About our Parish

History of the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Church

I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

Jesus Christ founded His Church.

Jesus Christ gives four marks, or characteristics, to His Church through the Holy Spirit. The four marks are: the Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

Through the transmission of the faith by the twelve apostles the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church is a communion of twenty-three Catholic churches. This is a short history of one of the churches of the Catholic Church, specifically, the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Church.

FROM JERUSALEM TO BYZANTIUM

Jesus Christ, our Lord, was crucified and died to save the us, the members of the human race, from our sins and from eternal death that comes from sin. He resurrected from the dead to give us new life in the Holy Trinity. Jesus established His Church as His Body where humans can access His salvation. Before He ascended into heaven, He gave the apostles this Great Commission:

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of time.

Matthew 28:19-20

The apostles traveled to near and distance places to preach the Gospel, the Good News of God’s salvation.

Saint Peter the Apostle, head of the college of apostles, journeyed to Antioch, where the disciples were called “Christians” for the first time (Acts of the Apostles 11:26) and then to Rome where in A.D. 64 he was crucified upside down.

His brother, Saint Andrew the First-called, journeyed to Byzantium, a free-city of the Roman Empire, that was a port, a fishery, and an economic and transportation center located at the meeting of the continents of Europe and Asia.

There he established a church in the years A. D. 36 to 38 and appointed Saint Stachys as the first bishop of Byzantium.

In the year A.D. 62 Saint Andrew was crucified at Patras, Greece, on an X shaped cross.

FROM BYZANTIUM TO CENTRAL EUROPE

The Roman Emperor Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium which he renamed Constantinople, New Rome in 330.

In 381 the Second Ecumenical Council decreed that the bishop of Constantinople had the priority of honor after Rome.

The Fourth Ecumenical Council held at Chalcedon in 451 used the division line of the Roman Empire into east and west to divide the responsibility of evangelizing Europe between the Pope of Rome in the west and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in the east.

In 861 Rastislav, Prince of Great Moravia, sent emissaries to Rome to ask Pope Nicholas I for a bishop and teacher who could teach in the Slavic language, and for the Code of Roman Law. The pope was unable to send anyone.

In turn, Rastislav sent representatives in 862 to Constantinople to the Byzantine Emperor Michael III to ask for a man who could teach them the Faith in their own language.

Emperor Michael consulted with Patriarch Saint Photios and sent Constantine the Philosopher, known today as Saint Cyril, and Constantine’s brother, St. Methodius on the Great Mission.

Saint Cyril invented an alphabet for the Slavic tongue and began translating the Bible with the first verse of the Gospel according to Saint John, “In the beginning was the Word…” In this way, the practice of translating the Bible in a language other than Hebrew, Greek or Latin, and the concept of worship in the vernacular was begun. During their journey to Great Moravia in 862-863, the brothers preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the local inhabitants. Oral tradition accepted this as the traditionally held beginning of the Byzantine Catholic Church in Central Europe.

Saints Cyril and Methodius were summoned to Rome by the pope who wished to question the introduction and use of the vernacular Old Slavonic in worship within his patriarchal territory. Pope Adrian received them and listened to their presentation, approved the books, had the Slavonic Gospel enthroned on the altar of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, and directed Saint Cyril to offer the Divine Liturgy in Slavonic. Although St. Cyril died in Rome, the pope appointed St. Methodius as papal legate, and he returned to labor in the vineyard, establishing new dioceses but he endured imprisonment and persecution.

THE EPARCHY OF MUKACHEVO

Early written documents are not available to document the development of the church in the Carpathians as a result of the instability of the region due to the Mongol incursions and then later the capture of Constantinople and campaign north to invade Europe by the Ottoman Turks.

The earliest church document is from 1391 from the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople granting stauropegial right (independence from the local bishop, indicating a bishop in the area) to Saint Michael Monastery in Hruševo.

The earliest document that refers directly to the Eparchy of Mukachevo, the mother church, is a document of the Hungarian crown from 1493 referring to “John, the Ruthenian bishop following the Greek rite, dwelling in the monastery of Saint Nicholas founded over our town of Munkach”. Later, in 1606 “Sergius was bishop of all Ruthenians in this our kingdom of Hungary…” This Bishop Sergius, wishing to explain who composed the Ruthenian flock, wrote in Hungarian that they were “Oroszok, Oláh, Tott, és Raczok” (that is, Rusins, Valachians or Romanians, Slovaks, and Rascians or Serbs).

THE UNION OF UŽHOROD

While the Eparchy of Mukachevo never formally separated from the Church of Rome, the Church of its origin, Constantinople, had done so in 1054 but this separation really solidified only in 1204 after the sack of Constantinople by the Crusader army. After the Union of Brest-Litovsk that reunited the Church of Kiev to the Church of Rome in 1596, the ideals of union to obey the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper, “that all may be one that the world may believe”, that guided Ss. Cyril and Methodius, inspired some in the Eparchy of Mukachevo.

Instructed by Bishop Basil Tarasovich, who endured imprisonment for his desire for union, and his chosen successor Bishop Peter Parthenius Petrovich, the union of 63 priests of the Eparchy of Mukachevo and the Church of Rome was proclaimed by the Union of Užhorod on April 24, 1646 and was ratified in the eastern territory of the eparchy in 1664. In 1713 the union was ratified for the portions of the eparchy in present day Romania and Hungary. By the beginning of the 18th century the declaration of union of the Church was total and complete and was the most successful act of union of the Catholic Church.

Due to the lack of written documents to detail the official establishment of the Eparchy, the hierarchy of the Latin Catholic Church in Hungary questioned whether the Eparchy was canonically established. After a century of dispute, Empress Maria Theresa, seeing that the issue was at an impasse, created a situation where Pope Clement XIV canonically established the Eparchy of Mukachevo in 1771. The Empress named these members of Christ’s faithful in her empire Greek Catholics. Her government accepted the responsibility for the maintenance of the churches of the eparchy. Through the years many of the parishes’ wooden churches were replaced with masonry churches.

THE DIVISION OF THE EPARCHY

The vast territory of the Eparchy of Mukachevo was divided several times to address the pastoral care of Christ’s faithful. The first large-scale emigration of the faithful was to what is present-day Croatia, and the Holy See of Rome established the Eparchy of Krizevci in 1777 for their care. Then, the western vicariate of the Eparchy of Mukachevo was divided from the eparchy in 1818 by the Holy See to form the Eparchy of Prešov. In 1823 and 1853 72 and 94 parishes respectively were given to Romanian eparchies.

With these ecclesial conditions in place, the second great emigration, the emigration to the United States began.

GREEK CATHOLICS IN AMERICA

By 1865 the United States had suffered tremendous casualties at the end of the American Civil War at the time when it began to develop as an industrial nation. As a result, laborers were recruited from various nations of Europe including the Austro- Hungarian Empire. Serfdom was abolished in the revolutionary year of 1848 in the Dual Monarchy but after the liberation the populace labored for the same landlords as poorly paid laborers. Greek Catholics began to depart for America in the 1880’s for the coal mines and steel mills of the industrial northeast and for work in the urban regions.

The Greek Catholic faithful wanted to have their churches in this new land of opportunity and worked diligently to make that possible. Father John Volansky, a priest from Galicia, had established Saint Michael Church in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania in 1884 for the faithful of Galicia. From there he established the first Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church in the United States, Saint Mary Church, Freeland, Pennsylvania, in 1886. In succession other parishes followed in Hazelton, Kingston, Wilkes-Barre, and Olyphant, Pennsylvania and in Jersey City, Passaic, and Trenton, New Jersey, and in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Whiting, Indiana. By 1894 there were 100,000 Greek Catholics in the United States.

Unfortunately, they were not well received by most of their Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. The Latin Catholic hierarchs lacked knowledge about the eastern Catholic Churches. In addition, there was still a strong sense of anti-Catholic feeling in the United States and the bishops thought a united front of standardized ritual was required. The Greek Catholics had arrived at the time of the Americanization movement and they were seen as threat to the creation of what some hoped to be the American Catholic Church. Finally, their priests were married and this was to become the main issue of disputation.

After the Holy See attempted a compromise between the Latin Catholic bishops and the Greek Catholics by enforcing celibacy, tens of thousands of faithful as well as priests left the Catholic Church and joined the Russian Orthodox Metropolia, following the example and invitation of Father Alexis Toth after his famous meeting with Archbishop John Ireland who refused to grant the widower priest faculties to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and hear confessions.

The Holy See attempted to stop the loss of faithful by finally allowing a bishop for Galician and Sub-Carpathian Greek Catholics in 1907 but although Bishop Sotor Stephen Ortinsky from Galicia at first was not granted any ordinary jurisdiction he labored to bring order until his untimely death in 1916.

After World War I, the Holy See divided the pastoral care of Greek Catholics and in 1924 appointed Bishop Constantine Bohachevsky to the Exarchate of Philadelphia for the care of those from Galicia and Bishop Basil Takach to New York for those who now numbered 300,000 from the Eparchies of Mukachevo and Prešov. Bishop Takach moved his Episcopal see to Homestead, Pennsylvania and the Holy See recognized the mission eparchy as the Exarchate of Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, the Vatican decree Cum data fuerit issued in 1929 renewed the issue of celibacy and more faithful and priests departed. The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople established the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of Johnstown for these people.

Despite the difficulties the faithful of the Exarchate experienced, new parishes were established and in time, in 1950, a seminary was built in Pittsburgh, Ss. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary. This was the occasion of a change of name from Greek Catholic to Byzantine Catholic Church. From the Exarchate of Pittsburgh, the Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh, sui iuris, with Eparchies of Passaic, NJ, Parma, OH and Phoenix, AZ, was established.

In Europe, the Eparchies of Mukachevo and Prešov underwent their own Calvary as the atheistic communist governments of the Soviet Union and Czechoslavakia outlawed the eparchies and killed and imprisoned the bishops and some priests. At present, those nations and their governments have ceased while the eparchies have renewed their spiritual lives, while the Eparchy of Prešov was created an archeparchy and new eparchies have been established.

Saint Pope John Paul II beatified Blessed Bishop Theodore Romzha, Blessed Bishop Paul Gojdich, and Blessed Bishop Basil Hopko. The process for beatification has begun for the Servants of God Peter Oros and Alexander Chira.

Although the narrative of the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Church in the United States evidences tragic elements, here as well a constant joyful and triumphal element is the strong enduring desire of the Faithful and their priests from one hundred twenty-five years ago to the present to have their own parish homes to meet God and worship Him and have Him speak to them and act in the sacraments according to the Byzantine synthesis. This heritage, the Byzantine patristic synthesis, is the glory of the universal Catholic Church and the eparchies have a duty to know and share this with the other members of the Catholic Churches and with others who would like to know God.

As a sign of the outpouring of God’s grace, an American Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic woman, Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, was beatified by Pope Francis in 2014 and is the first American Byzantine Catholic saint. Teresa Demjanovich was born in Bayonne, New Jersey in 1907 and baptized at Saint John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Church in that city. After her graduation summa cum laude from the College of Saint Elizabeth she entered the religious order of the sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth and was given the name Miriam Teresa. She is regarded as an example of sanctity in a modern twentieth century woman, and, as a Byzantine Catholic who entered a Roman Catholic order of sisters, a spiritual heir of the brothers Ss. Cyril and Methodius. Among her books, Greater Perfection and The Seventieth Week are published.

There are new challenges in the new millennium but the promise made to the apostles at the mountain in Galilee two thousand years ago by the risen Lord remains with us: “I am with you always, until the end of the world.”