written June 1988,
Published for the Millenium Celebration, June 1988 Toronto Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy

    The celebration of the Millennium of the Christian faith in Ukraine has fascinated the attention of the entire world; politicians, statesmen, the public media, people of the arts, people of every walk of life, who have heard of Ukraine or of the Soviet Union are talking about it. But most importantly it has kindled new hope in the peoples of Rus-Ukraine in the promise of a new tomorrow; and for Ukrainians throughout the world, whatever be their religious affiliation. It is a year to celebrate not only a thousand years of culture, but first and foremost, one thousand years of their living Gospel faith, that became the substratum of all their cultural and social achievements, a faith that sustained them through centuries of turmoil, and now continues to sustain them through seven decades of ruthless persecutions by a godless regime. For Ukrainian Catholics, it is the celebration of their life in the full communion of faith and of sacramental life with the Universal Church, with the Rock of Peter, with the Bishop of Rome.

    The history of the Ukrainian Catholic Church is intimately connected to the social and political history and destiny of the Ukrainian people. Its origins must be traced back to the dim beginnings of Christianity in the Ukraine. Legendary tradition has it that the first-called of the apostles, Andrew, was the first to erect the cross of Christ on the hills of Kiev. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that Christian communities flourished around the shore of the Black Sea in the first centuries of the Christian era. The veneration of Pope Saint Clendent I, martyred at the end of the first century, was well established in this area.

    But it is not until the eighth century that we have more accurate evidence of the penetration of Christianity in these lands. When Olga, widow of Prince Ihor Rurik, and regent for her son accepted baptism in 955, Christians must have formed an established community in the capital of the Rus empire. The apostles of the Slavs, Saints Cyril and Methodius, whom Pope John Paul proclaimed Patrons of Europe together with Saint Benedict, had made the spiritual and cultural heritage of Byzantium accessible to the Slavs through their missionary activities and the translation of the Sacred Scriptures, the liturgical texts, the writings of the Fathers of the Church and the canonical texts into Old Slavonic, making it into an effective instrument for bringing the divine truths to those who spoke it. (Message of John Paul 11 to Ukrainian people on occasion of their millennium.)

    The 'baptism of Ukraine' under Saint Wolodymyr in 988 was the sanctioning and the culmination of a progressive evangelisation that had thoroughly penetrated to the roots of Rus-Ukrainian culture. Pope John Paul again alludes to this process of 'inculturation' of the faith, which was to mark our history very deeply. All cultures of the Slav nations owe their beginning to the work of the Brothers from Thessalonika, which conferred a capacity and cultural dignity upon the Slavonic liturgical language, which became for hundreds of years not only the ecclesiastical, but also the official and literary language ... in particular of the Slavs of the Eastern rite.'

    With his conversion and baptism the Grand Prince Wolodymyr gave official impetus to this movement establishing hundreds of churches, monasteries and religious institutions. Before his death in 1015, Kiev was in its glory as the city of churches. Religious life continued to develop and flourish in the Kievan capital, and to expand its missionary influence throughout the entire realm of the Grand Principate of Kiev - to the north into the duchies of Novhorod, Suzdal and Moscow; eastward, to Halych, Lviw. The Carpathians had been evangelised a century earlier, and an episcopate had been established in Peremyshl in 896 by the disciples of St. Methodius.

    With the reception of Christianity, Wolodymyr provided an established hierarchy for this new Church, united under the jurisdiction of the archbishop metropolitan of Kiev. Jaroslav the Wise, son and successor of Wolodymyr, provided for the election of the first indigenous archbishop metropolitan, Hilarion, in 1050, establishing by this act the autonomy of the Ruthenian-Ukrainian Church in the Kievan metropolitan see, from the political and ecclesiastical influence of Byzantium.

    Byzantium at this time had not yet ruptured ties with the Apostolic See of Rome. Kiev had received the Christian faith as a member of the Catholic Church. And even following the unfortunate schism of 1054, the grand princes and metropolitan archbishops of Kiev continued in communion with Rome for almost a century. The devotion of Yaropolk to the See of Peter, and the introduction in 1087, of the Feast of the Translation of the Relics of Saint Nicholas to Bari (May 9) - the feast is found only in the Slav liturizv; (the Greeks never accepted this celebration) are incontrovertible evidence of continuing ties between Kiev and Rome in this period. The Tartar incursions, and civil strife among the contending princes of Rus, cast a shadow upon the ensuing centuries, above all upon the religious picture of the Ukraine. These events obliged Metropolitan Maxim to flee to Wolodymyr on the Klazma in 1299. His successors eventually established their permanent residence in Novgorod, and later in Moscow, retaining their original title of office of Archbishop Metropolitans of Kiev and all Rus. This was to prove a sorry decision for subsequent Ukrainian ecclesiastical and political history.

    It is in this period that the metropolitan see of Halych was established (1141-1371). This see would be restored centuries later for the Ukrainian Catholics of Western Ukraine.

    A first glimmering of understanding appears in the middle of the fifteenth century with the aborted union of the Council of Florence in 1439, and the proclamation of this union in the Metropolitan See of Kiev and all Rus by Metropolitan, later Cardinal, Isidore. Subsequent political intrigue induced Pope Pius 11 to divide the ancient Kievan metropolitan see in 1458 into the two metropolitan sees of Kiev and of Moscow, confirming Gregory II, a Bulgarian, as Archbishop Metropolitan of Kiev.

    It was not until the Union of Brest in 1596 that Metropolitan Rahoza of Kiev and his suffragan bishops, assembled in Synod, could clearly express the muted desire of the Ukrainian people to cement their communion with the See of Peter. Unfortunately inner dissension, the political scheming of Moscow and Warsaw did not forbode lasting success to the heroic efforts of these saintly bishops. For the dissenting opposition had convened an anti-synod. Patriarch Teofan was visiting Ukraine at this time, and requested by the opponents of Brest, consecrated Job Boretsky as Orthodox metropolitan of Kiev in 1620; and established an Orthodox hierarchy in those sees that had signed the act of Union. He had no jurisdiction to do this, for he was patriarch of Jerusalem, and not Constantinople.

    In this act "we may discern the fundamental motivation for the Union of Brest, as it was expressed in the ecclesial awareness of the time. Its supporters sometimes bore witness to their deep and unshakeable conviction to the point of shedding their blood, as Saint Josaphat did. The Union was meant to build up a Church which in both the East and West would enjoy that full and visible unity which has its root in one faith and one baptism". (John Paul 11, ibid.) This was the vision of Saints Wolodymyr and Olga. This was the vision of the fathers of the Synod of Brest.

    The idea of unity did not die even within the reconstituted Orthodox Church - viz. the efforts of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla. In 1685, the dissident Bishop of Lutsk, Gedeon Chetvertynsky, submitted himself to the patriarchate of Moscow, and was designated metropolitan of Kiev. Kiev was once more a prisoner of Moscow. The Catholic Metropolitan See in the Russian empire was ultimately suppressed in 1805 with the death of the last Kievan metropolitan, Teodosij Rostocky. Notwithstanding the few feeble attempts of the remaining bishops of the Ukrainian Catholic Church under Tsarist domination to maintain themselves in existence, and the good will of Tsar Paul 1 (1796-1801), his successor Nicholas I by a succession of Ilukazes" finally consummated the insistent efforts of his predecessors in 1838 with the final betrayal of three apostate bishops. The idea of Catholic union was finally destroyed in Eastern Ukraine for the ensuing decades.

    But Divine Providence had already provided for the continuation of the idea of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Although the bishops of Lviw and Peremyshl had refused to accept the Union of 1596, Innocent Wynnytskij, Bishop of Peremyshl declared himself a Catholic in 1692; and Joseph Shumlanskyj, Bishop of Lviw, in 1700. Bishop Dionysyj Zhabrotskyj of Lutsk adhered to the Union in 1702.

    With the suppression of the Catholic metropolitan see of Kiev in 1805, Pope Pius VII reestablished the Metropolitan see of Halych in 1807 in the Austrian domains, conferring upon its titular all the rights, dignity and prerogatives of the metropolitans of Kiev, recognising the metropolitan of Lviw-Halych as head not only of the ecclesiastical province of Halych, but of the entire Ukrainian Catholic Church. This quasipatriarchal jurisdiction was confirmed in the recognition by the Holy See of Metropolitan Josyf Slipyj as Major Archbishop in 1963.

    It was this ecclesiastical province of western Ukraine and the dioceses of Mukachev, Uzhorod and Priasiv that provided the bulk of emigrants to Canada in the years 1890-1914; 1920-1939 and finally after the last world war. These emigrant groups early built their first churches. The Holy See appointed the first Ukrainian bishop, Niceta Budka to answer to the spiritual needs of this flock. This new ecclesiastical formation was ultimately crowned with the creation of a distinct ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan see of Winnipeg, with its suffragans, Edmonton and Toronto, in 1956. Over the subsequent years this vast Canadian territory was further divided to create the eparchies of Saskatoon and New Westminster.

    With Vatican Council 11, the Catholic Church entered into a new period of organization and self-assessment, with a better understanding of the human factor in the Church; the development, growth and defense of the distinct communities that follow the contours of the human community, with their distinct disciplines, customs and distinctive spirituality, within the embrace of the unity of the Universal Church. This development began with the historic formation of the different rites in the Church around the ancient patriarchal sees; and has finally found expression in the recognition of the pluralistic structure of the entire Catholic Church as a vital and dynamic element of growth and self-expression.

    It is in this perspective that we must view the efforts of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, a particular Church within the unity of the universal Catholic Church, for its ultimate self-formation in a distinct patriarchate. The Church acknowledges and defends the existence of its varied traditions and pluralistic structure from antiquity. This became the legacy of Cardinal Josyf Slipy to his Church and people. This continues to be a main goal of our hierarchy in the free world under the leadership of our present Major Archbishop, Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky.

    Pope John Paul 11, addressing Cardinal Lubachivsky and the bishops, clergy and faithful of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the aforementioned Message, concludes, "The Apostolic See feels a singular affection for your Church, for throughout history she has given so many proofs of her attachment to Rome ... For this reason the principal celebration of the Millennium of your Church in the diaspora will'take place in Rome. Gathered at the tomb of Saint Peter, near which there rest the remains of your own dear Saint Josaphat, we shall give thanks together for all the fruits that came from participation in the divine mysteries in the communion of the same faith and in the bond of the same love."

    And today the faithful of the Eparchy of Toronto, with their pastor, Bishop Isidore Borecky, commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the erection of their eparchy, celebrate the millennium of faith of their people, entrusting to the Triune God the thousandth anniversary that belongs to our Church and our people. And with the Vicar of Christ, with our bishops, and especially the martyrs and living confessors of the faith, we "stand before the indestructible wall, at the feet of the Praying Virgin, the Mother of Christian Unity, the Mother of Consolation, that she draw to her breast the people who suffer at the memory of what we have lost, but who do not cease to hope for the coming of better times."

(Rev. Roman Danylak)
 June 1988