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Catholic World News News Feature

POPE LEADS CELEBRATION OF UZHOROD ANNIVERSARY October 28, 1996

VATICAN (CWN) -- On Sunday, Pope John Paul II delivered the homily at a celebration of the Divine Liturgy according to the Ruthenian rite, in St. Peter's Basilica. The celebration marked the 350th anniversary of the Union of Uzhorod, in which 63 priests gathered at a chateau in the city of Uzhorod, to take an oath of faith and allegiance to the See of Rome. That event, Pope John Paul remarked, "restored the full communion between the Byzantine-rite Ruthenian Church and the Apostolic See in Rome."

The Union of Uzhorod, the Pontiff continued, was prompted by an appeal for full communion among all the Christian churches, issued by the Council of Florence in 1439 in an effort to overcome the schism that had led to the break between Rome and the Orthodox churches. It was preceded by the Union of Brest in 1595, which restored communion between Rome and the Ukrainian Christian community centered in Kiev, constituting the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the largest of the Eastern-rite churches in union with Rome.

Uzhorod today can be found in Ukrained, but at the time of the Union it was within the territory of the kingdom of Hungary. And it was the persistent demand of the Empress Marie Therese which resulted, finally, in the formal recognition of the Union by Pope Clement XIV in 1771. Until receiving that recognition, the Ruthenian Catholics preserved their own liturgical rites, but were governed by bishops of the Latin rite.

Over the centuries, the Ruthenian people have fallen under the political power of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union, and their Catholic tradition has been repeatedly confronted with government repression. The most brutal persecution came under the Soviet Union, when the Ruthenian Catholic Church was forced underground. The hierarchy of the Ruthenian rite disappeared until 1991, when Pope John Paul restored it by naming Ivan Samedi as Bishop of Mukacevo. Over the generations, many-- if not most-- Ruthenian Catholics have emigrated to North America, and joined other Catholic or Orthodox communities. In his Sunday homily, Pope John Paul tacitly recognized that massive emigration by delivering most of his homily in English.

The Holy Father also explicitly acknowledged the "trials and tribulations" that have marked the history of the Ruthenian Church. He said that such suffering has prepared the Ruthenian Church to serve the universal communion of the faithful by praying for Christian unity, and recognizing that "your spiritual identity is intimately connected with the search for union among all Christians."