GREEK
746
GREEK
and North-western Hungary, close neighbours to the
Ruthenians, who are Greek Catholics, and who speak
a language almost hke the Bohemian, yet similar to
the Ruthenian, It Ls written, however, with Roman
letters, and the pronunciation follows the Bohemian
more than the Ruthenian. These people seem to have
been originally Ruthenian, but became gradually
changed and moulded by the Bohemians and their
language and for a long time wrote their language in
the same manner as the Bohemian. The Bohemians,
however, are in the Austrian part of the empire, while
the Slovaks are in Hungary. They have emigrated
to the United States in large numbers, and are about
equally divided between the Greek and Roman Rites.
This again necessitates the publication of church
matters, prayer books, journals, etc., in the Slovak
language. It illustrates the difficulties of the Greek
Catholic priests in the I'nited States, since thej- are
likely to have in their parishes Ruthenians (of the old
and new orthographies), Slovaks, and even those who
speak only Hungarian, having lost their Slavic tongue.
It is no uncommon thing to find a Greek Catholic
priest capable of speaking five languages: Ruthenian,
Slovak, Hungarian, German, and English. It is these
people as a whole who are comprehended under the
term Ruthenian, although that term applies strictly
to those speaking Russian and using the Russian
alphabet. After the eleventh century the larger por-
tion of Russians fell away from the unity of the Church
in the schism of Constantinople, while a minority con-
tinued faithful to the Catholic Church, and later many
more returned to unity. The Holy See. therefore,
made use of the ancient word Ruthenian to designate
those Russians who followed the Greek Rite in unity
with the Holy See, in order to distinguish them from
the Northern Russians who atlhered to the schism.
Later on, those Russians who joined the imion under
the Polish kings received the same name, and the
word Ruthenian is to-day used exclusively to designate
the Russians of Austro-Hungary, who are Greek
Catholics, in contradistinction to the Russians of the
Russian Empire, who are of the Greek Orthodox faith.
The language of the Ma.ss and the other liturgical services according to the Byzantine Rite is the ancient Slavonic (staroslavianski), and the Greek Liturgj- was originally translated by Sts. Cyril and Methodius about the year 868, and it has remained substantialh' the same ever since. It is curious to notice that the Ruthenian language is much closer, both in spelling and pronunciadon, to the church Slavonic than the present Russian language of St. Petersburg and ilos- cow. The letters in which the church books are printed are the Cyrillic, or KiriUitsa, said to have been invented or, rather, adapted by St. Cyril from the Greek alphabet, together with some additional letters of his own invention. It consists of forty-three letters of archaic form as used in the church books, but has been altered and reduced in modern Russian and Ruthenian to thirty-five letters. In the year 879 Pope John VIII formally authorized the use of the Slavonic language forever in the Mass and in the whole liturg)' and offices of the Church, according to the Greek Rite, and its use has been continued ever since by the Catholic and the Orthodox (schismatic) Greeks of the Slavic races. This is the language used in the Sluzhebnik (MLssal), Trehnik (Ritual), Chasoslor (Book of Hours), and other church books of the Ruthenian Greek Catholics in America.
.•\fter the schism of Constantinople (1054) most of the Russians became estranged from the unity of the Church. (See under Greek Church, Vol. VI, pp. 700-02.) In 1595 the Russian bishops of Lithu- ania and Little Ru.ssia determined to return to unity with the Holy See, and held a council at Brest-Litovsk, at which a decree of union was adopted, and where they chose two of their num- ber, Ignatius Potzey and Cyril Terletzki, to go to
Rome and take the oath of submission to the pope.
They declared that they desired to return to the full
unity of the Church as it existed before the schism of
Photius and Caerularius, so as to have in Russia one
united Catholic Church again. No change in their
rites or their calendar was required by Rome, but the
whole of the ancient Greek Liturgy, service, and disci-
pline (excepting a few schismatic saints' daj-s and
practices) was to go on as before. In December, 1595,
Clement VIII solemnly ratified the union of the two
Churches in the Bull "Magnus Dominus". On 6
October, 1596, the union between the Eastern and
Western Churches was proclaimed and ratified in the
Russian part of the Kingdom of Poland. A large
number of the Russian bishops immediately went over
to the union. In Chelm the Russian Bishop Zbiruiski
led the way with his whole diocese, and his successor,
Methodius Terletzki, was a valiant champion of the
Uniat Chiu-ch. This Greek Uniat Church even pro-
duced a mart\T for the Faith, St. Josaphat, Arch-
bishop of Polotzk, who was slain by the Orthodox
partisans in 10.33. In Galicia, however, the union
was slower. While priests and congregations became
LTniat, the Bishops of Peremysl and Lemberg stood
out for nearly a century. But on 23 June, 1691,
Innocent Vinnitzki, Bishop of Peremysl, joined the
union, and in 1700 Joseph Shumlanski, Bishop of Lem-
berg (it was afterwards restored to metropolitan
dignit}- by the pope in 1807), ahso took the oath of
union with the Holy See. From that time till now
the Russians on the northern slopes of the Carpathian
Mountains and onboth sidesof the River Dniesterhave
been united with Rome. On the .southern side of the
Carpathians the Russians also accepted the union. In
the year 1636 Vassili Tarasovitch, Bishop of Mimkdcs,
acknowledged the pope as the head of the Church and
for it he was persecuted, imprisoned, and forced to
resign his see. But union with the Holy See could
not be stayed by such means, and on 24 April, 1646, it
was accomplished in the city of Ungvar by Peter Ros-
toshinski, the then Bishop of MunkScs, and George
Yakusitch, Bishop of Agri (Erlau). These two bishops
in solemn council, with sixtv-three priests, abjured the
schism and confessed themselves Greek clergj' holding
the Faith of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in communion
with Rome. Since that time the Ruthenian people
(including the Greek Slovaks) in the Kingdom of
Hungary have acknowledged the pope as the visible
head of the imdivided Catholic Church.
These Ruthenians have continued to practise their ancient Greek-Slavonic rites and usages, and their forms of worship introduced into the I'nited States seem strange to the Catholic accustomed only to the Roman Rite, and have made them objects of distrust and even active dislike, so that a few of the most salient differences may be pointed out, although a full statement will be found in the various articles on the Eastern rites, ceremonies, and vestments. The Mass itself is said in ancient Slavonic, the altar is separated from the body of the church by a high partition called the iconostasis, upon which the pictures of Christ and His Mother, as well as various saints, are placed, and the vestments of the Mass are quite different. The stole is a broad band looped around the neck and hanging straight down in front, the chasuble is cut away at the front and closely resembles the Roman cope, and instead of the maniple two broad cuffs are worn, while a broad belt takes the place of the girdle or cincture. Married men may be ordained to the diaconate and priesthood; but bishops must be celibate, nor can a deacon or priest marry after or- dination. Priests impart the Sacrament of Confirma- tion to children immediately after baptism, and Com- munion is given to the laity under both forms, the consecrated species being mingled together in the chalice and administered to the comnumicant with a spoon. Organs are not used in their churches, and
