THE
P RTAL
September 2016
Page 6
East and West
Fr Mark Woodruff observes happiness and sadness in
relations between Eastern and Western Catholics
C
hristianity’s history in Eastern Europe is no simple story of Latin
West and Orthodox East. The Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople split in
1054, but the Eastern Churches of Antioch, Bulgaria, southern Italy and Ukraine all have memories of dual
communion to some degree with both for centuries. Roman Catholics and Orthodox lived side by side under
the same rulers, and their original unity became permanently re-established from the sixteenth century.
Perhaps their experience of “both-and” - and not “either-or”, “Latin versus Byzantine” - is instructive for the
Ordinariates, realising both full Catholic communion and their distinctive religious tradition.
There are painful lessons too. In the 17th and 18th
centuries, Greek Catholics were pressured to make their
Churches appear “more Catholic”, i.e.more Roman.
Thus appeared features alien to Byzantine tradition confessionals, Stations of the Cross, ablutions within
the Liturgy, sanctuary bells, discouragement of married
clergy, and even compulsion under civil authorities to
convert to Roman Catholicism entirely. Nevertheless,
the Papacy drove restoration of the Eastern Churches’
rites and self-governance – notably Pope Leo XIII in
Orientalium dignitas (1894), and after Vatican II.
Being a Greek-Catholic - neither Roman-Catholic
nor Greek-Orthodox - was a precious badge of identity.
As the new Russian empire expanded from 1721,
it forced Russian Orthodoxy on Greek-Catholics.
Some migrated west, but Latin Catholic rulers were
oppressing Greek-Catholics too. In the nineteenth
century, emigration to north America offered new
opportunities, and freedom from European emperors
imposing someone else’s language and religion. Among
them were the Rusyns we met last month, Ruthenians
from north and south of the Carpathian mountains
in southern Poland, south-western Ukraine, Slovakia,
Hungary, Croatia and Serbia.
diaspora as other Catholic Churches – to claim your
mission prevails because you “got there first” belongs
to the mindset of colonialism.
Refused the ministry of priests of their own rite and
Church by their fellow Catholics, and lacking recourse
to their bishops back home, members of a Church
which 250 years earlier conscientiously chose to recover
unity with Rome, with guaranteed respect for its liturgy
and self-government, were effectively forced out of
communion. Father Alexis found a home for his flock
with the American mission of the Russian Orthodox
Church. It numbered 20,000 by the time of his death in
1909, growing to 100,000 by 1917 and today forming part
of the million-strong Orthodox Church in America, but
the story of a failure in Catholic communion is reflected
in the other name by which its members identify it: The
Russian Orthodox Greek-Catholic Church.
Rome realised the damage too late and appointed a
bishop for Byzantine Catholics from 1907. Nevertheless,
in 1929, the married clergy ban was confirmed with
the decree Cum data fuerit, leading to more transfers
to Orthodoxy. Those who endured injustice in order to
remain Eastern Catholics in the USA are the forebears
of today’s Ukrainian Greek-Catholic eparchies and of
Sadly, the reception from the Catholic hierarchy the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church, the only
in their new home was not as expected. In 1891, Eastern Catholic Church whose primate is based in
Archbishop John Ireland of St Paul, Minnesota, the west. Their jurisdictions and mission are parallel
rejected credentials for Father Alexis Toth, sent to serve with those of the Roman Catholic dioceses.
Ruthenian Catholics emigrating to the new world. He
In 1999, Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore apologised on
forbade him to minister even to his own faithful, on
the ground that only celibate clergy were allowed in behalf of the Roman Catholic hierarchy for the hurt
the United States - despite both being a widower, and inflicted on the Ruthenian Church, and the worsening
being under the authority not of Ireland but his own of disunity for Catholics and Orthodox alike. In 2013,
Pope Francis confirmed that Cum data fuerit was a dead
bishop in Hungary.
letter, restoring the respect due to a fellow Catholic
Archbishop Ireland led the other bishops in securing Church, its tradition and mission. The recognition
from Rome a definitive prohibition on married clergy shown to the Anglican tradition, with Ordinariates to
in America in 1897. It never occurred to them that, embody it in the Catholic Church, is truly the fruit of
outside Europe, Roman Catholicism is just as much in sacrifices that others have offered before.