare, Alberta. On 10 May 1903, less than a year later (and two months after having preached a mission in Winnipeg), the mission superior, Father Platonid Filas, described their humble ambitions in a letter written to the papal delegate in Canada:

We are beginning to build a house for the religious sisters “Servants of the Blessed Virgin”, who, together with us, also came to Canada, in order to help us in this mission work, and also, if possible, to open one elementary school for the Ruthenian children.

Six months later, in November 1903, two more missionaries arrived, Fathers Matei Hura and Navkrati Kryzhanovsky. This time, they settled in Winnipeg, where Father Hura assumed the direction of the tiny St. Nicholas Church and began offering classes to the Ukrainian children. The founding of a formal school is usually dated to 1905 as its beginning was often assumed to have coincided with the arrival of the Sisters. Actually, Father Hura had already set up a makeshift school, as evidenced by letter of Archbishop Langevin to the apostolic delegate, dated 10 June 1905:

As to the children that are attending the Catholic schools, there are not more than 70 going to the free Catholic school of Saint Nicholas in Winnipeg and perhaps 25 to 30 going to Holy Ghost School in Winnipeg. [...] I myself went to Vienna, last summer 1904, in the hope of interesting the Austrian Government and the clergy of Galicia in our schools, and asking them to send us catholic teachers; they answered me that they did not have enough for the[eir own] country.

Nevertheless, help was imminent. Father Hura had already requested the Sisters Servants’ Galician superior send two sisters to serve at the Winnipeg mission. Only six days after the Latin archbishop had written the letter cited above, Sisters Athanasia Melnyk and Alexia Chykalo arrived at St. Nicholas Church and began teaching at the school.

Over the next year, the number of Ukrainian immigrants in Winnipeg continued to increase; so much so that, by December 1906, in a report to the Vatican, Archbishop Langevin listed St. Nicholas as his largest parish in the city of Winnipeg, with 700 families totaling “4000 souls”. This figure represented twenty-eight percent of the city’s total Catholic population. The present day St. Mary’s Cathedral was listed as his second largest Winnipeg parish, with 600 families totaling 3000 souls.

Published sources state that in the spring of 1906 classes were moved from a nearby hall to St. Nicholas Church basement. Three years later, the school had still not relocated to better premises, as Archbishop Langevin noted in a letter to the papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Merry del Val, dated 19 January 1909:

The Basilian Fathers of Saint Nicholas Church in Winnipeg take care of over six thousand Ruthenians. The archiepiscopal Corporation has built them a church and a priest’s house with money borrowed at 6 per cent from the bank, and this religious establishment is still burdened with a heavy debt. [...] Their parochial school of Saint Nicholas in Winnipeg is staffed by Ruthenian Nuns in the basement of the church, a most unfavorable place. This fact, together with the poverty of the people who cannot contribute to the free school, are the reasons why many children go to the Public Schools. [...] Consequently, it is urgent to build a parochial school for the Ruthenian children in Winnipeg.

This “urgent situation” was brought up at a meeting of the Ukrainian clergy, held at the archbishop’s palace (l’archevêché) on 4 January 1910. At that meeting, the decision was made to construct a school building for the Ukrainians, even though the archdiocese was already burdened with many debts. Published sources stated that the funds for St. Nicholas School came from the Catholic Extension Society of Toronto. While it is true that Archbishop Langevin asked the Society to support the Ukrainians, in fact the bulk of the funds came from an unknown benefactor. As if by providence, on 27 January 1910, only three weeks after the decision to build a school, Cardinal Merry del Val wrote to the Canadian apostolic delegate that:

A pious person made an offering to the Holy Father of ten-thousand lire in favour of the Ruthenians. Wherefore, I am sending to you, for this purpose, an enclosed cheque from the Credit Lyonnais.

Apostolic Delegate Donato Sbarretti informed Archbishop Langevin of the bequest, to which Langevin replied on 9 March:

Truly the Holy Father is very good to take an interest in our dear Ruthenians and the benefactor that gave to His Holiness these two thousand dollars is generous. [...] In Winnipeg, we must build a school for the Ruthenian children.

Ten days later, on 19 March, Langevin wrote in greater detail to Archbishop Sbarretti concerning his project:

Truly it is a great encouragement and this determines me to take on the project of constructing a school for the Ruthenian Parish in Winnipeg- since only 150 children come together under the direction of one or two Ruthenian sisters in the poorly lit basement of the church of St. Nicholas. There are more than two-hundred other children that are not at any school and about a hundred good to the schools constructed by the Presbyterians or to the public schools. It means constructing a school for 400 children with room for the sisters to lodge.

With the requisite funds at hand, construction of St. Nicholas School began on 2 July 1911 and the blessing and official opening took place on 22 October. Only ten years later, this apostolate had already produced abundant fruits throughout the country. Writing from Quebec City on 1 November 1921, Metropolitan Sheptytsky shared the following observations with Bishop Papadopoulos of the Oriental Congregation:

The Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate run 6 schools for young children. This Congregation of Sisters, which came from Galicia 18 years ago only 4 or 5 in number, has developed very well. They have [...] schools in Mundare, Winnipeg, Edmonton Yorkton, Ituna and Sifton. [...] Thanks to the annual collections that the Canadian bishops decided to make, for 10 years, in all the churches in Canada, and thanks to the help of the Basilian and Redemptorist Fathers and to the efforts of Bishop Budka, all the Sisters’ convents have large and beautiful schools. [Today] their number is close to 70.

The first of its kind, Saint Nicholas School continued to serve the Winnipeg Ukrainian Catholic community until 1962, when the present-day building was completed and the its name was changed to Immaculate Heart of Mary. In its centenary year of 2005, a planning project for a new school was initiated. Canadian Ukrainian Catholics are no longer burdened with the poverty that their ancestors endured, a century ago. Currently, our community is endowed with all of the human, financial, and spiritual resources required to maintain a Ukrainian Catholic school of the highest calibre. Our Faith leads us to Hope which moves us to Charity. Besides shedding light on interesting details from the past, this article can also provide material for reflection about our future.

Sylvester Sembratovych on the “The New Era”

In His Own Words

Sylvester Sembratovych had been a candidate for Greek-Catholic archbishop-metropolitan of Lviv in 1869 but, the following year, his more experienced uncle Josyf was nominated to the post. Sylvester subsequently served as auxiliary bishop from 1879, as apostolic administrator from 1882, and finally suceeded as metropolitan-archbishop from 1885 until his death in 1898. He assumed the administration of the Ruthenian [Ukrainian] primatial see following the enforced resignation of his uncle Josyf Sembratovych, who had been judged by church and state to be too soft on Russophilism. During this period, the Catholic Church also felt itself under seige by liberal-anticlerical politicians throughout Western Europe. In this climate of heightened political and religious tension, nephew Sylvester was given the specific madate of tempering pro-Russian sympathies among the Greek-Catholic clergy and in Ruthenian society, as it was within his influence. For this purpose, he promoted a political program of détente between the two dominant nationalities in Austrian Galicia, the Poles and the Ruthenian-Ukrainians. Known as “The New Era”, the program received considerable initial support but was eventually rejected by the majority of the Ruthenian elite, who judged it to be a continuation of their age-old political subservience to the Poles. In hindsight (1923), Sembratovych’s successor, Andrei Sheptytsky, also criticized the New Era for having further alienated the Greek-Catholic Church from the Ruthenian secular leadership. Leaving aside political evaluations, nonetheless, it is historically noteworthy to examine Sembratovych’s motivations for promoting such a program, in his own words. I have recently discovered a reference to the inauguration of the New Era, in a letter written by Sylvester Sembratovych to Cardinal Simeoni, prefect of the Sacred Congregation De Propaganda Fide, the Vatican department then in charge of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Here is a translation of the relevant passage, which maintains the original captilization:

In our Parliament of the kingdom of Galicia, which is here in Leopolis, an event took place which is linked to the good of the Church and of our Ruthenian nation: that is, a program, to be followed in the future, was brought forward by the Ruthenians, which aims to resolve the difficulties that stood in the way of the friendly relations and the political development between the two nationalities in Galicia. The program was laid out thus: We Ruthenians form a nation distinct from the Poles and the Russians; 2o we faithfully retain the catholic faith and the greek-catholic rite; 3o we will remain faithful to the emperor and to the imperial Dynasty of Austria; on the foundation of these principles we intend to benefit from constitutional rights and thus to promote the development of the political, social and economic good of our nation – keeping ourselves in friendly relations with the polish nation. This program, already suggested by me and subsequently proposed in parliament by one of the Ruthenian deputies, professor of the Lviv gymnasium Romanchuk, I have made my own and strongly supported it in the same parliament, showing the highest interest in it. I would say that this program was favorably received both within parliament and outside, with the exception of those few persons from the opposition parties who are against religion and the catholic Church. Having made themselves known, they can now be more carefully evaded. Of late, this program has also been well received by the other three Ruthenian Bishops and generally by the clergy and the Ruthenian people. It was published together with an appeal to the entire Ruthenian nation to favour it and to embrace it as the only means to achieve real advantages for the same nation. The said appeal bears the signatures of all of us Bishops, of the head of the Ruthenian parliamentary Club, and of the president of the society of Ruthenian nationalists in Lviv. We decided to take this step because we believe that this is the right means not only for the good of the nation but also for holy Church.
Leopolis, 17 December 1890

The Questionnaire

Objective Criteria for Choosing a Bishop

A recent post on someone else’s blog has enticed me to return to a topic which I have studying for the past five years: the nominations of Greek-Catholic bishops in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In researching these processes, I have had to examine the procedural differences that occurred in the selection of each candidate. Previous articles have outlined various stages and persons consulted in the nominations of Austro-Hungarian bishops. This post focuses on particular variations in the information requested about the candidates themselves based on two versions of a key document in the selection process: the questionnaire.
Particular issues have always been considered in the selection of each bishop, pertaining to a given time, place and situation. Nonetheless, one of the relatively static elements found all these processes was the official questionnaire, of which I have discovered two versions, both produced by the Sacred Consistorial Congregation (today called the Congregation of Bishops). The first questionnaire is undated but was certainly in use at the end of the nineteenth century. The second, published by the Vatican Polyglot Press in 1913, is the product of the reforms of the Roman Curia and of the selection process to posts of responsibility during the pontificate of St. Pius X.
The first questionnaire is entitled “Notiones ac quaestiones circa qualitates quae necessarie sunt in promovendis ad Episcopale munus ac dignitatem” or in translation, “Information and questions regarding the qualities that are necessary in promoting [someone] to the episcopal office and dignity.” The document contains fourteen short questions pertaining to the name, place of origin, age, family, health, studies, sacred orders received, ecclesiastical responsibilities exercised, the leadership and administrative as well as the the moral and personal qualities which he possessed. In at least one case, during a period of intense political unrest, the question “is he alien to political factions” was added to the list by hand. This first document is very general and perhaps was too concise, as is evident from the lack of revealing information that it gleaned about a particular churchman.
During the modernist crisis, which came to a head at the beginning the pontificate of Pius X, the Roman Curia sought more revealing information about those being proposed for positions of responsibility within the Church. With this intention, a new questionnaire was produced in 1913, bearing the heading: “Interrogationes de qualitatibus eligendi ad episcopatum” or “Questions regarding the qualities of one being chosen for the episcopacy”. The new version contains several innovations, one being the division of the questions into four headings, entitled “articles”. The first article is followed by seven questions regarding the personal information on the candidate. The second article, containing nine questions, pertained to the studies, sacred orders and ecclesiastical responsibilities which the candidate had exercised. The third had six questions on the prospective bishop’s moral qualities. And the fourth, with two questions, asked the recipient to provide a general opinion as to the worthiness of the candidate and if he would be capable of administering a diocese. With twenty-four in total, the new version contained ten more questions than its predecessor.
One of the most incisive aspects of the 1913 questionnaire consists in the addition of a preliminary question (number 1) which was placed before the first article. In the original Latin, this first question reads: “Utrum testis candidatum cognoscat, a quo tempore et quomodo. Signanter dicat utrum eidem aliquo consanguinitatis vel affinitatis gradu coniunctus sit; utrum cum ipso intima amicitia, an potius aversio aliqua obtineat”, or in translation: Whether the one giving testimony knows the candidate, how he knows him and for how long, expressly stating whether he is connected to him through any consanguinity or grade of relation through marriage; whether he has an intimate friendship with him or rather an aversion of any kind.
Such candid information was not previously required and is likely the fruit of difficulties encountered during previous interrogations. Saint Pius X, who approved the additions to this questionnaire, understood well that even the most worthy testimoniary labours under human weakness and could possess an unobjective view of the person he is asked to evaluate. He might even have a personal interest in seeing a candidate elevated to or blocked from a particular office. The 1913 version made it more difficult, in good conscience, for the one providing the information to push or to block a candidate for personal reasons.
Although produced by the Consistorial Congregation, the questionnaire was also used by the Oriental Congregation, which, after its creation in 1917, took over the responsability of processing the nominations of Eastern Catholic bishops.
Following the Second Vatican Council, changes in church legislation also necessitated modifications in the selection process of bishops. For example, whereas civil governments used to have a voice in such appointments (often through the royal prerogative of presentation), today prominent Catholic laypeople, acquainted with the nominee, are asked to provide an evaluation.
Episcopal questionnaires are confidential and those who receive them are bound to keep secret both the questions and their responses. For approximately seventy years, such documents continue to remain confidential until the Pope sanctions their release. Neither document cited above is any longer confidential nor in current usage. They are part of the series released in 1985 by Pope John Paul II, who permitted the consultation of documents of the pontificates of Pius X and Benedict XV (1903 to 1922) contained in the archives of the Apostolic See. In 2006, our happily reigning Pontiff extended this consultation to include the pontificate of Pius XI (1922 to 1939).
Today, questionnaires similar to those examined here are still utilized for each prospective episcopal candidate. Once the questionnaires have been completed, the candidates’ names are short-listed to three, a list known as a ternary or terna in Latin. Based on the information gleaned from all questionnaires, the ternary lists the candidates in order of most recommended to least recommended. After clearing the candidates with the papal Secretariat of State, the Vatican department in charge of the nomination (Congregation of Bishops for Latin dioceses, Propaganda Fide for mission territories, the Oriental Congregation for Eastern Catholics) presents to the Pope the name of the person whom it judges to be the most suitable candidate, together with the names of the other candidates. The Pope may confirm their judgment, choose one of the other two names from the ternary, or even appoint someone who is not on the list. Generally, however, the department’s recommendation prevails.
Present-day Ukrainian Greek-Catholic candidates are vetted at two levels: the level of the Patriarchia or office of the Major-Archiepiscopal Curia; and the level of the Apostolic See. Both levels send out their own distinctive questionnaires. The Permanent Synod, made up of the Major-Archbishop and four elected bishop, discusses the information contained in the received responses and then presents their findings to the general Synod of Ukrainian Bishops (or vice versa?). According to the system in force, bishops in the home territory (Ukraine) are directly elected by the Ukrainian Synod and confirmed by the Supreme Pontiff. In the diaspora, however, while the Synod still presents the ternary of candidates to the Apostolic See, it is the Oriental Congregation which examines the ternary and presents its findings to the Pope, who nominates the bishop. Such a distinction in the process arises from the fact that patriarchs/major-archbishops do not hold jurisdiction outside the home country, whereas the Supreme Pontiff enjoys universal jurisdiction worldwide.
Present-day questionnaires, whether Synodal or Vatican, remain under strict secrecy, currently making it impossible to compare them with previous versions. It would be interesting, however, to know whether or not they continue to require the testimoniary to disclose whether he harbors either sentiments of friendship or of enmity towards the prospective candidate.

In Memory of Father Adrian Ckuj 1970-2009

IN·PIAM·MEMORIAM
REVERENDISSIMI·DOMINI
ADRIANI·CKVI
AETATIS·SVAE·ANNO·TRIGESIMONONO
IN·HAC·LACRIMARVM·VALLE
VITAE·FVNCTI
OPTIME·MERITI·SACERDOTIS
APOSTOLICAE·ROMANAE·SEDIS
VISITATIONIS·PRO·VCRAINIS
IN·ITALIA·DEGENTIBVS
CANCELLARIAE·REGENTIS
DICATVR

" [...] tueri tales viros deberet, nunc vero eo magis, quod tanta penuria est in omni vel honoris vel aetatis gradu, ut tam orba civitas [scil. Ecclesia] tales tutores complecti debeat."

"[...] it would be her duty to protect such men, but all the more at the present time, because so great is the dearth of such men in every official rank, and at every stage of life, that, in her destitution the State [read Church] should make the most of such guardians."

- M. Tulli Ciceronis, Epistularum ad Familiares, Liber III, XI, 3

The Last Appointment of a Bygone Age

Blessed Josaphat Kotsylovsky’s Nomination as Bishop of Przemysl

The nomination of Father Josaphat Josyf Kotsylovsky as Greek-Catholic bishop of Przemysl (Peremyshl in Ukrainian) represented the last of a former age as it was the last in a series of historical events: the last of early-twentieth-century nominations of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic eparchs; the last nomination presented by the Habsburg emperor to the Holy See; the last Greek-Catholic nomination processed by the Vatican department De Propaganda Fide; the last appointment to the old eparchy of Przemysl; the last nomination where the ancient privileges of the Greek-Catholic primate were specifically mentioned (but not used); and, finally, the last for eighty years where a Basilian monk was named eparch in Ukrainian lands.

Josyf Kotsylovsky was born in 1876 in Pakosivka, in the Lemko region of what was then Austrian Galicia. He enjoyed a brief military career in the Austrian army, where he achieved officer’s rank. However, discerning a call to the priesthood, in 1901 he approached and was accepted as a seminarian, not for his native Przemysl eparchy, but by Bishop Hryhori Khomyshyn of the Stanislaviv eparchy. Given Kotsylovsky’s intelligence and social status (a former officer), Khomyshyn wanted to send him for superior training to the Pontifical Ruthenian College in Rome. Although the places reserved for Stanislaviv students had all been taken, Metropolitan Sheptytsky offered Kotsylovsky a scholarship which had been reserved for the seminarians of Sheptytsky’s own Lviv archeparchy. Kotsylovsky duly achieved a doctorate in philosophy in 1903 and one in Sacred Theology in 1907, following which he returned to Stanislaviv and was ordained to the priesthood on 6 October of that year.

Josyf Kotsylovsky had become a priest at a crossroads in history. At the turn of the twentieth century, the European governments were preparing for a war which resulted in political revolution throughout the continent, leading to the dissolution of continental empires, the fall of the European imperial dynasties, the creation of political and social discontent and the division of Europe into democratic and totalitarian blocs. Each of these momentous changes would be directly felt in the life of Kotsylovsky and the Ukrainian Church and Nation which he served.

Kotsylovsky’s nomination was the last of the early twentieth-century appointments of the three bishop-ordinaries (eparchs) of the Greek-Catholic eparchies of Lviv, Stanislaviv and Przemysl (Peremyshl). The first two dioceses had been filled in 1900 and 1904 respectively by Andrei Sheptytsky and Hryhori Khomyshyn. The last bishop from the previous century, Konstantyn Chekhovych of Przemysl, remained in office until the beginning of the First World War. In 1914, Russian forces invaded Austrian Galicia, occupying its capital city of Lviv and also the city of Przemysl. They immediately arrested Metropolitan Sheptytsky and exiled him to Siberian imprisonment, and Bishop Khomyshyn subsequently fled to Vienna. The only remaining Greek-Catholic bishop, the elderly Chekhovych, was mistreated by the Russian occupiers and died on 28 April 1915. From their exiles, Sheptytsky and Khomyshyn sought to have a resolute candidate appointed to head the Przemysl eparchy, especially out of fear that the Russians would take advantage of the vacancy by appointing their own candidate in a move designed to sever the union of the Ukrainian Church with Rome. Recent archival research now reveals that this was exactly what the Russian Empire intended to do.

The Roman Apostolic See shared the Ukrainian bishops’ desire for a quick appointment for Przemysl, but naming a Greek-Catholic bishops had become a complicated process. At the time, a maze of interested parties had to be heard before the matter could be decided: Officially, the appointment was negotiated between the Greek-Catholic Primate (the Lviv Metropolitan), the Austrian Emperor, and the Pope. The Metropolitan had the right of submitting a ternary of candidates, from which the Emperor had the privilege of presenting one to the Pope for him to nominate. In reality, the views of the apostolic nuncio, local Roman Catholic bishops, Vatican curial officials, Austrian government ministers, and even Ukrainian public opinion was to be considered. The process was complicated and cumbersome, which made it extremely difficult to find a single candidate who fulfilled the political and religious requirements of all parties. Despite its defects, this protocol resulted in the selection of three zealous bishops, each of whom would later give their lives for the Faith. Bishop Kotsylovsky’s was the last appointment resulting from this accord, which came to an end with the fall of the Habsburg Empire in November 1918. Following Kotsylovsky, no additional Ukrainian bishops could be named until the Holy See negotiated a replcament accord (concordat) with the new rulers of Galicia, the Second Polish Republic.

In fact, Josaphat Kotsylovsky was the last Ruthenian-Ukrainian presented by a Habsburg emperor to the Pope. Since the inception of his long reign in 1848, Franz Josef I had presented many Greek-Catholic bishops, the last two of which had been Metropolitan Sheptytsky and Bishop Khomyshyn. The selection process for the vacant see of Przemysl had actually began during Franz Josef’s reign but the old Emperor died on 21 November 1916 and the imperial parchment presenting Kotsylovsky was signed just six days later, by the new Emperor Karl. This would be the first as well as the last Greek-Catholic episcopal nomination made by the young kaiser, who himself had the unfortunate distinction of being the last emperor-king of Austria-Hungary.

Papal scrutiny of episcopal candidates was mediated through the Roman Curia, the bureaucratic arm of the Apostolic See, made up congregations which are essentially papal departments. From its founding by Pope Urban VIII in 1622, the Sacred Congregation De Propaganda Fide was responsible for processing the nominations for Roman Catholic bishops in mission territories and for all Eastern Catholic bishops. In 1862 Blessed Pius IX created a separate department for Eastern Catholic affairs within the framework of Propaganda Fide. Kotsylovsky’s was the last Ukrainian Greek-Catholic nomination to be processed through Propaganda because only four months later, on 1 May 1917, Pope Benedict XV abolished its Eastern Affairs department and created an entirely independent body to replace it, the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Church. From that time until the present day, all Ukrainian Greek-Catholic affairs, including episcopal nominations, are mediated through this office, subsequently renamed Congregation for the Oriental Churches following the Second Vatican Council.

Bishop Kotsylovsky was the last bishop of the old eparchy of Peremyshl, which dated back to the twelfth century. Together with the nearby Lviv diocese, Peremyshl had the distinction of being the last of two Ruthenian eparchies to enter into union with the Apostolic See of Rome. After the suppression of the Kholm eparchy by Russia, in 1874, Lviv and Peremyshl remained the last and only two Greek-Catholic eparchies remaining in existence, until the new eparchy of Stanislaviv was created in 1885. After the post-second-world-war shift in national boundaries, much of the eparchy’s original territory lay within the Ukrainian (Soviet) Republic whereas a smaller portion, including the city of Przemysl itself, remained inside the Polish border. The Peremyshl eparchy had been suppressed by the Soviet regime in 1946 but was resurrected in 1989 in a new form, extending over a very different territory. The diocese was reestablished for the Ukrainian Catholics in eastern Poland and subsequently has became the Ukrainian metropolitan see for that country.

Before 1990, Bishop Kotsylovsky was the last eparch in present-day Ukraine to be a member of the Basilian Order of St. Josaphat. From the time of the Union of Brest in 1596, until the beginning of Austrian Rule in 1772, only Basilian monks were eligible for episcopal office in the Ruthenian-Ukrainian Church. The Austrian regime favoured secular over religious clergy and, consequently, let the Basilian Order deteriorate while greatly improving the quality of the Ukrainian secular priesthood. Thenceforth, no Basilian held office until after the Order had undergone a thorough reform, which was begun by Papal decree in 1882. In 1899, Andrei Sheptytsky became the first Basilian to be nominated a bishop in over a century. The following year, when he was elevated to the metropolitan see of Lviv, Sheptytsky was to have been succeeded in Stanislaviv by his close collaborator and fellow Basilian Platonid Filas, who had been rejected as auxiliary bishop by the previous metropolitan. However, the secular clergy became alarmed that Rome was trying to restore the Basilian episcopal monopoly and, after much wrangling, a secular priest, Hryhori Khomyshyn, was selected. Subsequent to Father Filas assuming the headship of the reformed Basilians in 1904, a conflict arose between him and Sheptytsky. The divergence between both personalities and the differing outlooks of primate and provincial developed into a conflict between the Ukrainian hierarchy and the Order itself. Asa result, in 1912 Sheptytsky discouraged Filas’ candidacy as bishop for Canada. Until this day, an unwritten rule endures whereby Basilians are chosen to be bishops only for the Diaspora.

Actually, Josyf Kotsylovsky had began his ecclesiastical service as a secular priest and a protégé of Bishop Khomyshyn, who appointed him vice-rector of the Stanislaviv seminary shortly after his priestly ordination. However, Kotsylovsky too fell our of favour with his mentor and resigned the vicerectorship. After a period of soul searching, he decided to embrace the religious life. Entering the Basilian Order in 1911, after the customary noviciate trial period, he professed his first vows in 1913. If the First World War had not broken out the following August, it is unlikely that Kotsylovsky or any other Basilian would have become a bishop in the homeland.

Metropolitan Sheptytsky’s imprisonment made it difficult for him to exercise his right to present a ternary of candidates. From Kursk, Siberia, Sheptytsky wrote to the Pope suggesting several names (none of them Basilians), but, at the same time, he explicitly renounced his right to select the candidates, on that occasion. At the time, no one could predict if the metropolitan was going to be released or if he would survive his harsh captivity. It was even possible that Bishop Khomyshyn would be appointed to replace him in Lviv. In any case, as the only Greek-Catholic Bishop remaining, Khomyshyn was consulted on the replacement for Przemysl and the candidate that he again proposed (as in 1912 for Canada) was Basilian superior Filas. This time, in poor health and mindful of a possible veto by Sheptytsky, Filas was not willing to let his name stand for a fourth time. Nevertheless, while the Russian occupation of Galicia continued, Filas did accept a brief appointment as apostolic administrator for the Ukrainian Catholics scattered throughout Austria-Hungary. During this administration, he appointed his new recruit, Father Kotsylovsky, to be rector of an interim Ukrainian seminary located in Kromeriz, Moravia.

Platonid Filas might have thought that his refusal of the episcopacy would end any further talk of a candidate from his Order, but Bishop Khomyshyn had already been considering another Basilian as a second choice. After Father Kotsylovsky professed his solemn vows in the Order, in June 1916, Khomyshyn was free to present him as his new episcopal candidate. In spite of the bishop’s support, Filas, as Kotsylovsky’s superior, reacted very negatively to the candidacy. This reaction was partially the result of the provincial superior’s own negative experiences and was partially due to the fact that, as Khomyshyn’s candidate, Kotsylovsky might be rejected by Ukrainian nationalists, to whom Khomyshyn was at odds. Father Platonid was forced to relent when probed by the apostolic nuncio, who carefully scrutinized his objections, finding them to be lacking in substance. After the canonical process was completed and Kotsylovsky’s candidacy had already been approved by the Austrian government, Ukrainian parliamentarians did indeed send a communication to Rome, energetically protesting the candidacy. Calling themselves “The Ukrainian Pro-Senate”, these notables, led by future Western Ukrainian president Yevhen Petrushevych, had been brought up according to the Austrian political philosophy whereby the Church was looked upon as a temporal instrument of the state. They feared that Kotsylovsky, like his mentor Bishop Khomyshyn, would not be sympathetic towards their nationalistic designs. However, both Rome and Vienna were apprehensive about the effects of ethnic nationalism for the multi-national Catholic Habsburg Empire, and they chose to ignore the protests.

The nomination process for Peremyshl had been prolonged due to the difficulty of communications during the war. Austrian forces reoccupied the city of Przemysl on 3 June 1916, and the installation of a new Greek-Catholic bishop could now go ahead without hindrance. Metropolitan Sheptytsky, upon hearing of the appointment in his captivity, let it be known that he did not oppose Kotsylovsky, even though he had not been his first choice. The Holy See communicated their acceptance of the candidate allowing His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty to sign the waxed parchment, written in courtly Latin which, in translation, read:

MOST HOLY FATHER! By the greatly lamented death of Bishop Constantine Chekhovych, of pious memory, of Diocese of Przemysl of the greek rite, an episcopal see in Our Kingdom of Galicia, has been made vacant. Solicitous that the same see be provided with a suitable and worthy pastor, We intend to name as bishop of the very same Diocese the professed member of Order of St. Basil the Great JOSEPH KOTSYLOVSKY, a priest well educated in the sacred disciplines, who, due to his gifted soul and ingenious talents, has been commended to Us. Since the archbishop of Leopolis and metropolitan of the greek rite Andrei of the counts Sheptytsky, to whom the confirmation of the bishop of Przemysl of the greek rite pertains by law, until now has been held in captivity by the enemy host and is being prohibited from using his governing power, We believe that the provision of the mentioned episcopal see to be devolved to Your Holiness. Wherefore, We present the aforementioned JOSEPH KOTSYLOVSKY to Your Holiness for the said Diocese, imploring, with filial observance and reverent affection, that Your Holiness kindly accept this Our nomination and deign to institute the aforementioned in the episcopal see of Przemysl of the greek rite. We pray that Almighty God, protect and preserve Your Holiness and His Holy Church in all things. Given in Vienna on the twenty-eighth day of the month of November in the year of the repaired salvation one thousand nine hundred ten and six, in the first year of Our Reign. The obsequious son of Your Holiness Carolus.

The imperial presentation having been made, Pope Benedict XV nominated Kotsylovsky on 29 January 1917 and proclaimed the appointment publicly in the consistory meeting the following 22 March. That same month, Metropolitan Sheptytsky was released from his Russian captivity and bishop-elect Kotsylovsky, perhaps as a gesture of unity, asked Rome for permission to wait for the metropolitan to return to Lviv, so as to act as his principal consecrator. Permission was granted and Kotsylovsky was finally ordained bishop by Sheptytsky, assisted by Bishops Khomyshyn and Njariadi, on 23 September 1917, over two years after the see of Przemysl had become vacant.

The new eparch of Przemysl did not turn out to be the man that some churchmen and political ideologues had predicted. Despite having been critical of Sheptytsky in the past, after Kotsylovsky's episcopal ordination, the two men grew closer, for a time. The younger bishop energetically came to the defence of the older metropolitan, especially in 1923, during Sheptytsky’s arrest and internment at the hand of the Second Polish Republic. Bishop Kotsylovsky travelled to Vienna, Rome, Warsaw and finally Poznan (where the metropolitan was being held captive), in order to negotiate with the civil authorities and to inform church leaders. On 6 October 1923, it was Bishop Kotsylovsky who finally sent the much awaited telegram to both the papal Secretariat of State and the apostolic nunciature in Warsaw, informing them that: “METROPOLITAN ANDREI RETURNED HAPPILY LVIV – JOSAPHAT”. And contrary to the calculations of the Galician political idealogues, Kotsylovky became one of the Ukrainian nation’s greatest protectors, especially during the Polish-Ukrainian War and the subsequent occupation of Eastern Galicia. Like Sheptytsky, Kotsylovsky’s adament defense of his people’s rights was keenly felt in Warsaw political circles.

Although the three Ukrainian bishops each chose different ways to deal with the religious and political problems affecting their Church, the Apostolic See’s representatives repeatedly passed very positive evaluations of these “three most zealous shepherds” (Oriental Congregation to Nuncio Lauri, 13 September 1921). Writing to the Cardinal Secretary of State on 16 April 1923, the apostolic visitor to Eastern Galicia, Father Giovanni Genocchi, gave the following opinion of Sheptytsky, Khomyshyn and Josaphat Kotsylovsky: “Regarding the three Ruthenian Bishops, it is sufficient to say that the Holy See can firmly count on their Catholic Faith and on the goodness of their lives. Their personal defects are not greater than those found among us. In compensation, their piety is truly exemplary.”

Their piety and devotion to the Holy Apostolic See would serve them well as their Church and Nation was forced to endure martyrdom at the hands of Nazi and Communist regimes. Each bishop would give their lives for God’s People. Bishop Kotsylovsky was arrested by Soviet Forces on 26 June 1946 and deported to Kyiv where he died in a concentration camp on 17 November of the following year. He and Bishop Khomyshyn were both beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2001, and three years later, Emperor Karl, who presented Kotsylovsky for nomination, was also raised to the altars. Let us turn to these men of a bygone age who are alive in Christ and continue to dwell among us spiritually, in the present. We ask their intercession so that the greatest among their number, Metropolitan Andrei Roman Sheptytsky, would join them in the list of those whom the Universal Church has publically proclaimed to be among the heavenly blessed, as examples and intercessors for mankind.

Sede Vacante

Постави, Господи, законоположителя надъ ними, да разуміють іазыци, іако человіци суть (Псаломъ 99:20).

As we begin a new calendar year, English Catholics are awaiting news of the appointment of a new archbishop of Westminster, to replace Cardinal Murphy-O’Conner who has recently reached the retirement age. If precedent is anything to go by, the acceptance of the cardinal’s resignation should occur simultaneously with his successor's appointment. This efficient procedure ensures that the archdiocese is not left unnecessarily vacant, that is, without a shepherd to lead both the clergy and the faithful. As a rule, Latin dioceses are left vacant mostly as a result of the death or unexpected resignation of their bishops.

Despite the efficiency of most other appointments, there is a single diocese in the United Kingdom that has been vacant for three years. It happens to be the one Eastern Catholic diocese in that country, the Apostolic Exarchate for Ukrainian Catholics. The previous exarch did not die, nor did he resign: Bishop Paul Chomnycky, who served as the third Ukrainian exarch (missionary bishop) in the UK for four years, was transferred to the eparchy of Stamford, USA, on 3 January 2006.

Three years is considered an exceptionally long time to wait for a new bishop to be found. In the past century, a three-year vacancy in a Ukrainian diocese appears to be unprecedented. The single exception occurred in Stanislaviv from 1900 to 1904, after the Servant of God Andrei Sheptytsky had been promoted to the metropolitan see of Lviv. That particular delay occurred due to interference from two sides: firstly, from the Austrian government, who obstinately refused to provide the required funding; and secondly, from those clergy who were opposed to the main candidate. The leaders of both parties put their particular goals before the greater good of Christ’s Church and of its faithful. Nonetheless, even from a secular point of view, historians have judged their obstinacy as short-sighted and selfish. In the end, the Apostolic See found a way to navigate around the obstacles originating from the little concerns of men.

In our own day, such unusually long diocesan vacancies draw attention to themselves and undoubtedly are the result of difficulties in accepting a candidate. In addition, certain assignments might be considered to be difficult, resulting in the candidate himself eschewing the nomination. In point of fact, the exact reasons for this particular delay are not currently known. In the future, however, historians will closely scrutinize both the problems and the protagonists involved in prolonging this sede vacante and will render their historical judgment. Whatever issues are involved in this long-overdue appointment, British Ukrainian Catholics ardently await the naming of a worthy bishop to fulfill this apostolic charge.

EVOLUTIONES: On 14 January 2009, a new bishop was nominated, suprisingly, for an exarchate that already has a bishop. Father Svjatoslav Shevchuk, Rector of the Lviv Seminary and one of the brightest stars in the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, was named auxillary-bishop for the tiny Ukrainian community in Argentina.
Hearts lifted when, on June 2, church news agencies reported that Bishop Hlib Lonchyna a native American, had been appointed exarch for the United Kingdom. Later, however, it was clarified that Kyr Hlib had only been appointed apostolic administrator of an exarchate which officially remains vacant.

Reforms of the Basilian Order

"When reform is dissociated from the hard work of repentance, and seeks salvation merely by changing others, by creating ever fresh forms, and by accommodation to the times, then despite many useful innovations it will be a caricature of itself. Such reform can touch only things of secondary importance in the Church. No wonder, then, that in the end it sees the Church itself as of secondary importance." (Josef Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Presentation to the Catholic Academy in Bavaria on the question of Church Renewal, 1971).

In the history of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, of all religious communities, the Basilian Order of St. Josaphat maintains the pride of place as the most significant religious and cultural contributor. Over the centuries, the Order has undergone several reforms which have changed its identity and mission. In this article, I will present an outline of these reforms together with a reflection as to their significance for the Basilians’ historical and contemporary mission within the Church.

Before addressing the subject of recent reforms of the Basilian Order, we should have an idea about what the term “reform” meant in the past and what it means today. Today, reform is understood to mean discarding what is old and no longer useful and adopting what is new and fresh. In modern philosophies, new is considered to be better than old, and change for the sake of change is considered a sign of life. In former times, change was perceived as a sign of decay, as it is in nature. The past was considered a model for the present and changes, improvements, indeed reforms, were meant to bring a thing back to a pristine form which, ideally, was supposed to be better. This is the etymological meaning of the word re-formatio itself, to bring a thing back to its original form, not to give it a new one. Even though the intention was to bring things back to a former state, in hindsight, we can say that change indeed did occur, old realities ceased and new ones came into being.

The idea of bringing things back to an original state was the mindset behind the first Basilian “reform”, if we can call it that. Byzantine Christian monasteries generally followed the Rules Saint Basil the Great (329-379) developed by Saint Theodore Studite (760-826). The name “Basilian” was first used by Latin Catholics as a generic name for Greek monks in Southern Italy. In the sixteenth century, monastic life in present day Ukraine and Belarus was undergoing a period of laxity and decline. Immediately following the Union of Brest, two monks of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Vilnius, Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky and St. Josaphat Kuntsevych, intended to bring what they understood as an already existing “Basilian Order” back to its pristine state. In a formal sense, no such unified religious order existed. Monasteries that followed the Basilian or Basilian-Studite rules were independent of one another and fell under the jurisdiction of the local bishop. Rutsky and Josaphat’s 1617 reform actually created a new religious order along the lines of the semi-monastics of the west (the mendicants), such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Carmelites.

Taking its name from its first Vilnius monastery, the new Congregation of the Holy Trinity of the Order of St. Basil the Great spread and flourished across modern day Belarus and Ukraine and played a key role in the education both of laity and clergy helping preserve the distinctiveness of the Ruthenian-Ukrainian culture. Being the only religious order in the Kyivan Church, all Ruthenian bishops were chosen from among its ranks. The Basilian order was considered to be the backbone of the Uniate Church but it was virtually suppressed by outside political interference, after Russia and Austria partitioned Ukrainian lands at the end of the eighteenth century.

If we count the 1617 foundation as a reform, then the second major reform would be that of Dobromyl, began in 1882 (although several smaller reforms had taken place in the 18th and 19th centuries). We might call this the first recent Basilian reform, one that had direct consequences for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in the homeland and abroad. Austrian state interference in Church affairs, known as Josephism, proved beneficial in revitalizing the Greek-Catholic Church as a whole, but also led to the decay of monastic communities such as the Basilians. By the 1870’s, both government and Church officials had become alarmed at the growing influence of Russophilism in Ruthenian society, but it was the liquidation of the Kholm Eparchy by the Russian Empire, in 1874, that proved to be the catalyst that sparked the reform. Polish Jesuits from Austrian Galicia were secretly sent into the Kholm region to assess the situation. As a result and as a remedy to the Kholm situation, Jesuit superior Father Henryk Jackowski devised a plan to reform and revitalize the Basilian Order, virtually re-organizing it from its foundations. The Basilian provincial superior (protohegumen) Klymenti Sarnytsky sent a letter to Rome, asking for the Jesuits to enact this reform, and Pope Leo XIII confirmed the request with his apostolic letter Singulare Praesidium of 12 May 1882. Named after the site of the first reformed monastery, the Dobromyl Reform lasted until 1904, when the governance of the Order was given over to the newly reformed Basilians.

The Dobromyl reform had been designed to strengthen the Greek-Catholic Church for two main reasons: as a defense against the Russophile movement (political and religious) and to prepare dedicated celibate missionaries for work among the Orthodox populations, especially in the Russian Empire. As its mission was intended to go above and beyond Galician concerns, the Pope exempted the Order from the jurisdiction of the local bishops and substantially released the Basilians from a sedentary monastic schedule. The latter shift originated during of the Jesuits' drafting of the post-reform constitutions. The change was tolerated despite warnings by Vatican experts who foresaw that too many exceptions would endanger the order's original monastic identity.

Contrary to initial Ukrainian apprehensions, the reformed Basilians became staunch allies of the national movement. Perhaps Dobromyl’s most notable consequence was the formation of zealous missionaries and leaders for Greek-Catholic communities in the homeland and the Diaspora; among these were the great figures of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, Blessed Bishop Josaphat Kotsylovsky, Blessed Bishop Pavel Gojdych and other priest-martyrs and confessors of the Faith. Another positive consequence was that their semi-monastic regimen made the Basilians ideal for working among the Ukrainian peasants and in Ukrainian national and scholarly fields. This reform has been described by the prominent historian John-Paul Himka as “the most far-reaching response to the national movement from a Christian perspective.”

The Dobromyl Reform needs to be judged historically and by what it intended to accomplish. It did not intend nor could it resolve all of the needs of the Greek-Catholic Church nor the needs of religious life. It met a particular need of a particular situation during a particular historical period. Despite the fact that it was the only male religious congregation in the Ruthenian-Ukrainian Church, and a small fledgling one at that, the reformed Basilian Order was able to establish missions among the Ukrainian immigrants in Brazil (1897), Canada (1902) and other parts of Europe. In order to improve the quality and discipline of the secular clergy, promote celibacy and combat Russophile tendencies, the Ukrainian Bishops turned over to the Order’s direction the Greek-Catholic major seminaries in Rome (1904), Stanislaviv (1906), the wartime seminary of Kroměříž in Moravia (1915), and Lviv (1920).

The reformed Basilians were essentially instruments of Leo XIII's unionistic policy, which promoted respect for and return to the traditions of the Christian East in order to bring the Orthodox into communion with Rome. This policy was generally in force until the 1940's. Dobromyl did not intend to revive traditional oriental monasticism, something which one of the reformed Basilians, Metropolitan Sheptytsky, would address in creating the Studite communities. Indeed, Sheptytsky’s ever-deepening appreciation of his Church’s oriental heritage brought him into conflict with his fellow bishops and with the Basilians, who agreed with the generally-held hybrid model which Cyrille Korolevskij referred to as “liturgical uniatism”.

The character which the Dobromyl Reform had imprinted upon the thoroughly revamped Basilian communities can be said to have lasted, more or less intact, until the Second Vatican Council and beyond. However, imperceptible changes were taking place that would lead to a third (albeit minor) reform in the 1950's. Dobromyl achieved a major shift in attitude or in emphasis from an identity based on community to one based on mission. At first, this was hardly perceptible because the reformed constitutions were implemented in the large, older Basilian monasteries in Galicia. The missionary and other active work of individual members of the community did not affect the day-to-day monastic regimen, although the full Divine Office was only maintained in the novitiate monastery. However, a shift had occurred and the mindset had changed. The Order began to establish a large number of small mission-like communities that made even a semi-monastic regimen difficult if not impossible. Although their roots were monastic, in practice, the Basilians began move towards a lifestyle closer to that of the purely active congregations (like their mentors, the Jesuits) and away from that of the semi-monastic mendicants. With the liquidation of its original foundations in the Communist-bloc countries, the model for the Order's future essentially became the tiny missionary communities of the Diaspora, which were almost entirely orientated around parish apostolates.

The third reform codified this shift-in-emphasis into a new set of constitutions approved by the Apostolic See in 1955. These constitutions took into account both changes in Church legislation and in the growth of the Order. For instance, according to new requirements of the 1950’s, the profession of temporary vows for a minimum of three years was introduced before one was eligible to profess solemn, permanent vows. Also, since 1932, the Order had a new name, the Basilian Order of St. Josaphat, and had been divided into several provinces headed by a General Curia in Rome. The new constitutions gave the ancient title of protoarchimandrite to the superior general, a title that had been abolished by the Russian Tsar in 1804. Despite the return to nomenclature of an earlier period, a further shift in mindset-identity is apparent in the 1955 constitutions. For example, the term monasterium, used in the former constitutions to designate large, established communities, was changed to domus, as in the Jesuit Constitutions. Similarly, smaller outposts followed the Jesuit designation of residentia. According to the canonical classifications of the time, the Basilians fell under the heading of clerices regulares, a very general term meaning clerics (priests) who followed a religious rule. One could say that, at least from the 1950's, the clerices component was emphasized over the regulares one. Basilians were trained to be monks during their initial formation but, once they left the novitiate, they spent much of their mission engaged in the work of secular priests. Another example of a change in mindset revealed in terminology may be found in the fact that, in Basilian Diaspora parishes, the monastery is often referred to as a rectory, the term for residences of eparchial priests.

The Constitutions of 1955 were the last to have been formally approved by the Apostolic See. Not ten years later, the decrees of the Second Vatican Council necessitated another major reform. Each member of the Order received questionnaires and, based on the feedback received, an extraordinary Basilian General Chapter, held in 1969, issued experimental constitutions. With minor modifications in 1977, 1993 and 2002, these same constitutions basically have remained in force until today. Following along the lines of Latin religious Orders, the post-Vatican II reforms saw a significant change in the external formalities and obligations of religious life: external penances and the obligation to wear religious garb were relaxed. Despite the visible differences, the changes in the constitutions can be said to have been essentially cosmetic. As with the 1882 reforms, the most significant change after Vatican II was one of attitude. Immediately after the Council, Protoarchimandrite Athanasius Welykyj, especially through his annual letters to the whole order, inaugurated a new spiritual attitude of dialogue as opposed to blind obedience. An emphasis was placed upon personal responsibility, as opposed to external controls. Welykyj's wide, spiritual vision, however, was not always understood nor accepted by the local superiors, and his spiritual and scholarly inheritance remains largely unclaimed by the Order.

The principal task given to each religious community, by the Second Vatican Council’s decree Perfectae Caritatis, was to search for and to return to the charism of its founder. Essentially, the Council was asking for religious to more carefully define their identity and base their mission on it. This seemingly straightforward task was not so simple for the Basilians, as they had undergone several reforms and major shifts in identity. Postconciliar soul-searching revealed some cracks in the reality of the Order, which reflected unrefined seams still present from past reforms. Even the question of their founder’s identity proved to be difficult to answer: should the Basilians look for their original charism in the monastic communities of St. Basil, whose rules continued to be their spiritual guide? Were their origins not with the mendicant-style Order founded by Rutsky and St. Josaphat? Or should they retain the missionary and very clerical character imprinted on them by the late-nineteenth-century Jesuit reform?

The post-Vatican II Basilian constitutions also reflected the changed attitude of the Order’s superiors regarding liturgical matters. In the first half of the twentieth century, the Ukrainian hierarchy and clergy were divided down-the-middle as to whether or not the latinizations which had crept into their worship should be purged. The Basilians had generally opposed such reforms until a conflict occurred over the de-latinized liturgical books issued by the Apostolic See, beginning in 1940. This conflict resulted in the removal of the Order's interim vicar general and the suspension of priests who refused to use the new Roman editions. As a consequence, all post-1955 constitutions included stipulations for superiors to be diligent that only the approved liturgical books are used, although resistance has continued even until the present, particularly in the order of celebration for the Sacraments of Baptism and Matrimony.

The post-1969 constitutions were experimental, in order to allow Basilian communities throughout the world to put them to the test. After twenty-five years, the Order should have presented a definitive edition for approval to the Apostolic See. However, two key contemporary events prevented this from happening. In 1990, Pope John Paul II promulgated the Code of Canons for the Oriental Catholic Churches and, the same year, the Order was resurrected in Eastern Europe. The fall of communism allowed the underground Basilian communities to re-emerge and for the Order to re-establish its European provinces. These re-activated provinces, together with Ukraine, now held the majority of the Order's members but they had not lived through the turbulent experimental post-conciliar years. The period of experimentation had to be prolonged another ten years, in order that the European communities could integrate their experience of community life into the Basilian rules, and that these rules be made to conform to the stipulations of the new Oriental Code.

By far, the most significant change in the Basilian constitutions since 1969 has been the change in the selection process of their superiors. The Basilian electoral system was based on the highly centralized Jesuit model whereby all offices were appointed from above, rather than elected from below. A notable exception was the choice of the first reformed Basilian provincial, Father Platonid Filas, in 1904, who was selected by popular vote. Nevertheless, from the 1896 constitutions through to 1931, minor superiors were appointed by the Galician provincial superior (who acted as general superior) and his curia. These superiors automatically became members of the electoral chapters. This meant that that the collective membership of the Order had little say in the selection of their superiors, a fact which gave rise to concern among the Ukrainian Church hierarchy at the turn of the twentieth century. Metropolitan Sheptytsky drew attention to the fact that that a small group, made up of the major superior and his appointees, who numerically dominated each electoral chapter, had become a self-perpetuating ruling caste. As a result, Sheptytsky suggested that the electoral system be reformed in a way that would grant more authority to the members of the Order at large.

Little was done to reform this system until 1931, when the Order was divided into seperate provinces and the power to appoint minor superiors was given to the individual provincial superiors. After Vatican II, an indicative vote was introduced, granting consultation rights to the general membership of each province as pertaining to the selection of their provincial superiors. Nevertheless, the provincial chapters (made up largely of unelected Fathers) continued to select candidates without being bound to heed the indicative voice. These chapters then presented a ternary of candidates to the General Curia, which retained the power to appoint the Provincial superior and his counsellors. At the general chapter of 1996, a compromise formula was agreed upon in which the provincial chapters received the power to directly elect their curias, although those elected still require confirmation by the general curia. This current system gives more power to the largely unelected provincial chapters, but still fails to give adequate heed to the voice of the membership at large, as Sheptytsky had proposed. As an order of pontifical (that is papal) rite, however, the election of the general superior and his curia continues to require confirmation by the Apostolic See.

Basilian General Chapters of 2000, 2004, 2006 and 2008 have all struggled to agree on a definitive version of the constitutions to present for approval to the Apostolic See. Consistent with the norms and guidelines in place for such documents, the new constitutions are made-up of a permanent, general section for the whole order (called the pravyla or constitution) and a more specific section that can be amended from time to time called the pravylnyk or directory. This distinction had already been introduced in the earlier experimental constitutions. A novelty, which is to be introduced, is that each province will have its own directory, adapted to the local culture. Also, the new constitutions will be less wordy and rhetorical than previous versions.

The process of producing a definitive text revealed diverging tendencies within the Order as to which of its past reforms should be taken as the basis for its present identity and charism. Even the term and concept of charism was hotly debated, revealing that even the more educated among the chapter Fathers could be out of touch with contemporary Church Magisterium concerning religious life. In addition, a cultural, geographical and even an age divide was revealed in the Order: the older North and South American delegates being generally orientated to the Dobromyl/mission model while the younger European Fathers looked back to the Order's foundation of Rutsky-Josaphat as the basis for their identity.

Another point of debate was over the Basilian’s traditional five vows. In addition to the standard vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, post-1882 constitutions had added the Jesuit vows, one of obedience and submission to the Roman Pontiff and another not to aspire to higher offices or honours. The experimental constitutions of 1969 had reworded the vow to the Pope into a promise and discarded the vow to shun honours, although the latter was re-inserted in the 1993 text. Despite pressure based on spurious theological and canonical arguments, the General Chapter of 2004 voted to retain the oath of obedience to the Roman Pontiff in the original form of a vow, as in the last approved constitutions of 1955. Unfortunately, subsequent chapters have allowed it to be “linguistically rendered-away” into a promise.

One matter that appears to have been left untreated in the reforms of the Basilian rules is the question of the Order’s parishes. Before the First World War, with the rarest exceptions, Basilian churches did not enjoy the status of parishes. At first, in Diaspora mission territories, the Basilian mission acted as surrogate to eparchial structures. Later, due to jurisdictional and legal conflicts, the Order negotiated contracts with individual dioceses whereby their principal churches were given to the Order’s care in spiritualibus et in temporalibus, according to the canonical nomenclature of the time. This meant that the spiritual mission as well as the church property and all revenues (including collections) fell under the jurisdiction and ownership of the Order alone. The Second Vatican Council gave greater emphasis to the universal mission of the diocesan bishop and did away with the temporal-spiritual jurisdiction of religious orders in matters pertaining to the faithful. Therefore, all contracts negotiated with the Basilians lack their former canonical vigor, and yet, hitherto, neither the Basilian superiors nor the eparchial bishops have taken the initiative to renegotiate such agreements in the light of current Church law.

Another difficult question that remains unresolved concerns that of the Basilian‘s material assets and their relation to their own mission and to that of the Church. Over the centuries, through the bequests of benefactors and through a frugal and laborious life of communal religious poverty, the Order amassed large landholdings both in the Europe and in the New World. In the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, these properties and questions connected with them led to conflicts with the church hierarchy and to internal difficulties in the congregation itself. For instance, not ten years after the completion of the austere Dobromyl Reform, Metropolitan Shepytsky and his suffragens (two of them were themselves Basilians) had noticed that the Order’s superiors were already being appointed for their administrative skills and financial savvy rather than according to the spiritual and human qualities neccessary to be genuine religious leaders. They opined that the Basilians were spending too much time on oiling their worldly machinery, which distracted them from their Order’s rightful purpose and induced them to look after their own interests at the expense of those of the Church. The bishops further lamented that although Pope Leo XIII had decreed the Basilians were supposed to help the hierarchy, instead, the Order had become a competing parallel structure; in their words, “a church within a church”.

Returning to the latest Basilian reforms: based once again on feedback from the worldwide membership of the Order, the 2000 general chapter established a commission to produce a draft project of the definitive constitutions. This project was presented, voted upon, and modified by the 2004 general chapter, but later was rejected by the canonical commission which that chapter had created. The project commission had made the error of failing to take the last constitutions to have been approved by the Apostolic See (1955) as their starting point. A further complicating factor was the fact that the canonical commission and the project commissions represented the two juxtaposed outlooks of the Order; the former being composed generally of Europeans while the latter was led by canonists from the Americas. At the chapters of 2006 and 2008, the first project was largely reworked into a new text, which also incorporated the work of the canonical commission. This new draft was then amended and approved by the 2008 general chapter and was then presented to the Apostolic See for final approbation. For the first time in its history, the official text of the Basilian Constitutions is written in Italian as opposed to Latin. Official translations in Ukrainian, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Slovak, Hungarian and Polish was also submitted for approval.  After examination by ecclesiastical consultants, what were to be definitive constitutions have again been approved only ad experimentum.
Although this article has described at length the various constitutions, these texts should not be equated with the reforms themselves; they are merely external and very partial reflections of the Basilian Order’s internal reality. If, in reading any given edition of the Basilians’ rules, we hope to find an accurate reflection of the Order’s lifestyle and mission, we will be dissapointed. To take only one example, the 1858 constitutions were very strict and very monastic but visitations revealed that the inidividual monks were leading decadent lifestyles and were entirely engaged by the bishops in parish work. Consistently, throughout its history, successful and lasting reforms of the Basilian Order have never emerged from the altering of their written rules. Instead, these rules were altered to conform to a shift in attitude, imparted by charismatic leaders such as Rustky, St. Josaphat, Jackowski and Welykyj. In contrast, Basilian zeal waned during periods when the Order was administered by pencil-pushers.

With vocations ever dwindling in the Americas, the future of the Basilian Order of St. Josaphat lies in Europe, especially in Ukraine. The main questions that the Order needs to confront, and which will determine its fate, were already expressed by the Ukrainian hierarchy at the turn of the twentieth century. These are: What is the role of the Order in the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church? What should be the Order's contribution to the religious life of our Church? What should be relationship of the Order’s churches to the eparchies? What human and spiritual qualities should be considered in choosing men as religious superiors? Should the Order reform its electoral system, allowing all the members an equal voice, to avoid the possibility of one caste perpetuating itself? How can the Order manage it’s wealth so as not to be managed by it? The final question which the Basilians need to address comes from the unfortunate reality of post-communist culture, but is also found in the decadence of the West, and that is: what is the Order’s attitude towards corruption in secular society and, where it occurs, even within its own ranks? This last issue will largely determine the place of the Basilians in the current life of the Ukrainian Church and also history's verdict as to its moral and spiritual contribution in the twenty-first century.

EVOLUTIO: On 14 July 2009, the Vatican office in charge of Latin-Rite religious communities issued instructions for the inspection of women's religous communities. The principal questions which each member of the community is called to answer are identical to those put forth in this post. Besides the fundamental questions about charism/identity and mission, the instruction clearly forsees the profession of additional vows (not merely promises), like the Basilian's (former?) vow of particular submission to the Roman Pontiff.

In Memory of Father Isydor Patrylo, OSBM

(1919-2008)

Published in Progress Ukrainian Catholic News, no.21/2150 (16 November 2008), page 13. Also available on RISU.

On 27 October 2008, in the student monastery of Brukhovychi outside of Lviv, Father Isydor Ivan Patrylo, former general superior of the Basilian Order of St. Josaphat, passed to his eternal reward. He was eighty-nine years old, had lived seventy-six years in religious life, and served sixty-six years in priestly ministry.

Born in Sudova Vyshnia, Lviv region, Ivan Patrylo was sent to the prestigious Basilian boys college in Buchach. In 1933, at the age of fourteen, he entered the Basilian Order at Krekhiv, taking the monastic name of Isydor. He made simple vows after only two years, but because of his youth was required to wait an additional six years before becoming eligible to profess solemn vows. Patrylo’s normal course of studies and religious formation was interrupted by the Russian invasion of Western Ukraine in 1939. He and several of his confrères were thus sent to complete their university courses at the Latin-rite seminary in Olomouc, Slovakia. However, in 1942 the Gestapo arrested the students and forced them to perform manual labour. The German occupiers did not recognize their monastic status, so Patrylo’s superiors decided to have him and his companions ordained to the priesthood. As there was no Eastern-Catholic bishop available, they were ordained priests by the local Latin-rite Bishop on 2 May 1943.

Despite their new status, the newly-ordained priests were still obliged to perform heavy work. In latter years, Father Isydor often reflected on his days of forced labour in Slovakia, recounting that the young priests were worked to exhaustion and often had to sleep standing up. Upon his release, the following year, Patrylo remembered having slept without interruption for thirty-six hours. Despite the difficult wartime conditions, in 1944, Patrylo was able to defend his first doctoral dissertation in Prague. For the next four years, he provided pastoral care for the deported Ukrainian workers in Germany and in England. Then, in 1948, his superiors sent him to the Ukrainian missions in Argentina. As the Basilian province in Western Ukraine had been suppressed by the Soviets, Patrylo, without a homeland or a religious province, acquired Argentinean citizenship and was assigned, on paper, to the American Basilian Province.

Father Isydor had the mind of a scholar and the eye for minute details. Thankfully, in 1952, his gifts were recognized by the Basilian general superior, the saintly scholar, Archimandrite Teodosi Haluschynsky, who called Patrylo to Rome to be his secretary. This marked the beginning of a fifty-year Roman sojourn at the Basilian General Curia. Two years later, he defended his second doctorate, in philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, and completed a third doctorate in 1961, this time in canon law, at the Pontifical Urban University. He returned to Argentina following the death of Haluschynsky, but was reappointed to the curia in 1955 as general bursar of the Order, and in 1962 he assumed the duties of general secretary.

Patrylo had been called to Rome because of his intellectual gifts and, indeed, his historical writings became his greatest contribution to the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. Over the years, he published numerous articles in the Basilian scholarly publication Analecta OSBM, of which he later became the director. Of particular note is his three-volume bibliography of books touching on the history of the Ukrainian Church. In addition, he published several significant articles on the history of the Basilian Order.

Isydor Patrylo’s second important contribution to the Church was his service as protoarchimandrite (general superior) of the Basilian Order. During the Second Vatican Council, another scholar, Father Athanasius Welykyj, had been elected as general superior. Welykyj was a charismatic figure, whose wide spiritual vision seemed the most appropriate for the new spirit of openness that emerged from the Council. However, Welykyj’s vision was not understood by many local superiors and his term of office was burdened with the effects of the postconciliar crisis in the priesthood. Due to a series of strokes, Welykyj became physically incapacitated and the General Chapter of 1976 elected longtime curialist, Father Patrylo, to assume the mantle of leadership. To be sure, this was considered a safe, conservative choice for difficult times.

Although he and Welykyj shared scholarly interests, in many ways, Patrylo’s character was the opposite of his predecessor. He was not a man of great vision but rather of small, intricate details and administration. His skills were useful for the period that followed the turbulent 1960’s, one where his Order needed consolidation and maintenance of the status quo. His frugal attitude and fundraising abilities helped the Order’s general curia through many financial challenges.

In 1963, the same year that Welykyj became protoarchimandrite, the primate of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Metropolitan (later Cardinal) Josyf Slipyj was released from the Soviet gulag and came to Rome. Although Father Welykyj had been the first to draw scholarly attention to the historical idea of a Ukrainian patriarchate, the strong personalities of both him and Slipyj soon gave rise to conflict between them. In contrast, Protoarchimandrite Patrylo’s diplomatic skills helped improve relations somewhat between the primate and the Order. Indicative of this was the fact that Slipyj would make sure that Patrylo was present at any great liturgical celebration over which he was presiding.

During the Council, Patrylo headed the commission responsible for publishing Father Ivan Khomenko's Ukrainian translation of the bible. Later, as Protoarchimandrite, he guided the publication of a practical Ukrainian language volume of the divine office, entitled Molytvoslov. This text was intended principally for the Order’s internal use but it was quickly adopted by other religious and secular clergy. To this day, this book, which contains a preface by Patrylo, remains a standard liturgical text for the entire Ukrainian Catholic Church.

The 1970s and 80s, quiet and declining years for the Basilians, were followed by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Order’s resurrection in the former communist countries. Beginning in 1990, most of the Basilians’ historical monasteries, which had been confiscated by the Soviet State in the 1940’s, were returned to the Order’s ownership. Once again, Patrylo proved to be the ideal man to deal with the new situation. The fact that he was a native of Western Ukraine and had lived the first decade of his religious life there, endowed him with a unique authority in the homeland. With this authority, he was able to curb the excessive zeal of some of the underground monks, and to bring them back into communal religious life. He took special care to reestablish the Order’s formation houses, in Mundare, Canada (1982) and Krekhiv, near Lviv (1991), to name just two.

As general bursar and later as general superior, Father Patrylo made several inspection visits to the Basilian communities throughout the world. During these trips, knowledge of several languages, including English, was greatly helpful to him. Notable visitations to Canada and the United States took place in 1957, 1959, 1967, 1977, 1987 and 1993. Not confining himself to Basilian monasteries, he also visited schools (Immaculate Heart of Mary in Winnipeg in 1977), and always participated in the prayers and devotions of the parishes, showing that a religious superior leads first-and-foremost by example.

Elected in 1976 and re-elected in 1988, Father Patrylo served two complete terms (a total of twenty years) as Basilian protoarchimandrite, the longest in the history of the Order. After stepping down in 1996, he showed his profound humility in behaving as an ordinary member of the monastic community. A rule had been passed that a retired protoarchimandrite could choose the community in which he wanted to live out his remaining years, except for the monastery in Rome. This latter exception was intended to free the new protoarchimandrite of any pressure from the former general superior. Nevertheless, because of Father Patrylo’s attitude of humble detachment from the affairs of his successor, and in view of his invaluable gifts, Protoarchimandrite (now Bishop) Dionysius Lachovicz made a special exemption to this rule, allowing Patrylo to remain in Rome. For an additional ten years, Father Isydor manifested himself as not merely a scholar but also a doer. While he was still able to coordinate Analecta OSBM, the journal remained active, but with his decline in health, the journal ceased publication.

Father Isydor’s last significant contributions were his participations in the Basilian general chapters of 2000 and 2004. During these meetings, he provided invaluable expertise and experience and proved to be a most important contributor. Above all, his sympathetic, moral presence was felt and appreciated by both young and old among the chapter participants. Unfortunately, Patrylo lost his sight in 2001 and was moved to the monastery in Brukhovychi in 2006. After sixty-plus years abroad, he had finally returned to live in his homeland. Father Isydor Patrylo’s death marks the end of an era and the passing of the last of the great Basilian historical scholars from Ukraine.

Prayers for the Head of State

In the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Liturgical Tradition

Canada is a monarchy where the Monarch often goes unnoticed. In the United Kingdom, however, it is impossible not to notice the monarchy, for even in the churches, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Anglican and Protestants all pray for the Queen during their holy services. One exception appears to be the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. Following the current translation in our liturgical books, we merely pray for “our nation under God, our civil authorities and all the armed forces.” In this article, I intend to provide a brief historical sketch about the prayers for the monarch in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, and discuss why the Ukrainian Church altered them in the last century and what could be done with them in future.

The prayers for the nation and the civil authorities in current-day Ukrainian liturgical services are a modern rewording of the traditional prayers for the head of state, based on the injunction of the Apostle Paul in his First Letter to Timothy:

I exhort therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men [...] for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. (2:14)

Even today, some of our faithful remember when the prayers for the sovereign were still being said in the Liturgy. Until about 1970, Ukrainian Catholic services were prayed in Church Slavonic, a book language (not a vernacular) used by various Slavic peoples in the liturgical services. In the liturgical books used at the turn of the twentieth century, the prayer in the Great Ektene read as follows (in translation):

For our most faithful and God-protected Emperor (Francis Joseph), for all his palaces and armies, that the Lord would aide him in all things, hasten to grant him all his desires and place under his feet every enemy and adversary.

This form was used by Western Ukrainians (then referred to as Ruthenians) in their Galician homeland, when it was part of Austria-Hungary and was ruled by the Habsburg emperor. Previously, when under Russia, the Ruthenians had prayed for the tsar, and when under Poland they had prayed for the king. The monarch was also mentioned in other prayers, such as in the Ambonal Prayer and in the troparion to the Holy Cross:

Save Your people, O God, and bless Your inheritance. Grant victory to Your most faithful Emperor over his enemies and protect Your people by Your Cross.

The prayer for the monarch in the anaphora contained (and still contains) a direct citation from First Timothy:

Remember our most faithful Emperor (Francis Joseph) and all his palaces and armies. Grant him, O Lord, a peaceful reign, so that by his tranquility, “we may lead quiet and peaceful lives in all godliness and purity.”

This prayer is itself a truncation of the older and much more beautiful form, full of quotations from the Old Testament books of Chronicles and the Psalms, found in the Liturgy of St. Basil:

Remember, O Lord, our most devout and faithful Emperor (Francis Joseph), whom you have set to rule on the earth. Crown him with a weapon of truth, a weapon of good will; let your shadow fall upon his head in the day of war; strengthen his arm, exalt his right-hand, establish his empire; subdue beneath him all barbarous nations that desire to make war; grant him deep and enduring peace; speak good things to his heart for your Church and for all your people; so that by his tranquility we may lead quiet and peaceful lives, in all piety and purity.

The reference to the barbarous nations reminds us that this prayer was first intended for the Roman (Byzantine) Emperor, whose duty it was to care for the earthly welfare of the Church. It is revealing (particularly in our day) to note that the monarch’s victory in battle was intended for the purpose of maintaining peace (Pax Romana) against those who fomented war.

The roots of the removal of references to the monarch in the Ukrainian Catholic Liturgy may be traced back to the political philosophies of national movements within multiethnic empires. These movements tended to be republican, since the fall of the ruling dynasties represented a vital step towards the political autonomy of the subject nations. So too, the Ukrainian movements were generally, though not exclusively, republican. Notable exceptions were found in Austrian Galicia, where Ruthenian notables envisioned the formation of an autonomous state within a confederation ruled by the Habsburg Monarch. Metropolitan Sheptytsky even proposed a plan for the creation of an (eastern) Ukrainian kingdom, ruled by a Habsburg prince. Also, in Eastern Ukraine, the monarchist Hetman regime was sustained by the German and Austrian Empires. However, the defeat and subsequent disintegration of the continental European monarchies, at the end of 1918, ended any practical hopes for any Ukrainian monarchy. At that point, Galician politicians and churchmen gave their full support to the creation of a Western Ukrainian Republic (1 November 1918), which brought about the first change to the prayer for the sovereign in the Greek-Catholic liturgies.

Further research is required to ascertain exactly when, in practice, the prayer for the emperor was changed. While still under Austrian rule, the Ukrainian Bishops Conference of 19 February 1918 censured demands by certain nationalists for the inclusion of a prayer for the president of the (eastern) Ukrainian Republic. Considering the pro-Habsburg sympathies of the hierarchy and general conservatism of the clergy, it is likely that some Greek-Catholic priests continued to say the prayer for their dethroned Emperor Karl, as found in the printed liturgical texts. Very quickly, though, if not immediately upon independence, the name of the monarch was replaced by the word nation: “o blahovirnim i bokhranymim narodi nashem / for our most faithful God-protected nation.”

This ostensibly auspicious, seamless textual substitution would not suffice after Eastern Galicia was annexed to the Polish Republic. The separatist feelings of the Ukrainian population induced the Polish Government to be all the more insistent that the Greek-Catholic clergy pray for the Polish head of state. What appears to be a compromise solution was achieved. An ambiguous addition to the prayer made it possible to pray for the nation (Ukrainian?) and the state without specifically mentioning Poland or its president. The new wording, which is still basically in use today, began to appear in printed prayer books: “For our most faithful and God-protected nation, the government and all the armed forces.” (later versions omitted the morally descriptive blahovirnyj [most faithful]). Ukrainians who had already emigrated to the Dominions of the British Empire continued to use the old text of the prayer, substituting the word emperor for king.

The first official change in the liturgical texts, in the twentieth century, occurred at the end of the 1920’s with the publication of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky’s revised liturgikon (missal) and trebnyk (ritual). In these books, the prayer for the monarch was replaced by the prayer for the nation and government, which had been in in use within the Polish Republic. These new editions represented an attempt by Sheptytsky to remove the major Latinizations from the liturgical texts and rubrics. These new books, however, were generally rejected by the other Greek-Catholic bishops, who did not share Sheptytsky’s views on liturgical reform, and the old editions printed at the turn of the century remained in use outside of Sheptytsky’s Archeparchy of Lviv. Since the Ukrainian bishops could not agree on liturgical reform, they ceded responsibility for revising their liturgical books to the Apostolic See.

It was in the 1930’s, then, that a commission for the revision of the Slavonic liturgical texts was formed under the auspices of the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Church (subsequently renamed the Congregation for the Oriental Churches). The brainchild of this project was a Frenchman turned Byzantine-rite priest, Cyrille Korolevskij. This eccentric scholar was a friend of several illustrious church leaders, including Metropolitan Sheptytsky, Cardinal Tisserant (the head of the Oriental Congregation), and Pope Pius XI himself, under whom Korolevskij had worked when the Pope (then Monsignor Achille Ratti) was prefect of the Vatican Library. The commission produced two sets of liturgical books, one for the Churches following the Ruthenian Edition, and the so-called Typical Edition for those following the Russian texts and rubrics. The first book in the series was the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, which was released in 1940, followed by the complete liturgikon the following year.

The Roman editions were given full approval, promulgated on the authority of the Roman Pontiff and made mandatory on all the Slavic Eastern Catholic Churches. However, despite the high quality of the research and redaction, these editions contained several controversial points. Among these was the large number of changes in the rubrics, which were restored to their sixteenth-century forms, mercilessly eliminating any Greek or Slavic accretions. In addition, some of the terminology used in the Ruthenian Edition appeared to betray the Russophile proclivities of both Korolevskij and Tisserant (who was himself half Russian). For instance, in the Cherubic Hymn, the Ruthenian-slavonic pechal’ was replaced with the Russian variant popechennije (let us now lay aside all earthly cares). The greatest changes appeared in the 1947 trebnyk, with its completely restructured order of the celebration of the Sacraments. Notably, besides linguistic and ceremonial restoration, the Roman editions also restored the prayers for the monarch to their ancient form, introducing, however, the option of commemorating an emperor, a king or simply the civil authorities. Notably, the beautiful prayer in the anaphora of the Liturgy of St. Basil was retained, word for word.

The return to extremely conservative texts, in this instance, is interesting, especially since no Eastern Catholics were then living under the rule of a reigning emperor (perhaps there were some in Japan or India?). The inclusion of the emperor might represent the commission taking into account the possibility of a Habsburg restoration, which was much hoped for in certain European church and democratic circles of the period. On the other hand, it could simply be the result of Liturgical conservatism. Indeed, the prayer for the emperor was not removed from the Latin Rite liturgical books until the 1955 reform of the Holy Week.

Both the textual and rubrical alterations of the Roman Slavonic liturgical books made these editions difficult to accept for a significant number of the Latinized Ukrainian Catholic clergy. Foremost among the opponents of the new version was the Basilian Order of St. Josaphat, which defiantly reprinted and continued to use the old books. Despite efforts to enforce the use of the new books (even by canonical sanctions), in practice earlier editions continued to be used by many of the clergy, even well beyond the introduction of the vernacular editions. Even after the issuing of the Roman edition of the Slavonic arkhieratykon (pontifical) in 1973, some bishops continued to use the late-nineteenth-century Lviv edition well into the 1990’s; for example, Cardinal Lubachivsky. And even today, English translations of the Baptism and Marriage services not based on the Roman orders of service are widely used in Canada.

The decrees of the Second Vatican Council permitted the introduction of the Ukrainian vernacular into Ukrainian Catholic Church services (the Orthodox had introduced modern Ukrainian in 1917). At first, this was done piecemeal, especially through the printed of Liturgy books for the faithful. In 1968, the first all-Ukrainian liturgikon/sluzhebnyk was issued with the text of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Faithful to the official Roman Slavonic edition, the vernacular sluzhebnyk did make some small alternations in the text, including the return to the Ruthenian term pechal’ in the Cherubic hymn (no modern vernacular equivalent was deemed acceptable) and to the prayer for the narod as in the 1920’s books, omitting the option to pray for a monarch. Following upon other vernacular versions of the Liturgy of St. Basil, the 1980 Ukrainian edition totally revised the ancient prayer for the emperor, truncating it and jettisoning the beautiful scriptural verses which had hitherto been applied to the sovereign.

Replacing the monarch in the liturgical texts posed certain problems. For example, the first translations of the troparia to the Cross replaced the person of the sovereign with the Church, creating a rather ultramontane image of the Church Militant:

Save Your people, O God, and bless Your inheritance. Grant victory to Your Church over its enemies and protect Your people by your Cross.

Subsequent Ukrainian editions of these troparia returned to praying for the narod, and English translations followed suit: “grant victory to Your people”. In the Chrysostom anaphora, nation replaced monarch but the phrase “Grant them, O Lord, a peaceful reign” (myrne tsarstvo) was retained but now applied to the nation, the government and the armed forces. Actually, reign and rule (or govern) are not the same thing. The Queen, for instance, reigns but does not rule; the government, on the other hand, can be said to rule but certainly does not reign. The official English translation, however, rendered-away the “offensive” term:

Remember, O Lord, our nation under God, our government and all the military. Grant them a peaceful government, so that in their tranquility, we may lead quiet and peaceful lives in all piety and dignity.

Another problem in replacing the head of state with the nation is that it can obscure the meaning of the prayer, as in Ukrainian versions of the Liturgy of St. Basil:

Remember, O Lord, our God-protected nation, the government and all the military. Grant them deep and enduring peace; incline their hearts with consideration for your Church and all your people; so that in their tranquility we may lead quiet and peaceful lives, in all piety and purity.

How can the nation incline its’ heart with consideration for the people who constitute it (except according to certain nation-worshiping philosophies)? Here, the restoration of the head of state, followed the by government and military, would solve the problem.

In the next part of the prayer, the Ukrainian editions have left untouched the sentence: “for our brothers in the palace”. However, English translations were changed to read: “for those in the service of our country”. Presumably, a presidential palace or parliament (the British Houses of Parliament are the Palace of Westminster) would be excluded by the original term, considered perhaps too reminiscent of the imperial and royal courts.

The partial rejection of the Ukrainian Synod’s 1988 liturgikon and 1991 arkhieratykon can be compared to the reluctant reception of the Roman editions, albeit for entirely different motivations: the synodal texts were rejected principally due to the patriarchal movement’s veneration for the texts issued by Cardinal Slipyj, and also because they had printed numerous prayer books using Slipyj’s translation, in which the term Major-Archbishop was substituted with Patriarch. With the founding of numerous printing presses in Ukraine, a host of unofficial, revised translations of the liturgical books have already appeared.

As the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Synod prepares to re-issue standardized, official liturgical translations, the responsible commission needs to decide how to treat the prayer for the head of state. I suggest that it restores the older texts of prayers for the monarch, including however, as did the Roman editions, the option to pray for the head of state and civil authorities. Some of the reasons to do so would be:

The prayers for the emperor/king date back to the Roman/Byzantine Empire. The version in the Anaphora of St. Basil is in keeping with the rhetorical beauty of that Liturgy, which should not be cheapened by commonplace translations or redactions. After all, if we are looking for a shortened version, that’s what the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is all about.

The authority and responsibility to rule, whether in the temporal or spiritual realms, lies in the person who holds the office. This is the reason why we pray for the Pope and other members of the Chrurch hierarchy by name. The same was and should be true for earthly rulers, especially the head of state. Historical Ukrainian Orthodox liturgikons remembered princes, hetmans and other rulers of the past, in the prayer of the Great Entrance.

The Ukrainian Catholic faithful are present in many countries which have a monarch as their head of state, such as Australia, Belgium, Canada, Holland, Japan, many Middle-Eastern countries, the Scandinavian kingdoms, and the United Kingdom. Even when the country is a republic, it is appropriate to pray specifically and separately for the head of state, such as the President of the United States, of Italy, of Ukraine, or of Russia, who often play a delicate role, distinct from that of the government. The present-day Ukrainian political system provides a perfect example of this distinction. In the United States, the powers of the president are considerable and his person is held in great veneration, almost comparable with that of an elected monarch. Praying separately for the head of state (emperor/king/president), can also act as a counterbalance to exaggerated nationalism and nation-worship, a sentiment at least partially responsible for inserting narod in the post-1918 Ukrainian redactions.

The restoration of the head of state to these prayers, followed by the government and armed forces, would solve the various grammatical and conceptual problems outlined above.

The Last King of Western Ukraine

Blessed Karl of Habsburg-Lorraine, Emperor and King

Published in the All Saintstide 2008 issue of Chrysostom, Newsletter of the Society of St. John Chrysostom.

The first Ukrainian immigrants to North America came from what used to be called Galicia (Ukrainians call it Halychyna), which today is Western Ukraine. Indeed, until November 1918, Galicia was part of Austria-Hungary, an empire ruled by the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty. Its last ruler was Karl Franz Josef Ludwig Hubert Georg Maria, Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia and Lodomeria, Illyria, King of Jerusalem etc. This is a brief history of Kasier (Emperor) Karl’s dynasty, it’s Catholic values and its connection to Ukraine.

Karl was a member of the Habsburg family, which had ruled the Holy Roman Empire (the name for Germany in the Middle Ages) and much of Europe for seven hundred years. Arguably the greatest European royal house, at one time or another, Habsburgs ruled in today’s Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, parts of Italy, Romania, Poland and Ukraine, most of Central and South America and even the Philippines (named after Habsburg King Philip II of Spain). Understandably, the Habsburg motto was “the world is not enough.” Emperor Charles (Karl) VI’s daughter and heir, Maria Theresa, married the Duke of Lorraine, prompting a change in the family name to Habsburg-Lorraine.

Besides being the first female Habsburg monarch, Maria Theresa was also significant in Ukrainian history as the first of her dynasty to rule Ukrainians. Until the eighteenth century, Right-bank Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but in 1772, Russia and Prussia decided to divide this state and offered a portion to Maria Theresa. In those days, one country could not simply conquer another without a dynastic claim to provide some legality. Maria Theresa’s ministers satisfied this requirement by creating the fairytale Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, which harkened back to the ancient principalities of Halych and Volodymyr. Galicia contained a mixed population of mainly Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians (known then as Ruthenians); its capital was Lemberg, which is known today as Lviv.

Habsburg rule met in greatest challenges during the nineteenth century, otherwise known as the age of nationalism. At the turn of that century, Napoleon, wanting to be the sole emperor in Europe, dissolved the Holy Roman Empire. Cleverly, the Habsburg ruler of the time, Franz II, reinvented his imperial title, becoming Franz I, Emperor of Austria. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars had awakened the various ethnic groups to the notion of belonging to their own separate nation (called national consciousness). As multi-ethnic empire, Austria was plagued with the problem of conflicting national aspirations of its component peoples, among which were the Galician Ukrainians.

The most famous modern Habsburg was undoubtedly Franz Josef I, who came to the throne at the young age of eighteen, in 1848, and ruled for sixty-eight years. Most of our Ukrainian ancestors’ passports to the Americas were issued in his name. Franz Josef was unlucky in war and sought a policy of compromises with the empire’s political and ethnic groups, the most significant being the division of his realms into Austria-Hungary in 1867. He was also unfortunate in his family: his only son, Crown Prince Rudolph, committed suicide in 1889; his wife Empress Elizabeth was assassinated in 1898; and his nephew and second heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in 1914. Eventually, when the eighty-six year-old emperor died in 1916, he was succeeded by his twenty-nine-year-old great-nephew, Karl. At the time of Karl’s birth, in 1887, the possibility of him succeeding to the throne was remote. There were three others ahead of him in the line of succession, in addition to any of their future children. The untimely deaths of two uncles and his own father brought Karl to the throne.

Archduke Karl had been brought up to be deeply religious. In 1907, he chose as his wife someone who shared his Catholic outlook on life: Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma. Karl held modern views on the nationalities question and believed that, in order to best serve its people, his empire would have to become a confederation of autonomous nations linked by the Habsburg emperor as their common sovereign. He also looked favorably on Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky’s project to free eastern Ukraine from Russian domination and making a Habsburg prince its king. The main candidate for the Ukrainian throne was Karl’s distant cousin, Archduke Wilhelm, nicknamed Vasyl Vyshyvany for his embroidered Ukrainian shirts. Vyshyvany learned the Ukrainian language and led an Austro-Ukrainian corps, the Sichovi Striltsi, during the First World War.

Karl had become emperor-king two years into the war and made every effort to end the conflict. He attempted to broker a reasonable peace, even if it meant giving away some of the empire’s territory. German military leaders, however, refused to compromise. In the last month of his reign, Karl was able to enact a reform that made his empire into a federation. Nevertheless, the victorious allied powers encouraged its component nationalities to break away from Austria. Germany and Austria-Hungary surrendered on 11 November 1918, and Kaiser Karl was forced from power. He refused to formally abdicate his sacred trust and later attempted to regain his throne in Hungary, where he was still formally recognized as king. As a result, the allies exiled him and his family to Portugal where, traumatized and impoverished, he died a saintly death in 1922, at the age of thirty-five.

Dethroning the dynasty did not resolve the ethnic conflicts in former Habsburg realms. Poles and Ukrainians bitterly fought for control over Galicia, where Archduke Vasyl Vyshyvany was instrumental in furnishing military assistance to the short-lived Western Ukrainian Republic. By June 1919, however, the stronger Polish army had defeated the Ukrainian forces. After attempting in vain to obtain concessions for the Ukrainian population, in 1923, the League of Nations formally recognized the sovereignty of the Polish Republic over Eastern Galicia. Galician Ukrainians continued to fight for equal civil rights under Polish, Nazi, and finally under Soviet rule.

The Allies had forbidden the Habsburgs to reign in any of their former domains. Indeed, the the absence of a moderate monarchy in many these countries paved the way for the rule of dictatorships. In the face of Nazi and Communist aggression, Emperor Karl’s son, Crown Prince Otto, came very close to being invited to become head of state in both Austria and Hungary. For his opposition to totalitarianism, he was sentenced to death by his dynasty’s former subject, Adolph Hitler. Archduke Wilhelm Vyshyvany also opposed Hitler and Stalin. As a result, he died in Soviet prison in 1948. Remarkably, Vyshyvany replied to his interrogators in Ukrainian. More fortunate was the crown prince, who escaped his cousin’s fate. Today, at the age of ninety-five, Otto von Habsburg continues to promote the Catholic values of his family in the political forum. For example, both he and his son Karl have served as members of the European parliament. Also, in various interviews, Otto has reflected on the importance of Ukraine in Europe’s future and continues to warn of the emerging totalitarianism in Russia.

The House of Habsburg’s commitment to humanity was formally recognized by the Catholic Church in 2004 with the beatification of “Karl of Habsburg, Emperor and King”. Pope John-Paul referred to him as “a model for Christian statesmen of today.” The emperor’s four living sons and many of his descendants and relatives attended the ceremonies, together with representatives of the various nations he once ruled. Giving thanks to the Lord for Karl’s example of Christian leadership, the thousands present also paid homage to Christ’s Vicar-on-earth, the Pope, whose own father came from Austrian Galicia and who had served in the Habsburg armies. At the time of Pope John-Paul’s death, some news reports claimed that Karol Wojtyla’s parents had named him after Karl, their last emperor-king.

Боже буди покровитель / Цїсарю Єго краям,

крїпкий вірою правитель / мудро най проводить нам,

прадїдну Єго корону / борони від ворога,

тїсно із Габсбургів троном / сплелась Австрії судьба!

-Imperial Hymn in Old Ukrainian

The Greek Deacon of the Papal Rite of Mass

in Progress Ukrainian Catholic News, n. 15/2167 (23 August 2009), p. 14.

A Russian version of this article is available at unavoce.ru

Today, few people are aware of the fact that the Pope has his own particular Mass ritual. Special ceremonies and liturgical customs are present at solemn papal liturgies which are not found in the ordinary rites of the Roman Church. The reason for these special ceremonies lies in the identity of the Bishop of Rome himself: besides being the principal hierarch of the Latin Church (thus, until recently bearing the title Patriarch of the West), the Pope is the Father and Head of the Universal Church. Symbolic of this universal headship is the presence at solemn papal functions of the Greek deacon.
As Bishop of Rome, the Pope follows the rites of the Roman Church. However, until 1969, at the most solemn feasts of Christmas and Easter, the papal mass followed a unique, codified ritual, which included ceremonies performed by specific functionaries of the Papal Court and the Roman Curia. For instance, the Pope was assisted not merely by ordinary ministers but also by his closest collaborators, the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, as they are officially entitled. The senior cardinal-bishop functioned as the principal assistant-priest, one cardinal-deacon ministered as the deacon of the Mass and two others as deacons of honour. In addition, a curial priest served as the Apostolic Subdeacon, so entitled by way of the fact that the See of Rome is entitled the Apostolic See because of the succession of its bishops from the Apostles Peter and Paul.
Another unique feature of this special papal ritual was the participation of Oriental clergy: in addition to the Cardinal and Apostolic Deacons and Subdeacons, the ceremonial prescribed two Byzantine-rite clerics, entitled the Greek Deacon and the Greek Subdeacon. These deacons were taken from the Greek College (Ukrainian Isidore Dolnytsky was Pius IX’s favourite) or from the Italian Byzantine-rite monastery of Grottaferrata, near Tivoli. This monastic community is not “uniate” per se, because it has always been in union with the Pope of Rome. The principal liturgical function of the Greek Deacon and Subdeacon was to sing the epistle and gospel in Greek after they had been sung in Latin by the Apostolic deacons. At the conclusion of the epistles, both subdeacons kissed the feet of the Pope, and after the singing of the gospels, the Pope kissed both Latin and Greek texts.
In addition to the ministration of the Greek deacons, the Pope himself maintained certain vestments and sacred vessels which perhaps, at one time, were common in the East and West. Over his right hip he wore a subcinctorium, which resembles a Byzantine prelate’s epigonation. The Eucharistic bread was also covered by an asterisk; a safeguard in the form of a star, which is placed over the Eucharistic bread at every Byzantine Eucharistic Liturgy. In addition, in common with the old Byzantine custom, the papal liturgies preserved the ancient usage of only two liturgical colours. Red and white were the colours of Roman senators and imperial court officials, and the Bishop of Rome was granted these colours in his personal vesture as an insignia of his rank. While the Pope now dresses almost exclusively in white, pieces of his vesture are still red, typically his outer garments such as his hat, shoes, cloak and his mozzetta. When the civic capital of the Roman Empire moved to Byzantium (renamed Constantinople) the Byzantine rite maintained this pristine Roman colour scheme, as did the Pope of Old Rome, who continued to wear white liturgical vestments for joyous celebrations and red vestments for penitential occasions and for commemorations of the martyrs.
Some argue that the presence of the Greek deacons goes back to a time when the Byzantine Rite was still commonly celebrated in Rome. However, their presence at this solemn courtly rite is likely a medieval innovation designed to illustrate the ecclesiological understanding of the Pope’s role as Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church. Indeed, recent scholarly research (of the late Father Franck Quoëx) has shown that as each and every ritual of the Solemn Papal Mass was carefully and hierarchically choreographed for such a purpose. For instance, during the first part of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Word, the Pope pontificated from a great throne, surrounded by the Curia and Court. During the second, Eucharistic part of the Liturgy, however, he divested himself of some of these symbols, thereby assuming the role of an ordinary bishop.
During the reforms of the Roman Rite following the Second Vatican Council, the solemn papal mass was abolished but some of its unique elements were retained in papal ceremonies. The custom which has received the most attention occurs at the funeral of the Pope himself, where, as a remnant of the ancient practice, the dead Pope continues to be vested in red, his traditional mourning colour. However, because the dual colour scheme has been abandoned, confusion has ensued as to who is to wear papal mourning. Traditionally, the Pope did not celebrate funerals but only presided from the throne. He alone mourned in red (Papa luget in rubra), while the celebrant of the Mass and sacred ministers wore black or purple. Benedict XVI has partially restored some of these ancient customs: for the funerals of cardinals, he has returned to presiding from the throne and administering the absolution, vested red papal mourning; also, the asterix has recently been used to cover the Sacred Species.
Throughout the reign of John Paul II, the Greek deacon began to appear more frequently at solemn papal masses but was not longer taken exclusively from among the a monk of Grottaferrata Abbey. Sometimes he was Greek, other times Russian, Ruthenian or Ukrainian etc. and he proclaimed the gospel in the liturgical language of his own Particular Church. Any signs of inequality between the Latin and Greek ministers were been suppressed. Due to the universal and superior mission of the head of the Roman Church, subsequent to the Council of Trent, the Roman Church began to consider its rite as being superior to other rites. Such a theological trend used to be reflected in the old papal liturgy during which the Latin deacon was accompanied by seven candle bearers whereas the Greek deacon was flanked only by two. Also, only the Latin deacon carried the gospel book and the Greek ministers sat farther away from the papal throne. These distinctions were not carried over into contemporary papal ceremony, in accordance with the solemn decree of Vatican II on the equal dignity of all rites. Today, both Latin and Byzantine deacons carry gospel books in procession and both are flanked by an equal number of candles. There have even been occasions where the Byzantine Deacon took precedence. An historical example happened at the opening of the Synod for Europe in 1999, when the Byzantine deacon alone proclaimed the Gospel in the Old Church Slavonic language (the common liturgical language of the Slavic Churches). Pope Benedict XVI has returned to the custom of a Greek deacon for his Christmas and Easter Masses. However, he also sanctioned the greatest and most controversial innovation of all: a Greek Orthodox deacon proclaimed the gospel at a Papal Mass where the Patriarch of Constantinople assisted at the Liturgy of the Word.
Despite examples of his presence at notable papal liturgies, the role of the Greek Deacon has been left relitively undefined since 1969. At each celebration, he has been instructed to do different things because no one was certain as to what his role should be, other than singing the gospel. In order to help solve this conundrum, several key questions need to be answered: For example, what liturgical postures were prescribed (or assumed) by the Greek ministers at papal masses prior to and following the 1969 reforms and why? And further, what role should the Greek Deacon play in the procession or the incensing at the current liturgy? Traditionally, the presence of Greek ministers at papal mass has emphasized the universal mission of the Pope but how can the Greek Deacon’s role be defined today, in accordance with ecumenical considerations and a current understanding of the role of the Roman Pontiff vis-à-vis the Eastern Catholic Churches and even the Orthodox Churches? Answers to these questions will emerge from further historical-liturgical study of the ceremonies of the papal rites. Such research will undoubtedly reveal the reasons for the Greek Deacon’s continued presence at these rites and lend to the dignity required in celebrating one of the principal Christian sacramental rituals.

The Reluctant-to-Accept and the Reluctantly-Accepted Bishop

Count Andrei Roman Alexander Maria Sheptytsky

Published in Progress Ukrainian Catholic News, no.15/2144 (24 August 2008), pages 6, 10, and 11.

Of the many Ukrainian national and religious leaders of the twentieth century, a name stands out as representing a universal father-figure. His name was reviled during the Soviet period not only because of its Catholic overtones but also because it had become synonymous with the defense of the persecuted Ukrainian identity. This name is Andrei Sheptytsky, Metropolitan of Halych, Archbishop of Lviv, Bishop of Kamianets-Podilsk, Primate of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church and extraordinary Apostolic Exarch for the Eastern-Catholic Church in Russia. Surprisingly, however, during the early days of his career, Sheptytsky was not regarded very positively by Ukrainians. This article reveals key events in the hitherto untold story of how a young Polish aristocrat became a Ukrainian monastic priest, reluctantly accepted the burden of the episcopacy and was reluctantly accepted by the political leaders of his flock as their spiritual father.

The future Kyr Andrei entered the world as Count Roman Alexander Maria Szeptycki (Polish spelling). His father’s lineage was an ancient Ruthenian (as Ukrainians were once called) noble line which had adopted the Latin Rite and become Polish. Roman was born in 1865 at Przylbice (Prybylchi) in the Kingdom of Galicia, a portion of Poland which had been partitioned to Austria in 1772. At the time of his birth, the Austrian empire was rife with political tensions between its component nationalities. The following year (1866) saw a crucial military defeat for Austria, which hastened a radical, internal state reform along national lines. A year later, in 1867, the emperor divided the government of his realms, creating the dual-monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Two additional consequences of this compromise were the granting of parliamentary ministerial government and the handing-over of political power in Galicia to the Polish aristocracy. These two decisions would come to have a major effect on the process of choosing future leaders for the Greek-Catholic Church.

Virtually all of the Ruthenian nobility had adopted the Latin Rite to secure a political and social position. This left the clergy as the nation’s leaders and foremost among them was the metropolitan of Halych, who had inherited the Greek-Catholic primacy when, in 1807, Pope Pius VII transferred it from Kyiv (under Russian domination) to Lviv. The metropolitan commanded great political authority among the Ruthenians and promoted a policy of absolute loyalty to the ruling Habsburg dynasty in exchange for political concessions. However, by the 1860’s, the Ruthenians were developing their own educated laity and political class. By handing political power to the Poles in 1867, Austria had dealt a severe blow to the authority of the Greek-Catholic hierarchy. Believing that their nation had been sacrificed by Austria, Ruthenian leaders began to look towards Russia for political and spiritual fulfillment. This movement became known as Russophilism and it represented a serious threat to Austrian rule and to the Catholic Church in Galicia.

In the 1880’s, the Apostolic See of Rome had also turned its gaze towards Russia. The Vatican shared Austria’s fear that this aggressive Orthodox empire (and its international arm of pan-slavism) would continue to severely persecute any Catholics who fell under its rule. Nonetheless, Pope Leo XIII took a positive approach to the issue by seeking to improve diplomatic relations with the Tsarist regime. This new openness accorded with the optimism that was being expressed by Russian thinkers such as Vladimir Solovëv, who began to look positively towards Rome as the centre of Christian unity.

Pope Leo’s vision was far from Austrian political concerns. In Galicia, spiritual Russophilism within the Greek-Catholic Church seeped over into political Russophilism in Ruthenian society. The Austrian government admonished the Greek-Catholic hierarchy to curtail the movement, but throughout the 1870’s Russophile clergy succeeded in occupying the chief administrative posts of the eparchial consistories. In the early 1880’s, certain radical Russophile leaders openly declared their Russian sympathies and one parish even attempted to break with the Catholic Church (hitherto, there had not been a single Orthodox church in Galicia). The Austrian government reacted by sentencing the ringleaders and calling for the removal of Metropolitan Josyf Sembratovych, together with leading clergy. After years of delaying, it also agreed to subdivide the enormous archeparchy of Lviv by creating a second eparchy of Stanislaviv. In doing so, it hoped to lessen the authority of the Russophiles who held sway in Lviv. As a final measure, Austria sanctioned the Galician Jesuits reform of the Basilian Order, the only Ruthenian religious order then in existence.

There remained the problem of a shortage of acceptable episcopal candidates. The government was looking for bishops who would be both loyal and capable administrators. For the sake of the public peace, it sought candidates who would be acceptable to the Ruthenians and, at the same time, not antagonistic towards the Poles. The Apostolic See, meanwhile, was looking for zealous reformers who would not only decrease the influence of Russophilism but also strengthen the Church’s bonds with Rome. Looking beyond the backwater of Austrian-Galicia, Rome viewed the Ruthenian Church as an ideal base from which to spearhead a mission to Russia and the Orthodox world.

One of the major limitations concerning candidates was the lack of unmarried Ruthenian clergy. From the Union of Brest (1596) until the end of the eighteenth century, only Basilian monks were eligible to become Uniate bishops. While Austrian reforms generally strengthened clerical and educational institutions, they weakened monastic communities, thus leading to in a period of decadence among the Basilians which resulted in a lack of suitable candidates from their ranks. However, by the 1870’s, choosing Basilian bishops was again becoming a necessity, for Rome began rejecting all widowers, further narrowing the list of eligible secular priests. In 1891, the Greek-Catholic Synod of Lviv followed up by incorporating the exclusion of widowers into its own particular church law.

Enter Roman Sheptytsky who, socially speaking, had the world at his feet but having been brought-up in a very pious familial setting, it is not surprising that he gravitated toward a religious vocation. In this decision, he was much influenced by one of his mother’s spiritual advisors, Father Henryk Jackowski, Provincial of the Galician Jesuits. Jackowski also happened to be a protagonist in Pope Leo’s plan for the Greek-Catholic Church in Russia and the Basilian reform. Accordingly, the young count decided take part in Jackowski’s project-in-the making and join the Ruthenian Basilians, even though he had been brought up in the Latin Rite. His family initially expressed opposition but later acquiesced when they became convinced, with Jackowski’s help no doubt, that the new Basilians were destined to be of better spiritual calibre than the Greek-Catholic secular clergy.

Entering the Basilians in 1888, Sheptytsky took the monastic name of Andrei. Quite independent of his superior upbringing, the young monk’s spiritual and intellectual qualities were quickly noticed by his superiors. Ever watchful of his progress, Jackowski continued to entrust Father Andrei with key positions in the reformed order. Soon after his priestly ordination, in 1892, Sheptytsky was the first reformed Basilian to be appointed to the crucially important position of novice master. Four years later, he became the first reformed superior of St. Onufri monastery in Galicia’s capital city of Lviv. By all accounts, the young levite was entirely focused on the religious life, free of any desire for greater leadership outside of his religious community.

Such a naturally and spiritually gifted individual could not go unnoticed by religious and civil authorities, especially in view of the lack of celibate episcopal candidates. Besides his personal qualities, Father Sheptytsky fulfilled all Rome’s prerequisites: not only was he unmarried but he was prayerful, zealous and a convinced follower of Pope Leo XIII’s policy of respect for the traditions of the Eastern Churches and openness to Russia. In addition, he was not antagonistic to either the Latin Church or Polish society, in which he had been educated. Such qualities endeared him to a fellow Polish nobleman who was the head of the Vatican department in charge both of worldwide missions and also the Eastern Catholics. This man was Cardinal Mieczyzlaw Ledóchowski, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide.

1. Candidate for Przemysl, Lviv and Stanislaviv

Archival sources show that, only four years following his priestly ordination, in 1896, Sheptytsky was already being considered to replace the recently deceased bishop of Przemysl (Peremyshl). This nomination was premature and his Jesuit superiors begged Cardinal Ledóchowski to pass over the candidacy for the time-being, considering the vital role this young monk was playing in the delicate beginnings of the Basilian reform. In the end, the primate, Cardinal Sylvester Sembratovych (nephew of ex-metropolitan Josyf) proposed Canon Konstantyn Chekhovych, having omitted to mention that he was a widower. Two years later, Sembratovych himself was on his deathbed and asked for a coadjutor-bishop, again presenting one of his widower canons. This time in the know, Propaganda Fide replied that it was impossible to exempt from the laws of the Synod of Lviv (which they had worked for so many years to achieve). In the meantime, Cardinal Sylvester died before being able to present an alternative candidate.

Obtaining a successor was not a simple matter for the nomination process had become very complicated. First of all, since the Union of Brest, the Greek-Catholic primate held the privilege of nominating his suffragen bishops, not by right but in the name of the Apostolic See. The metropolitans of Halych partly inherited this privilege by being able to present three candidates to be vetted by Propaganda Fide and the papal secretariat of state. However, the Holy Roman (Austrian from 1804) emperor also held the personal privilege of presenting episcopal candidates within his realms. With the introduction of ministerial government, candidates had also to be approved by the foreign ministry and the ministry of religion. In Galicia, the local viceroy also had to be consulted. The Apostolic See was not happy with government intrusion and the nuncio reminded the emperor that the privilege of presentation was accorded to him alone, not to his ministers. In addition, the liberal ministries of the 1870’s sought confrontation with the Vatican, initiating an ever-growing conflict over episcopal appointments. This situation made it exceedingly difficult to find a candidate who was simultaneously acceptable to the Apostolic See, to Ruthenians, Poles and to all levels of government.

By 1897, Father Andrei Sheptytsky was the favoured candidate in both Vienna and Rome but not in Galicia. Ruthenian political leaders were extremely wary of Polish manipulation of their most important national institution, their Church. They had reacted strongly against the Jesuit reform of the Basilians and had been further alienated by Cardinal Sembratovych’s attempts at détente with the Polish Galician rulers (known as the New Era). The Ruthenian press had predicted that Sheptytsky’s entry into the Basilians was an attempt by the Poles to control their church from the inside. Sembratovych himself had explicitly excluded the young Basilian as his successor but for just the opposite reason; he feared that Sheptytsky would show inordinate zeal on behalf of the Ruthenians, thus upsetting the political balance that he had worked to establish.

With the cardinal primate’s death, the responsibility for the nomination passed to Emperor Franz Josef, a devout Catholic who attempted to mitigate conflicts with the Church. Already at the end of the previous year, His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty had heard favorable reports of Sheptytsky, no doubt from his Polish-Galician ministers (although Sheptytsky’s biographer, Cyrile Korolevskij, erroneously assumed that “his name was not known in Vienna”), and promised the nuncio that he would favour the candidacy. But when the nuncio suggested Sheptytsky to the government, Galician leaders once again urged caution. This time it was the viceroy, Count Leon Pininski, who repeated the same objections as the late Cardinal Sembratovych. He also suggested that, at thirty-three, two years shy of the canonical age, Sheptytsky was too young and inexperienced to become metropolitan-archbishop directly. Pininski proposed that the older and more experienced Bishop Chekhovych be transferred to Lviv and that Sheptytsky be made bishop of Przemysl. Propaganda Fide rejected the proposal outright for two reasons: firstly, Chekhovych was a widower, a state that was unsuitable for Greek-Catholic primate; secondly, Chekovych was held to be weak, and the Holy See reminded the government about the problems created by the last metropolitan who had been soft on Russophilism. In any case, Cardinal Ledóchowski had always favoured Sheptytsky and he continued to press for his candidacy.

The government then proposed promoting the aged Bishop Julian Sas-Kuilovsky of Stanislaviv and assigning him a Basilian auxiliary-bishop, who would begin to combat Russophilism by assuming the direction of the Lviv seminary. Sheptytsky was then to replace Kuilovsky in the small Stanislaviv diocese, in order to gain experience. This plan was acceptable to all concerned except Father Andrei, who had no such ambitions. He had already refused the nomination to Przemysl, two years previously, and was uncomfortable with the pressure that the government was exerting. In a desperate attempt to resist, Sheptytsky wrote three letters to the Apostolic See refusing the episcopacy, claiming that he was “unworthy” of the honor. The Jesuits, however, had grafted two special vows onto the Basilian constitutions: the first to spurn promotions and the second of particular obedience and submission to the Roman Pontiff. With the second vow in view, Sheptytsky had to include the proviso that he would only accept if ordered to by the Pope and such was indeed the will of Leo XIII and his minister, Cardinal Ledóchowski, who had been cherishing such hopes for several years. Sheptytsky’s refusal had also been prompted by his apprehension of the desperate moral state of Stanislaviv’s population, especially the clergy, imbued with Russophile tendencies. Thus, he made his acceptance of the imperial nomination conditional upon the government fulfilling its long-delayed promise of constructing a seminary for that diocese.

Having received the go-ahead from the nunciature, on 1 February 1899, Emperor Franz Josef simultaneously presented the names of Bishop Julian of the knights Sas-Kuilovsky and Andrei Count Sheptytsky to Pope Leo XIII, who announced their promotions in the consistory assembly of 19 June. Sheptytsky was ordained bishop in Lviv, on 17 September, by Metropolitan Kuilovsky, assisted by Bishop Chekhovych and Bishop Weber, the Latin-Rite auxiliary of Lviv. The following day, he was enthroned as bishop of Stanislaviv. The new Bishop immediately began a dynamic spiritual, moral and educational reform of his diocese. Not two months later, the apostolic nuncio was already praising his “rare qualities”, noting that “with prudence and caution, he has began to manifest an exceptional zeal in the government of his Diocese, where there is an extreme need to summon the clergy to a more disciplined life, which conforms to the priestly state.” Bishop Andrei’s “firm resolve” combined with his profound spirituality and warm attitude towards both clergy and laity won the hearts of the flock. Even hitherto skeptical Ruthenian-Ukrainian nationalists leaders somewhat changed their opinion of Sheptytsky from wariness to praise for his dedication to the people.

2. Nomination as Metropolitan-Archbishop

Like all Greek-Catholic episcopal nominations since the 1870’s, the 1899 nominations amounted to what had become the standard compromise between various interest groups of church and state. In addition, just before his formal nomination, Bishop Kuilovsky rejected Basilian Father Platonides Filas as his designated auxiliary-bishop and seminary rector. It was understood that the elderly bishop could not manage the large archdiocese alone and the government contemplated leaving aside Kuilovsky’s nomination altogether. At this point, Cardinal Ledóchowski made one last effort to propose Andrei Sheptytsky as metropolitan. However, since the emperor had already signed the presentation, Rome decided to go ahead, in the hope that the new metropolitan would accept Filas in time. It did not have long to wait for a solution to present itself because the infirm Kuilovsky died less than a year later, on 4 May 1900.

Now the path seemed to be cleared for the favoured candidate, Sheptytsky, who had gained experience and popularity in the eyes of his flock and of church and state leaders. The apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Emidio Taljani, stated that, “despite his youth, he possesses all the requisite qualities to become an excellent archbishop.” However, even this second nomination would not go as smoothly as planned. Papal secretary of state Cardinal Rampolla informed the nuncio of the Pope’s will that Sheptytsky accept the promotion to Lviv and that Father Filas replace him as bishop of Stanislaviv. This proposal appeared to acceptable to all when Sheptytsky traveled to Vienna to perform the bureaucratic procedures. There he was presented with a new condition by the government, which he and the nuncio both deemed unacceptable; a condition which had its root in the very foundation of the Stanislaviv eparchy.

In the eighteenth century, Austria took over the financial administration of the Church and established a Religion Fund to pay salaries and expenses. It had promised to found a third Greek-Catholic eparchy as far back as the 1780’s but continued to procrastinate. Finally, during the height of the Russophile scare, the government agreed to create the Stanislaviv eparchy but could not come to a final agreement as to how it would be funded. In relinquishing his office in 1882, ex-Metropolitan Josyf Sembratovych had been granted a pension by the Lviv Archeparchy. Upon his death, instead of returning the revenue to Lviv, the government planned to use part of it to fund Stanislaviv, thus exonerating itself of having to use the Religion Fund. Sheptytsky stood firm on refusing the nomination under such conditions, and submitted a clever counter-proposal containing the proviso that any decision on the Lviv revenues be subject to the approval of the Apostolic See.

Rome, however, chose not to challenge Austria on a financial issue, in view of the fact that negotiations for new bishops were becoming ever more difficult. The nuncio assured Cardinal Rampolla that, since the government was willing to defer financial negotiations, the emperor was ready to sign the nomination. It was precisely during this period of intense negotiation that Bishop Sheptytsky led a group of pilgrims to Rome to celebrate the Jubilee Year. There he met with Cardinal Rampolla, who instructed him to accept the nomination and to forward a report on the issue for a future decision by the Apostolic See. In an audience of 29 October 1900, two days before the emperor had signed his letter of presentation, Pope Leo XIII announced to the pilgrims that their bishop was to become the new metropolitan. The following 5 November, the Viennese nuncio was instructed to initiate the canonical process of collecting testimonies from three well-known priests, which was performed on 12 November.

As if the saga had not been complicated enough, Sheptytsky sent a letter to the nuncio on 11 December, placing the decision regarding the finances in the hands of the Pope. In the same missive, however, he resolutely declared that he was not willing to endure any further government pressure and, if necessary, was ready to renounce the episcopacy to return to the monastic life. Sheptytsky’s inflexibility can be further understood in the light of the fact that he had invested personal funds in Stanislaviv, expecting the government to fulfill its promise to fund a seminary on condition that he accept the episcopacy. As a result, the bishop was left financially destitute but his persistence succeeded in convincing the government to reduce some of its claims. Andrei Sheptytsky’s nomination as Greek-Catholic archbishop of Lviv was finally proclaimed at the papal consistory of 17 December 1900 and he was enthroned as metropolitan of Halych on 12 January 1901. Having agreed to Sheptytsky’s promotion, the government nonetheless suspended the nomination of his successor in Stanislaviv for another three years, until the financial issues could be resolved.

Already in the first months of office, the new Metropolitan surprised everyone by unequivocally supporting the national and political demands of his flock, just as Cardinal Sembratovych had predicted. Despite this fact, the Ukrainian national movement continued to be wary of the Polish aristocrat, whom they suspected of being a traitor in disguise. While Sheptytsky supported every honorable Ukrainian aspiration, he continued to be misunderstood by both Ukrainian and Polish nationalists. Many of them held anticlerical or even agnostic views, having been educated in Austrian legalist philosophy which looked upon the Church as an earthly instrument of the nation. With much prejudice and little foresight, Ukrainian notables continued to passionately oppose Basilian episcopal candidates, such as Platonid Filas and Josaphat Kotsylovsky, men who were to become defenders of the national identity and even protagonists in the formation of the short-lived Western Ukrainian state. While recognizing these faults, instead of withdrawing from the political forum “into the sacristy”, Sheptytsky challenged the intelligentsia and attempted to bring the teaching of Christ to the national movement. He also emasculated the Russophile movement by inaugurating a ritualist revival that was both faithful to his Church’s Kyivan roots and also to the unity of the Universal Church. It might be said that, in some respects, he beat the ritualist and political ideologues at their own game.

With the blessing of Leo XIII’s successor, Pope Pius X, Kyr Andrei also began a secret mission to establish an authentically Russian Eastern-Catholic Church. Remarkably, not only the Tsarist government but so too the fledgling Ukrainian government objected to this mission, both for nationalistic reasons.

Metropolitan Andrei’s breakthrough with the Ukrainian national movement finally came after he had been imprisoned. The Russians imprisoned him in Siberia, in 1914, because he was a danger to their plan to Russianize the Galician Ukrainians and to make them break their ecclesial unity with the Roman Pontiff. The Polish army confined him in his own archiepiscopal palace, in 1919, after they had captured Lviv from Ukrainian forces. The Polish Government tried everything to have Sheptytsky removed as Greek-Catholic archbishop of Lviv because he was an obstacle to their plan to Polonize the Ukrainians. Having failed to achieve their designs, when Sheptytsky attempted to return to his diocese from abroad in 1923, as the Pope has specifically commanded him, the Polish Government ordered that he be interned in Poznan, in an attempt to extract from him an unconditional oath of political loyalty. Notwithstanding Sheptytsky’s consistent resistance to government intrusion in Church affairs, he outlasted each one of the regimes that persecuted him. At the time, these regimes appeared to represent the greatest danger but Kyr Andrei understood that the moral condition of the individual human beings that constitute the nation had an infinitely greater and lasting significance. Throughout his episcopal ministry, Andrei Sheptytsky retained the “firm resolve” that had been credited him by the papal representative in 1899. In exile, former political leaders lost any effective voice in the homeland. The Metropolitan never fled persecution however, and he remained to comfort his people in their plight and was finally recognized by the nation a great hero and a moral figurehead. Most significantly, he remained a living martyrios, a witness to his people of Catholic unity and fidelity (not merely in theory but also in practice) to his spiritual Father, the Roman Pontiff, Successor of Blessed Peter the Apostle.

"Catholicize not Latinize"

The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church

and the Missions of Achille Ratti and Giovanni Genocchi

According to the Archives of the Apostolic See (1918-1923)

Exerpts from the introduction of my doctoral dissertation

From its origins until after the second World War, the history of Uniate (later called Greek-Catholic) Ukrainian Church is, for a large part, characterized by the history of the relations between the Roman Apostolic See and the Ukrainian Church existing within the Polish State. This historical paradigm is especially true for the period treated in this work, which is the period comprising the missions of Achille Ratti to Poland and Giovanni Genocchi to Ukraine and Eastern-Galicia, 1918-1923. During this five-year period, vast social, political and ecclesiastical changes occurred throughout Europe, for example, the end of the multi-national empires, which had ruled Poland and Ukraine since the end of the eighteenth century. Both of these nations were thence reborn as political states, and their struggles for independence were characterized by nationalistic and religious conflicts, the outcome of which had enormous consequences not only for the nations themselves, but also for the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe.

The mission of Monsignor Achille Ratti marked the first time in over a hundred and thirty years that a permanent papal envoy had been sent to the Catholic Churches in Eastern Europe. Following upon the major political transformations at the end of the First World War, the period here studied became one of great innovation with respect to the Holy See’s relations with both old and new nations. Achille Ratti became the papal representative to and for the Catholic Church in the entire region, which included Poland, the Baltic States, Russia, and Ukraine. His mission laid the groundwork for further envoys to the region, such as the Apostolic Visitation of Father Giovanni Genocchi to Ukraine and Eastern Galicia. In treating church issues of the period, it becomes evident that nationalistic aims played a large part in causing religion and politics to become tightly intertwined. Ratti and Genocchi’s missions were dominated by the political conflict between Poland and her neighbours, which, by extension became a conflict between the Catholic Church of Poland and the Catholic Churches of other nations. Ultimately, this political-religious conflict determined the scope of action of both Ratti and Genocchi, each of whom sought to mediate between the conflicting parties and to enegretically intervene on behalf of the persecuted Greek-Catholic Church. After his election as Pope in 1922, Ratti retained Genocchi as a mediator for Ukrainian affairs, sending him back to Poland, in 1923, in order to complete the second part of his mission, to Eastern Galicia.

The originality and contribution of my work lies in its examination of the views and actions of the Apostolic See and its envoys in their relationship with the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church; this work being based principally on a systematic examination of each individual piece of the relevant correspondence contained in the various archives of the Apostolic See. These include: the Archives of the Nunciatures of Warsaw, Vienna and Canada; the Archives of the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs and the Archives of the Secretariat of State; and the Archives of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches. I also included material from the General and Canadian-Provincial Archives of the Basilian Order of St. Josaphat and from and the Archives of the Archdiocese of St. Boniface, Canada.

The dissertation has been produced under the auspices of the first Catholic faculty of Church History [at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome]. Consistent with the principles of this faculty, mine is a work of ecclesiastical history rather than of the theology of history. An historian does not attempt to make moral judgments but rather endevours to discover, understand, and interpret the historical facts in the context of the historical period. Accordingly, this work does seeks to convey the judgments of the representatives of the Roman Curia, the papal envoys and others, upon which the Apostolic See based its policy and actions toward the Churches and States in the region. Indeed, the title of this work, a quotation from Achille Ratti’s correspondence with the Polish hierarchy, is the central theme and also a bone of contention of Vatican policy: “to catholize not to latinize”. Hopefully, my work will serve to guide further related research and that it also will help clarify issues which have been hitherto unclear or erroneously interpreted, due to non-availability of relevant primary source materials.

Свята Столиця й Україна

Дипломатичне посередництво Князя Токаржевського Карашевича

Published in Progress Ukrainian Catholic News (Поступ), no.5/2134, (9 March 2008), pp. 7, 12 , 14.

Дня 11 листопада 2007 року, українська греко-католицька громада в Лондоні відзначила 53-ю річницю смерти князя Івана-Степана-Маріяна з Токарів Токаржевського-Карашевича (Jan Stefan Maria de Tokary Tokarzewski-Karasziewicz). Я познайомився з ним, не в житті, бо я ще не народився, коли він помер, але дійсно з ним познайомився через його листування, через його зусилля для новонародженої української держави.

Коротко про нього особисто: Його прізвіще не дуже українське, бо він походив з давнього литовського роду зв'язаного з Україною від ХІѴ століття, коли стара Русь була під Великим Князівством Литовським. Панські землі родини знаходились в Ушицькому повіті на Поділлі, що належили до Польсько-Литовської Держави аж до кінця ХѴІІІ століття, коли та держава була поділена між Австрією, Росією і Прусією. Те, що сьогодні Західна Україна, пішло до Австрії, а Велика Україна пішла до Росії. Молодий Ян закінчив житомирську гімназію, а потім виїхав на Захід, де вивчав філософію, економію й політичні науки у Фрайбурґу, Відні, Мюнхені й Тулузі. Він здобув докорати філософіїї і політичних наук у 1910 році. Після закінчення студій, він повернувся до рідного села, де брав активну участь у громадській діяльності. Під час Першої світової війни він служив головним контролером Поділського земського комітету, а в 1917 році його обрано членом Поділського губернського та Ушицького повітового земств.

Ян Токаржевський-Карашевич належав до тих полсько-литовських аристократів, що, мешкаючи з нашим народом на українських землях, почувалися приналежними до українського народу й підтримали українські національні змагання. Тому, вже у червні 1918 р. Гетьман Павло Скоропадський затвердив постанову про призначення Токаржевського-Карашевича радником українського посольства у Відні, найважливіше після Берліну з українських посольств, бо після Берестейсько-литовської угоди з Центральними державами (підпасаний 9 лютого того самого року), Імперії Німецька, Австрійська й Отоманська (тобто Турецька) визнлали Українську Державу. Після падіння центральних держав та разом з ними гетьманського режиму, Директорія Української Народної Республіки прийшла до влади. Не зважаючи на радикальні елементи в уряді Директорії, Головний Отаман Симон Петлюра підтвердив призначення Токаржевського-Карашевича, бо хотів використати на дипломатичій службі таких аристократів, що були демократичних і патріотичних переконань. Не забудьмо, що до того часу, майже всі еворпейські дипломати походили з шляхетних родин й мали вступ до вищого суспільства й царських дворів. Так само Петлюра хотів показати західним силам, що український уряд не радикальний чи більшовицький. Князь служив у Відні до літа 1919 року, коли був перенесений до посолства в Константинополі. Там служив від 2 серпня 1919 р. до 11 грудня 1921 р., спершу як радник, від березня 1920 р. повіреним у справах (chargé d’affairs), а тоді як посол при останньому султані Туреччини. Там він зустінувся і згодом одружився у травні 1922 року з Оксаною, дочкою першого посла, відомого українського діяча Олександра Лотоцького. Після Константинополя Токаржевського-Карашевича відкличано до Тарнова заступником, а від січня 1922 року віце-міністром закордонних справ і керівником Міністерства закордонних справ УНР в екзилі. Токаржевський-Карашевич подався до демісії 3 вересня 1924 р. й виїхав до Франції. Від 1936 р. жив в Італії а від 1948 р. у Лондоні, де помер, 53 років тому.

Правду кажучи, Токаржевський-Карашевич призабутий українською історіографією. Його ім'я не з'являється у покажчиках найважніших українських історій - Субтельного, Маґочі, ба навіть Дорошенка, що його особисто знав. Навіть у працях про українску дипломатію він рідко коли згадується. Це іґнорування дає нам враження, що князь неначе не був центральною фіґурою української політики. Але насправді, у моїх пошуках я побачив, що він був дуже важливою особою у дипломатії УНР, головно у відношеннях з Ватиканом. У Ватиканських архівах існують 28 зразків кореспонденції від Токаржевського-Карашевича, листи або до нього, або де він згадується та свідчать про його ключову роль у дипломатичних зусиллях УНР з Святою Столицею. Всі листи написанні французькою мовою, бо це інтернаціональна дипломатична мова починаючи від ХѴІІ століття, часів Людвика XIV, аж до сьогодні.

Перше треба вияснити терміни. Sancta Sedes Apostolica, тобто Свята Апостолська Столиця або Престол - це офіційна назва головної влади Католицької церкви - Папи Римського разом зі своїм урядом - Римською Курією. Термін Ватикан, це радше місце, головний папський палац, так як в Англії посли акредитовані до Двору св. Якова (Court of St. James). Від 1929 р. Місто Ватикан- це назва держави, що дає Папі можливість свобідно від земних влад виконувати свою надприродну місію для всього людства. Щоб відмежувати дві сторони діяльности Ватикану, термін Апостольська Столиця використовується для внутрішніх церковних справ, а назву Свята Столиця уживається, коли йде мова про політичні відношення з державами. Згідно з католицьким вченням, Святіший Вселенський Отець відіграє основну роль ґаранта єдності у Церкві. Щоб укріпити цю єдність, з давніх часів папи відіслали до місцевих церков своїх посланців – леґатів або нунціїв. Так само висилали й представників світським володарям, щоб домовитися з ними щодо підтримки церкви та дозволу їй свобідно проповідувати Боже слово. Сьогодні папських послів до церков називають апостольськими візитаторами, або делеґатами. Для країн, що мають дипломатичні відношення зі Святою Столицею, папський репрезентант завивається апостолський нунцій.

При кінці Першої світової війни, із занепадом багатоетничних імперій, підданні їм народи як, напр., український, польський чеський та інші проголосили свою незалежність. У Східній Європі католицькі церкви, чи латинські, чи східні, знайшлися у жахливому стані після багаторічного переслідування від Російської православної держави. Перше завдання Апостольскої Столиці було упорядкувати церквовне життя, і 25 квітня 1918 р., Папа Бенедикт ХV назначив свого бібліотекаря й історика монсіньйора Акілле Ратті апостольським візитатором для Польщі й усіх країн колишньої Російської Імперії. Йому доручено, щоб він займався передусім Латинською церквою, але також допомагав східним католицьким церквам віджити й розвиватися, щоб вони могли бути посередниками церковної єдности між католиками й православними. І якраз тут увійде на арену наш дорогий князь.

Токаржевський-Карашевич був римо-католиком, дуже вірним, побожним, лицарем стародавного Малтійського ордену. Разом з іншими католиками на Великій Україні (розуміється, латиниками, бо в Російській імперії Греко-католицька церква була знищена ще в попередньому столітті) він хотів використати нову свободу для розквіту церков. У вересні 1918 р., у порозумінні з луцьким і кам'янецьким латинськими єпископами в Україні та українським Міністерством закордонних справ, він звернувся до віденської апостольської нунціятури в справі Католицької церкви в Україні. Віденський нунцій порадив йому звернутися радше до новопризначеного візитатора для всіх країн колишньої Російської Імперії, Акілле Ратті.

Токаржевський-Карашевич написав перший лист до візитатора Ратті 14 вересня 1918 р., звертаючись “не як офіційний представник моєї країни, але як добрий католик”. Він писав, що його країна хоче розривати всі зв’язки з Росією й тому потребує допомоги вищої церковної влади, щоб відновити католицькі структури в Україні, які були придушені російською владою. Токаржевський-Карашевич зауважив, що “На жаль, Українська Держава ще не визнана Святою Столицею”, мабуть на його думку, “через попередніх революційних урядів” (тобто Рада УНР). На кінці він просив пораду, чим Українська Держава може ввійти в офіційні відношення зі Святою Столицею і просив Ратті стати її речником перед Ватиканом. Треба зрозуміти, що Україна потребувала інтернаціонального визнання, бо від часу Бересть-литовского трактату між Україною та Центральними імперіями держави Антанти, тобто Англія, Франція й Італія, розривали навіть неформальні відносини з Україною. У цей період, хоч Свята Столиця була позбавлена своєї власної території (у 1929 р. частинно поверненою Папі під назвою Держава Місто Ватикан), все ж таки відгравала важливу роль в інтернаціональних справах, головно як моральний голос й посередниця між супротивними державами. Інший представник України, граф Михаїл Тишкевич, людина подібного походження й національних переконань як Токаржевський-Карашевич, вже 1 вересня звернувся прямо до Святої Столиці, щоб визнала Україну, та його просьби одержали відмовну відповідь.

Токаржевський-Карашевич мусив чекати білше як місяць на відповідь. Але це не тому, що монсіньйор Ратті не приділяв велику увагу до тих питань, а просто тому, що він був у дорозі, виконуючи свій мандат як папський візитатор, відвідуючи церкви тих польських територій, що до того часу були під Німеччиною й Австрією. Коли Ратті повернувся до Варшави й побачив цей лист, негайно відписав Токаржевському-Карашевичеві дуже теплими словами, перепрошуючи за пізню відповідь і, своїми словами, «цілим моїм серцем хочу прислуговувати моїм дурзям, щоб бути вашим промовцем у Святому Престолі». Він порадив, щоб Україна офіційно звернулася до Святої Столиці, і коли б уряд його запросив, він сам готовий приїхати в Україну, щоб провести апостольську візитацію, тобто відвідати католицькі церкви, як перший крок по дорозі до евентуальних дипломатичних зв'язків Ватикану з Україною. Через тиждень монсіньйор Ратті написав до свого настоятеля кардинала Ґаспарі, папського Секретеря стану, віддаючи подяку Богові та людям доброї волі, тобто Карашевичу.

Але, відвідини Ратті не здійслилися ні в Росії, ні в Україні. Наступного місяця Центральні держави здалися й німецько-австрійскі воїни покинули Україну, а тим самим і Гетманський режим. Того ж листпопада, опозиція сформувала Директорію під проводом Винниченка й Петлюри, і Скоропадський пішов у грудні у відставку. Директорія лишила Токаржевського-Карашевича, Тишкевича та інших дипломатів, які були призначені попередніми режимами, на своїх місцях.

З’єднання ЗУНР з УНР у січні 1919 року приніс три мільйони греко-католиків у політичний форум Великої України, а ще до того безнадійний стан УНР підкреслив потребу шукати допомоги від Папи Римського. Напевно мав вплив на ці зусилля й митрополит Андрей (Шептицький), що дружно співпрацював з графом Тишкевичем ще з передвоєнних часів. У лютому 1919 р. Тишкевич переконав Петлюру прийняти пораду Ратті й зробити якийсь крок. 15 того ж місяця, листом папському Секретареві стану, Головний Отаман повідомив Святу Столицю, що його уряд висилає делеґацію до Святого Престолу очолену Тишкевичем, щоб вирішити справу про дипломатичні відношення. Це рішення було досить відважне, бо по етикету, Свята Столиця мала б перша погодитись приймати таку делеґацію.

Через три дні, 19 лютого, Токаржевський-Карашевич знов написав до монсіньйора Ратті. У тому листі, він визнав про зміну режимів (від Гетьманату до Директорії), яка не вимагала від нового уряду приймати пропозіцію Ратті про його апостольску візитацію. Він також повідомив візитатора, що Директорія вирішила послати делеґацію до Святого Престолу і тому, задля посади Ратті, як візитатора всіх колишніх російських країн, Токаржевський-Карашевич просив у нього рекомендаційного листа для графа Тишкевича, щоб його могли представити кардиналам Римської Курії. У цьому листі знаходиться цікава для нас фраза: Токаржевський-Карашевич висловлює надію “на європеїзацію України”. Ратті відписав 4 березня й просив, щоб далі інформувати його про цю місію.
21 лютого, князь листом повідомиив і віденському нунцію Вальфре ді Бондзо про плани нового українського уряду. Нунцій вислав ці інформацій візитаторові Ратті, а 6 березня дав свою оцінку кардилалові Ґаспарі. Нунцій Вальфре підтвердив думку Токаржевського-Карашевича, що представник Святої Столиці в Києві укріпив би церковний рух відхилення від Росії й прихилення до Риму між українцями. Хоч він хвалив особу Токаржевського-Карашевича, однак нунцій сумнівався, чи український уряд цілком поділив би його прихильні думки до католицизму й висловив думку, що уряд уживає такі пропозіції цілковито з політичних міркувань. Не зважаючи на ці реалістичні сумніви, віденський нунцій заохотив кардинала секретаря прийняти місію Тишкевича.

Князь Токаржевський-Карашевич відписав до Ратті 19 березня з обширнішою інформацією про особу графа Тишкевича: що той є папскьим лицарем й що його син був єзуїтом. Він також подав інформації, але дуже нечисленні, про інших можливих членів місії, семінариста Петра Карманського та монсіоньйора Юрика. Ще раз, Токаржевський-Карашевич піддав думку, що якщо Свята Столиця погоджується, могла би обмінятися послами з Україною. Але оскільки Ратті не знав Тишкевича, він відписав Токаржевському-Карашевичу 1 квітня, що треба попросити рекомендаційного листа від Тишкевичевого єпископа, Пйотра Маньковського, латинського єпископа Кам'янця-Подільского. Все ж таки, по двох днях Ратті написав до кардинала Ґаспарі, обережно підтверджуючи пропозицію Токаржевського-Карашевича. Однак єпископ Маньковський відмовився написати рекомендаційного листа, бо Токаржевський-Карашевич остерігав його, що Польське духовенство може загрожувати Українській Державі, і що латинський єпископат повинен ясно висловити своє становище щодо національного питання. Монсіньйор Ратті відписав Токаржевському-Карашевичу 25 квітня, що він уже написав був до кардинала Ґаспарі про українську місію і її членів.

Від квітня 1919 року, Токаржевський-Карашевич перестав на якийсь час займатися цими справами, бо Свята Столиця приймала надзвичайну українську місію. Цим вона de facto визнала український уряд, але, за дипломатичними звичаями, чекала на визнання інших держав, щоб визнавати вповні або de jure незалежну українську державу. Від того часу, з Риму граф Тишкевич займався українськими справами при папському дворі.

У літі 1919 року Токаржевський-Карашевич перейшов від українського посольства у Відні до константинопольського й по дорозі провів цілий липень у Римі. Листом від 12 липня Тишкевич представив його кардиналові Ґаспарі, щоб Токаржевський-Карашевич міг би інформувати Святу Столицю про прикрий стан українців і Греко-католицької церкви в Галичині під польською окупацією. 24 липня свяченик Кирило Королевський так само представив князя, цей раз кардиналу Маріні, керівникові ватиканської конґреґації відповідальної за Східні церкви. У розмові з Маріні 25 липня, Токаржевський-Карашевич просив інтервенції Святої Столиці за переслідуваного польською військовою владою митрополита Андрея (Шептицького). Токаржевський-Карашевич писав до Маріні, що митрополит Андрей, “не лишень національний наш герой але теж пропаґатор нашої віри й дуже відданий захисник Католицької церкви”. Ватиканські урядовці були так задоволені Токаржевським-Карашевичем, що папа Венедикт ХV в кінці прийняв його в приватній авдієнції, яка тривала майже годину, розпитуючи докладно про ті справи, що князь представив був куріяльним кардиналам.
У липні 1919 р. монсіньйор Ратті став папським нунцієм до незалежної Польщі, додаючи до своєї церковної місії завдання дипломатичного представництва до Польської держави. За це, а також через польсько-українські конфлікти, українські політики й навіть духовенство вважали Ратті не дуже прихильним до української справи. Вони не здавали собі справи про його численні дипломатичні зусилля за інтернованих українців (про котрі свідчать тепер відкриті архіви) й так само не зрозуміли, що папський представник нікому не може давати арґументи проти їх політичних противників. Свята Столиця й церква сприяє мирові й тому стає на стороні всіх. У словах Ратті до латинського й греко- католицького архиєпископів Львова, “Папа одинаково любить усіх своїх дітей”.

Токаржевський-Карашевич приїхав до Константинополя 2 серпня і, мабуть, домовившись з Тишкевичем, далі пропонував призначення окремого папського представника для України. Дня 1 вересня місцевий апостолський делеґат Анджело Дольчі написав до кардинала Ґаспарі, що Токаржевський-Карашевич просив за такого навіть не офіційного представника, бо він дуже допоможе, коли рішиться справа існування незалежної України.

Князь так само таємно повідомив Дольчі, що український уряд почав переговори з Константинополським патріярхатом за Українську автокефальну православну церкву і, якби це сталося, Католицька церква втратила би багато ґрунту в Україні.
Повернувшись до Риму знову в жовтні 1919 року, нунцій Ратті дав рекоменцаційного листа монсіньйорові Черетті, відповідальному за церковні справи, що торкалися політичних питань, щоб Токаржевський-Карашевич міг би знову представити нещасний стан українців у Східній Галичині й переслідування Греко-католицької церкви. Того ж місяця, повернувшись до Царгороду, Токаржевський-Карашевич написав два листи до папських урядовців, знову благаючи, щоб призначити апостольського візитатора. На цей останній лист відповів сам кардинал Ґаспарі 9 грудня. Кардинал зауважав, що умовини ще не відповідні, щоб вислати візитатора в Україну. У дійсності, уряд УНР контролював дуже мало території, білшість котрої того часу була в рухах українських білшовиків і армій росіян білогвардійців.

На початку 1920 року, не зважаючи на всі неґативні відповіді, стан українського народу, і в Галичині, і у Великій Україні тривожив ватиканських представників і крім листів від українських дипломатів, папська курія одержала звіти від своїх-таки папських дипломатів, головно від нунція Ратті з Варшави, і від Митрополита Андрея та інших греко-католицьких священиків, що дозволили їм представити конкретну пропозіцію Папі Бенедиктові. Під час авдієнції 28 січня, не цілих двадцять днів після неґативної відповіді Ґаспарі Токаржевському-Карашевичу, єпископ Пападопулос, секретар Східної конґреґації, склав звіт про стан Греко-католицької церкви в Галичині й взагалі про домагання українського народу. Пападопулос пропонував призначити візитатора, офіційно, щоб координувати матеріяльну й медичну допомогу для Великої України але, неофіційно й таємно, щоб так само доглядати стан українців у Східній Галичині. Папа апробував цей план і 13 лютого призначив італійського місіонера, отця Джованні Дженоккі апостолським візитатором України. На це призначення Токаржевський-Карашевич написав останній свій лист до Святої Столиці з Константинополя, цей раз до голови Східної конґреґації, до котрої був доповідав візитатор Дженоккі. В імені Українського уряду та взагалі від усіх українців, князь висловив задоволення за це важний крок призначення Дженоккі. Нарешті, те, що Токаржевський-Карашевич пропонував ще від 1918 року, здійснилося.

Крім усіх згаданих листів, я знайшов ще один лист нашого князя у Ватиканських архівах. Останній лист від 22 травня 1922 р., Токаржевський-Карашевич написав як уже віце-міністер закордоних справ уряду УНР в екзилі. Цей останній лист дуже подібний до його першого листа з 1918 року. У ньому віце-міністер підкреслив, що уряд УНР приділяє величезне значення добрим стосункам зі Святою Столицею і ще надіється, що справи Католицьких церков в Україні можуть бути упорядковані. Хоч після цього листа Токаржевський-Карашевич уже білше не писав до Святої Столиці, однак ми знаємо з інших джерел, що він мав приємні контакти з тими церковними діячами, з якими він мав зв'язки як урядовець, включно з колишнім нунцієм Акілле Ратті, якого в лютому 1922 року вибрано Папою Пієм ХІ.

Хоч князь Токаржевський-Карашевич вернувся до приватного життя вже 1924 року, однак далі брав участь в українській громаді. Дуже мало про нього написано. Можливо тому, що з одного боку, така людина не цілком зрозуміла нашому народові, головно нашим політікам, що не мали соціяльних зв'язків із суспілством, звідкиля походив Токаржевський-Карашевич. Наприклад, Дмитро Дорошенко, міністер закордоних справ Гетьманського режиму, що був фактично відповідальний за призначення Токаржевського-Карашевича радником при Віденському посольстві, сказав про нього: “Він є трохи дивак (на мій погляд), дорожить титулами, є лицарем Мальтійського ордену, але людина наскрізь чесна, щира й шляхетна». Ці слова майже співпадають з тими, що писали про нього апостольські нунції 1918 року й певно віддзеркалюють загальне враження про Токаржевського-Карашевича - особа вищих рідкісих якостей. Це особа що практикувала чесноту шляхетности, чесноту, що не має нічого спільного ні з посілостями, ні з політикою, а радше стосується того, як поводиться людина. Це життєва філософія, що творить стан або клас людей, що живуть вищими вартостями у відношенні до себе самого і до інших.

A Greek-Catholic Bishop Returns to Lutsk

Published in in Progress Ukrainian Catholic News, no.3/2132, (10 February 2008), Winnipeg, pp. 12 and 14, and in Sower (Сівач), vol. XXIII, no. 2 (24 February 2008), Stamford, p. 13.

On 15 January 2008, after one-hundred and eighty years, a Greek-Catholic bishop was finally appointed to reside in the city of Lutsk, Ukraine. This event one of great historical significance and of justice for our Church, after having been deprived of an church structure in the region for so many years. The debate over the Greek-Catholic Church of Lutsk continued throughout the previous century and Bishop Josaphat Hovera joins a long line of illustrious predecessors, many of whom were confessors of Catholic unity amidst great persecution.

The eparchy of Lutsk-Ostrih dates from about 1326 and was one of sufragen sees of the metropolia of Kyiv-Halych. Being a prominent eparchy, over the centuries, several of Lutsk’s bishops were promoted to metropolitan of Kyiv. In 1589, during a pastoral visit, the patriarch of Constantinople named Lutsk’s bishop Kyryl Terletsky as his exarch for the entire Kyivan metropolia. Six years later, Terletsky would be one of two bishops sent to Rome to reestablish full communion between the Kyivan and the Roman Churches. The following year, in 1596, this act was confirmed by all but two of the hierarchy, and is is referred to as the Union of Brest, the birth of the Uniate (later renamed Greek-Catholic) Church.

From 1609 to 1702, four bishops occupied the see of Lutsk, which consisted of about one-hundred parishes in union with Rome. Despite the fact that Polish King Wladyslaw IV had given the eparchial properties to the Orthodox, Bishop Zabokrytsky accepted union with Rome in 1702, and was consequently imprisoned by the Russian Tsar, dying ten years later in Siberia. After him, there were eleven more uniate eparchs of Lutsk. Following the partition of Poland (1772-1795), Lutsk was one of the three Greek-Catholic eparchies preserved in the Russian Empire. However, in 1828, Bishop Syrotynsky had to flee when the Tsarist government unilaterally abolished his eparchy as a prelude to the violent suppression all Greek-Catholic structures in Russia.

As far as the Apostolic See was concerned, any attempt by the civil authority to abolish a diocese was invalid. However, no new Greek-Catholic bishop would thenceforth be permitted to occupy the see of Lutsk, which the official Vatican publication the Gerarchia Cattolica continued to list as vacant. In 1873, however, the notation concerning this eparchy vanished from the Gerarchia even though it had never been suppressed by a church decree. This fact was evidenced, in the 1920s, through a diligent search of the Vatican archives by the scholarly Monsignor Angelo Mercati, future Cardinal-Librarian-Archivist of the Holy Roman Church.
After the Russian Revolution of 1905, Tsar Nicholas II issued an edict which temporarily permitted a degree of religious freedom within his domains. Some former Greek-Catholics sought to return to their Church but were hindered by the lack of clergy and church buildings at their disposal, and so adopted the Latin Rite as the only viable option. The possibility of freedom for the Greek-Catholic Church would resurface during the First World War when Austria occupied the province of Volyn. In 1916, about fifty Greek-Catholic priests from Austrian Galicia were sent to minister to the Ukrainians of that region. Their arrival, however, was preceded by an extraordinary occurance.

Following upon the opportunity presented by the Tsar’s Edict of Religious Tolerance, in 1907, Pope Pius X granted Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky secret powers over the entire Eastern-Catholic mission in Russia. These powers included the right to ordain and install bishops, in special circumstances. The Russians invaded Lviv in 1914 and arrested the Metropolitan, deporting him to Siberia. Making use of these extraordinary faculties, Sheptytsky ordained to the episcopacy the rector of the Lviv seminary, his close collaborator Josyf Botsian, conferring on him the designation “bishop of Lutsk”. Upon Sheptytsky’s release from prison, on 18 August 1917, he immediately asked Pius X’s sucessor, Benedict XV, to confirm the nomination. The Metropolitan would have to wait just over three years for this confirmation as his planned visit to the pope was blocked by the Italian government, which was at war with Austria-Hungary. In the meantime, he assigned Botsian to minister to oversee the Greek-Catholic missions in Ukrainian territories occupied by Austria and Germany.

Though Metropolitan Andrei had informed Austrian officials, the Latin Bishop of Lutsk-Zhytomyr objected to Botsian’s mission because no Greek-Catholic bishop or diocese of Lutsk existed, at least according to the Annuario Pontificio (the Gerarchia Cattolica's sucessor). The Polish clergy feared that, instead of bringing the Orthodox into union with Rome, Botsian and his priests would entice the former Greek-Catholics to leave the Latin Rite. They also feared that the scope of the mission included support for Ukrainian as opposed to Polish sovereignty over Volyn. After the defeat of Austria, the Polish Republic took control of the region and Kyr Botsian’s title as bishop of Lutsk provoked to a political conflict, since his mission ran counter to Poland’s policy of assimilation of the local Ukrainian population. The Polish government considered it their right to approve episcopal appointments, a privilege which had been conceded to the Austrian emperor. Many Poles saw Botsian’s appointment as a sign of Holy See’s sympathy for the Galician Ukrainians’ quest for independence. Polish politicians requested official clarification regarding the papal confirmation of Botsian’s ordination, which had occurred on 24 February 1921. They accused Metropolitan Sheptytsky of furnishing the Holy See with false information regarding the ordination and even attacked the papal nuncio Achille Ratti (the future Pope Pius XI), on the pretext of his presumed pro-Ukrainian sympathies. These concerns were brought before the papal secretary of state, Cardinal Gasparri, by the Polish legate Dr. Wiernz-Kowalski.

Once Gasparri had obtained a report from the Oriental Congregation, he replied to the legate on 26 June 1921, that Botsian’s ordination “was made by Monsignor Sheptytsky on his own personal initiative, in lieu of the faculties accorded him by the Holy Father Pius X. Since the aforementioned Monsignor acted in virtue of such faculties, the nomination made by him is to be regarded as valid, and consequently the present Pontiff could not have done otherwise than to accept it. Nevertheless, His Holiness did not refrain, precisely in view of the special circumstances, to give the order that Monsignor Botsian would not perform any act of jurisdiction.”
Wiernz-Kowalski recognized this declaration as sufficient and the Holy See considered the Botsian affair concluded. In reality, however, the Polish government was still not satisfied and installed a new legate to the Vatican, Count Skrzynski, to pursue a more aggressive policy. The Oriental Congregation had to issue a clarification to the new nuncio to Poland, stating that the nomination to Lutsk was made before the existence of an independent Polish state, and further that, in virtue of the Union of Brest, the Holy See recognized the Ukrainian primate’s right to directly nominate and consecrate his suffragen bishops. At the beginning of 1922, Monsignor Skirmunt, liason between the Polish hierarchy and the Roman Curia, attempted to have Bishop Botsian’s granted a completely new title, since the Polish government was even opposed to Botsian being titular bishop of Lutsk. Skirmunt’s plan, however, involved keeping the change secret from the Oriental Congregation which, two months later, submitted Bishop Botsian’s name for the Annuario Pontificio, with the title “Bishop of Lutsk”. The publication of the 1922 Annuario caused a political incident making it appear as if Holy See had gone back on its promise that Bishop Botsian would not exercise episcopal jurisdiction. The Annuario was prompted re-issued with Botsian’s name removed. Thereafter, the Holy See continued to look for a resolution and, even as late as 1924, Cardinal Gasparri inquired about the possibility of allowing Botsian to exercise jurisdiction in the Lutsk area. Since this solution was still not acceptable to the Polish regime, Pius XI decided to appoint Botsian auxiliary-bishop of Lviv, where he died in 1926.

Not to be outdone by exaggerated nationalism, Pius XI blessed a project which came to be known as the Neo Unia. Polish church and lay notables had been suggesting that Eastern Catholicism was being used as a tool for Ukrainian nationalism. The Neo Unia sought to internationalize the mission in Volyn by conceding it to the Jesuits, thus attempting to separate religious and national-political issues. The Neo Unia, however, ended in failure. More successful was the mission of the Eastern-Rite Redemptorists in Volyn, initiated in 1926, the year of Bishop Botsian’s death. Five years later, their superior, Mykola Charnetsky, was named bishop and apostolic visitor to Byzantine-Rite faithful of the region. When Poland was occupied in 1939, Metropolitan Sheptytsky once again used his special powers to name Charnetysky exarch of Volyn, but the latter was never permitted to exercise that mission. After the Soviets retook Eastern Galicia, he and his fellow Greek-Catholic bishops were arrested. Bishop Charnetysky died in Siberian exile in 1959. That same year, a priest who had been ordained by Bishop Botsian, Redemptorist Vasyl Velychkovsky, was clandestinely named exarch of Lutsk by Sheptytsky’s sucessor, Metropolitan Josyf Slipyj. Slypyj was not able to ordain Velychkovsky a bishop until 1963, when both met briefly in a Moscow hotel, just before Slipyj was to be exiled from the Soviet Union. Velychkovsky had already shared Slipyj’s fate of prison and torture and would follow him into exile in 1972. Both Bishops Charnetsky and his sucessor Velychkovsky were beatified by the Servant of God John Paul II in 2001.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Latin Church structure in Lutsk was restored and began to flourish. Unfortunately, the local Greek-Catholic community was not able to organize itself at the same level. The establishment of the archiepiscopal exarchate is a highly historic move, as it is the first time since 1828 that the Apostolic See has been free to confirm a Greek-Catholic primate’s nomination of a bishop for Volyn. Being a missionary diocese, an exarchate is a first step to the long-awaited restoration of the ancient Ukrainian Catholic bishopric of Lutsk.

Holiness Amidst Politics

The Social Virtues of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky

Published in Progress Ukrainian Catholic News, no.3/2108, (11 February 2007), pages 10 and 12.

In our time, historians are generally in agreement as to the positive qualities of Metropolitan-Archbishop Andrei Sheptytsky. During his lifetime, his holiness and virtue were spoken of by lay and church leaders, and many considered him a hero and father of his nation. Nonetheless, his beatification process has been inordinately delayed, partially due to political considerations. I believe that Sheptytsky’s holiness is found, if not principally, then at least prominently in his political action.

Most of us have been brought up believing the axiom that religion and politics do not mix. This axiom was invented by non-believers who wanted to eliminate religion from the visible life of humanity, relegating it behind closed doors or, as is often said, to the sacristy. But religion is a human right and therefore has a right to be manifested and practiced in freedom, in the public domain. Some point to the fact that, in recent times, the Catholic Church tended to prohibit its clergy from becoming involved in politics. Neither is this true. The Church prohibited the clergy from partisan politics, in which religious and human interests are found on more than one side. Instead, the Church has always encouraged its leaders to become involved in protecting mankind, in speaking in defense of the oppressed and in defending human rights, especially when they are threatened. The Church uses political means for religious and humanitarian ends.

Admittedly, the case of Metropolitan Sheptytsky is a particular one, but then so was the situation in Eastern Europe at the time, especially the situation of the Ukrainian Nation. As in the case of other Eastern European nations, the clergy, the only educated class, became the leaders in the process of national awakening. In an age of socialism and atheism, Metropolitan Sheptytsky wanted the Church to have a voice in the national movement, in order to guide the nation according to Christian principles.

Metropolitan Andrei did not initiate a conflict, nor did he sustain it or foment it. The neighbouring Polish and Ukrainian Nations had been in conflict for several centuries. From 1772-1795, Poland was partitioned between Russia, Prussia and Austria. The Austrian sector (named Galicia) was made-up of approximately half Polish and half Ukrainian; the Poles mainly in the West and Ukrainians in the East. With the awakening of ethnic self-consciousness rise of nationalism, the nations within multi-national states, such as Austria and Russia, began to seek own political self-determination, autonomy and even independence. Such was the case in Galicia where Poles and Ukrainians vied for control of the region.

Both nations, in some way, had been deprived of their intellectual and national elites. Thus, the clergy, as the keepers of the national consciousness, were very involved in politics. This was more so true of the Metropolitan of Lviv, who was the highest moral and even political authority in Ukrainian Galicia. Today, we would say that the clergy were fulfilling their role as guarentors of human rights and promoters of freedom and justice for their oppressed peoples. Sometimes, however, their involvement in politics became extreme and discriminatory, especially when the success of the other nation was perceived as a threat to their own. With the Polish Church being Latin and the Ukrainian Byzantine, the conflict of nations spilled over into a conflict between Churches. Even though both Churches were Catholic, they looked upon each other as opponents.

After the disintegration of Austria-Hungary, in October-November 1918, Poles and Ukrainians attempted to establish their own governments in Galicia. Polish leaders wanted to re-unite all of Galicia with the other Polish lands to re-create their former state. Ukrainians wanted to unite only Eastern Galicia with Russian Ukraine and create a new state. A terrible war ensued in which Catholic clergy on both sides became involved. Both Polish and Ukrainian armies sought to punish the clergy for their national involvement. The principle religious leaders exchanged harsh words and even accusations that each side had not done enough to mitigate their nation’s forces, especially in the harm inflicted upon the Churches. In the end, the superior military forces of the Poles conquered. Eastern Galicia was placed, at first in trust, and then permanently under Poland in 1923. The antagonism between the nations continued inside the Polish State until the arrival of the horrors of the Second World War.

Chauvinism blinds reason and equity. In supporting his people’s cause, indirectly, Sheptytsky came into conflict with the Polish cause, but not because he opposed that cause, in principle. In accusing Sheptytsky of political intrigue, his opponents were projecting their own mind-set and methods upon him. The underlying error in their accusations was that they did not accept that the Ukrainian people (and Church) deserved equal rights. Sheptytsky fought for this and thus earned their anger. Without exception, his foes also opposed Ukraine. On the other hand, Sheptytsky did not oppose Poland but neither did he oppose Ukrainian goals. In point of fact, the Metropolitan’s opponents expected that he should have opposed his own nation for their sake.

Both the Supreme Council of League of Nations and the Holy See was extremely concerned that Poland’s excessive territorial ambitions would turn all of her neighbours against her, endangering her very existence. Along with international political and religious leaders, Sheptytsky opposed the excessive claims of Poland, because they came into conflict with the well being, not only of his own nation, but also that of the entire region and even of Poland itself. The future Pope Pius XI, Archbishop Achille Ratti, then Apostolic Nuncio to Poland, observed that national sensitivity caused the Poles to view any criticism as motivated by hatred or opposition to their nation. In fact, this criticism was for Poland’s benefit. To reassure but also to correct them, Pope Benedict XV wrote to the Polish bishops that “Our love and our towards your nation, beloved children and venerable brothers, has but a single limitation, that laid down by duty and by justice.”

While Sheptytsky’s enemies attacked him personally, the Servant of God refrained from personal criticisms. Sometimes he had to defend himself but his correspondence is remarkably free of any acrimony towards his opponents, which he never mentions by name Yet, the Metropolitan was not alone in speaking in his defense. Significant correspondence regarding Andrei Sheptytsky’s virtues may be found in the Vatican Archives, some of which I reproduce here, in translation:

On July 25, 1919, Ukrainian envoy, Prince Jan de Tokary Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz wrote to the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Church: “M[onsi]g[no]r. Sheptytsky is not only a Ukrainian national hero, he is the propagator of our faith, the most fervent promoter of the Church.”

Concerned for his well-being during the Polish occupation, on March 13, 1920, the same Oriental Congregation wrote, in its instructions to Father Genocchi, Apostolic Visitator to Ukraine: “ The Visitator will seek to inform the Holy See precisely as to the conditions in which that most worthy Prelate, whose attachment to the Holy See is beyond doubt, finds himself.”

Upon learning of the Appointment of an Apostolic Visitator, on March 15, 1920, Sheptytsky wrote to the head of Oriental Congregation: “Above all, I want to assure Your Eminence that we will not conceal anything from the Apostolic Visitator. Our defects, our faults, our sins, everything will be revealed to him. I also hope that he will find good qualities and virtues, which the evils of the war and the humiliations of these past years have perhaps increased. In any case, he will see that we all want to be good Catholics and devoted children of His Holiness.” These are not the words of a partisan politician or of one with hatred in his heart, but of a humble saint.

In 1907, Pope Pius X had given Sheptytsky secret extraordinary faculties for the Russian Empire. With them, Sheptytsky attempted to work towards church union in Russia. This too caused a conflict with the Polish missionaries, who wanted to convert the Orthodox (and even the Eastern Catholics) to the Latin Church. Their lobbying caused Pope Benedict XV to suspend these special faculties indefinitely. When this decision was communicated to the Metropolitan, he replied, on July 18, 1919: “In all matters, I freely submit to the decision of the Holy Apostolic See; in all things I gladly obey.” Later, the faculties were restored, after Sheptytsky had the opportunity to present his case to the Pope, in person, and furnish prove of the secret faculties which had been accorded by Benedict’s holy predecessor.

Reporting to Monsignor Benedetti of the Oriental Congregation, on November 27, 1921, Apostolic Visitator Giovanni Genocchi wrote the following description of the Metropolitan’s person: “In the intimacy of conversation, I could clearly see what a holy soul he is and that he had no other guiding motivation, except than the charity of J[esus] Christ. His judgments are very rare that proceed from excessive enthusiasm or optimism. He sees important questions well and clearly and submits like a child, not being attached to his own opinion. He is also extremely patient, like a martyr. One needs to keep him in long conversations and ask him about everything. There is much to learn from him.”

Metropolitan Sheptytsky was a holy man, precisely because he did not avoid politics. Like the Church itself, he made use of political means for religious ends and for the promotion of human rights and values, especially for the promotion of the Catholic Faith in Ukraine and Russia. A more compromising stance would have been much easier but not morally responsible, being himself the highest moral authority of his nation.
Andrei Sheptytsky died on November 1, 1944. The Cause for his beatification was introduced in 1958 but it soon encountered opposition. Since the fall of Communism and the independence of both Poland and Ukraine, old political and nationalist antagonisms have faded. In recent years, not only Ukrainians, but also Poles, historians and churchmen alike have expressed their appreciation of Sheptytsky’s profound wisdom and holiness. In 2001, in Lviv, the capital of old Galicia and the city most disputed between Poles and Ukrainians, the greatest Pole in history, the Servant of God John Paul II, expressed his desire to see Andrei Sheptytsky beatified. We pray that Divine Providence fulfills this wish through his worthy successor in the Papacy.