DECEMBER 15. 1984
Ecumenical questions
By STANLEY OZIEWICZ
The recent flare-up of tension between the Ukrainian and Roman Catholic Churches over a letter from the Vatican curia has ecumenical ramifications far beyond the question of unity within the universal Catholic Church.
The Ukrainian Catholic Church is a Byzantine rite church, maintaining the liturgies and the traditional organizational patterns of Eastern orthodoxy while accepting papal authority.
Ever since the nearly four-centuries-old agreement establishing Ukrainian Catholics’ union with Rome there have been complaints from its members that the Vatican has tried to swamp its identity within the larger Roman Catholic Church.
The issues of patriarchy and of married clergy within the Ukrainian Catholic Church have over the centuries been symbols of that unease. They resurfaced in Canada with the recent revelation that the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Sacred Congregation for Eastern Churches had sent a letter of censure to Bishop Isydore Borecky, of the Ukrainian eparchy for Eastern Canada.
The letter says some illicitly ordained priests continue to celebrate mass “to the great scandal of the faithful” and orders Bishop Borecky to supply a list of these priests to the secretariat together with details of their irregularities. Although the letter mentions no names, this seems to be clear reference to three married men ordained in 1975 in Toronto who were later ordered suspended from sacramental duties.
The letter also orders Bishop Borecky to fall into Vatican line on the question of patriarchy. Many Ukrainian Catholics would like their own patriarchate, such as the Armenians and Melchites have, but they have been repeatedly rebuffed in attempts to call their major archbishop the Patriarch of their church.
Professor Thomas Bird teaches Slavic literature and political science at Queen’s College, City University of New York. Reached by telephone, Mr. Bird said the letter is blatant interference in an affair that, properly belongs to the discretion of the local bishop.
“This, said Mr. Bird, ” “has major ecumenical implications in terms of any groups which are in theological dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church.
“It raises the question of what it means to come into communion with the Roman Catholic Church. All kinds of promises were made in 1596 when the Ukrainian Church came into communion with the Roman Catholic Church. They had a bilateral agreement setting out the rights and traditions the Ukrainian Catholics were entitled. There has been a unilateral abrogation of this bilateral contract.
“If that is an operational model, not in some dim mists of the past but in 1984, then it would seem to me that it would have to give some serious pause to Anglicans, Lutherans and any other Christians who are in dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church.”
Rev. Myron Tataryn, a Ukrainian Catholic pastor in Southwestern Ontario and moving force behind the St. Sophia Religious Association, agrees:
“If Rome can’t accommodate our distinctions, our married clergy, our demands for a patriarch, our demands for a full synod of bishops, then how can they really accommodate the others?”
Ukrainian Catholic priests like Father Tataryn believe that certain factions in the Vatican curia are willing to accept the demise of the Ukrainian Catholic Church as the price for reconciliation with the Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church. In the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been submerged by me Moscow-controlled Russian Orthodox Church.
Ukrainian Catholics there have been forced to join the Orthodox church or go underground. As an underground church, it has served as a focus abroad and here in Canada of Ukrainian nationalism.
Perhaps, this is what the Vatican officials meant when they referred in their letter to Bishop Borecky of “psuedo-patriotism dangerous to ecclesiastical life.”
“I do feel, without a doubt,” said Father Tataryn by telephone from his St. Catharines, Ont., home, “there is a group within the Vatican curia at this point who, in a sense, perceive the issue as an issue of numbers. In other words, there are more Russian Orthodox in the world than Ukrainian Catholics.
“And so, if we have to do something to accommodate the Russian Orthodox Church and the Soviet Government in order, first of all, to make ecumenical gains, and, secondly, to gain an accommodation of the Roman Catholic Church in the Soviet Union, if that hurts the smaller number of Ukrainian Catholics, perhaps it is a loss they’re willing to pay.”
Mr. Bird puts it somewhat more bluntly:
‘‘We’re dealing with some curial congregation (other than the secretariat for eastern churches), which is very powerful, interfering for purposes of international politics and the internal relations with the oriental congregations …. And those people who have an eye on the international arena are those who are interested in dealing with the Kremlin.
“There has been a deliberate, clearly orchestrated and articulated policy of not offending Moscow, not offending the political leaders of the Soviet Union and not offending the church leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church or the Russian Patriarchy of Moscow in doing something that is contrary to the political policy of the Soviet Union, which is to elimate the Ukrainian Catholic Church on Ukrainian soil and in which campaign the Russian Orthodox Church has shamefully colluded and collaborated.”
The letter was especially offensive to many Ukrainian Catholics because it was dated merely 10 days after the death of Josyf Cardinal Slipyj, the revered Ukrainian church leader who spent years in Stalinist prisons camps but was dented the title of patriarch by the Vatican.
It is believed by some Ukrainian Catholics that giving patriarchal recognition to their episcopal leader would upset the Vatican’s relations with the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church, which claims the only legitimate patriarch.
Father Tataryn’s stripes on the question are for all to see. The St. Sophia Religious Association which he runs is a body of clergy and laity created to perpetuate the late Cardinal Slypyj’s memory and work.
For people like Father Tataryn, the Vatican’s reconciliation attempts with the Russian Orthodox Church are ironical.
“The Orthodox will never give up married clergy. They will never give up their autonomy. If we can’t have it, how can they be serious about this ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox?”
