“ Rome holds the pre-eminent place and is the First See … and that is the view of all the Churches ”
THE P RTAL
June 2016 Page 21
Patrimony - Use - Rite - Church
“ Rome holds the pre-eminent place and is the First See … and that is the view of all the Churches ”
Fr Mark Woodruff continues his series
In our series on Church , rite and patrimony , last time we looked to the first millennium , when but One Church covered Europe . The Latin Church , with the Roman rite and others at different centres , extended across the middle and west .
In the east , missions spread northwards from Constantinople . Yet St Methodius , the Greek bishop who led the mission to Slavs in the ninth century , did not see his Church and the patrimony of its Byzantine rite as a rival to Rome ’ s : “ It is not true … that the Holy Fathers gave the primacy to Old Rome because it was the capital of the Empire … Because of the intensity of his faith , Peter the first of the apostles , was addressed in these words by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself : ‘ Peter , do you love Me ? Feed My sheep .’ That is why in hierarchical order , Rome holds the pre-eminent place and is the First See … and that is the view of all the Churches .” The evangelisation of the Slavs was approved both by Constantinople and the Popes , a joint mission of the two leading Churches East and West - Byzantine in rite and tradition , but integrating new peoples to one Catholic and Orthodox Church .
“ All the Churches ” does not mean separate denominations , but the central Sees in each region . What became , then , of that new centre beyond the Black Sea at Kiev for the Slavs of the Rus ’ in modern day Ukraine and Belarus , after Rome and Constantinople finally fell out by 1054 ?
The Rus ’ expanded further north and east . The famous new principalities were Novgorod in modernday Belarus , with its own Hagia Sophia , consecrated on the eve of the Great Schism when East and West were still one ; and Vladimir in modern-day Russia , founded 50 years later , providing a new centre for the consciously separate Orthodox Eastern Rus ’.
With the old Kievan heartland threatened by the Golden Horde , in the 14 th century Vladimir was superseded by a new stronghold : Moscow . Church leadership followed . Moscow ’ s independence as the head of an Orthodox Church in its own right , separate from Kyiv , was recognised and in 1589 , with Constantinople a century under Muslim Ottoman control , it gained equal patriarchal status , now imagining itself as the successive Third Rome .
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Meanwhile , their fellow Rus ’ to the west , sharing the same Constantinople patrimony , did not lose the sense of being Eastern members of the one Church , despite their two mother Churches being at odds . Trade , culture and learning involved continual religious exchange as before . Catholic Poland and Lithuania absorbed the north and western parts of the old Kievan state – modern-day Belarus and Ukraine . With Muscovy rising as a distinctive Orthodox political power in the east , and Constantinople unable to assert its ecclesiastical leadership under Ottoman control , the Orthodox bishops of the western part of the Church of Kiev , resolved to renew their foundational unity with Rome at the Union of Brest in 1595-6 . This is the Church known at first as Ruthenian ( from Rus ’) and now as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , the largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches with over five million members worldwide .
Under Peter the Great , Muscovy took exclusive use of the name Russia , and the new empire began to absorb surrounding lands , imposing Russian Orthodoxy and ending bonds of communion whether with Catholic Rome or Orthodox Constantinople . The Greek Catholic Church maintained its life and identity , centred on Lviv in Galicia , western Ukraine , under the Habsburgs . After World War II , the atheistic USSR annexed all Ukraine , arresting ten Catholic bishops and 800 priests , many of whom were tortured , or even martyred . The Church was liquidated but persevered underground .
The Ukrainian Eparchy of the Holy Family of London , a Catholic diocese with its Cathedral in Mayfair and dozens of parishes serving all Britain , arose from refugees fleeing first the Tsars and later the Soviets . After the USSR collapsed , the Greek Catholic Church re-emerged in Ukraine , and parish after parish , forced to conform outwardly to the Russian Church but inwardly “ Orthodox in communion with Rome ”, returned . Today in Ukraine it courageously promotes justice , truth and anti-corruption in commerce and
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