GREEK
74S
GREEK
altered and rearranged for the necessities of their rite,
while one or two are churches brought over from the
schismatics. The first Greek Catholic Mass in New
York City was celebrated in the basement of St.
Brigid's church on Avenue A (which was put at the
disposal of the Greeks by the late Archbishop Corri-
gan), on 19 April, 1890, by the Rev. Alexander Dzu-
bay, who is still in active parish work in America.
This Greek congregation afterwards bought a church
in Brooklyn iSt. Elias, 1892), and there was no Ru-
thenian church in Manhattan until the Greek Catholic
church of St. George was opened in 190;>. In Febru-
ary, 1909, the Greek Bishop Soter bought a Protestant
Episcopal church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, re-
fitted it, and consecrated it as the Greek Cathedral of
St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, and in the ad-
joining parish house and rectory will also open a semi-
nary for the education of American priests of the
Greek Rite. Of course many Ruthenian settlements
in various localities are too poor to build and maintain
achurch, nor are there just at present sufficient priests
in America to attend to their spiritual needs. Still
there are at present (1909) about 140 Ruthenian
(ireek Catholic churches in the United States, and
there are also ten more new ones projected for waiting
congregations. Their churches are distributed as
follows: —
Pennsylvania
80
Indiana
3
New York
14
Missouri
3
Ohio
12
West Virginia
2
New Jersey
10
Minnesota
2
Connecticut
4
Rhode Island
1
Illinois
4
Virginia
1
Massachusetts
4
The Ruthenian Greek Catholic clergy in tlje United
S ites consists (1909), of one bishop and 118 priests,
or i nnatins from the following dioceses: —
1) ioce.se
Monks
Secular Clergy
Celiba
es
Married
\Vi
dowers
Lemberg
4
8
.5
5
I'l^niysl
6
12
2
Stauislau
2
2
1
Kperies
1
13
10
Munk:ics
2
1
.30
5
Krciilz
1
•Sfi anion
1
2
I'hihi.l.'lphia
4
Pittsh :rg
1
6
25
64
23
Several of these priests are converts from the Ortho-
dox ( Irock Church in the United States. As has been
said, men who are already married are ordained to the
iliaconate and priesthood in the Greek Church, and so
it naturally followed that married priests were .sent
to .\rnerica. While a married priesthood seems
repugnant to a Catholic of the Latin Rite, yet it
is strongly adhered to by the Greek Catholics as
vaguely a part of their nationality and Kastern Rite.
.•\li ,\n"ierican Cireek (Jatholic priests will hereafter be
ordained from celibate candidates only, according to
the provisi ) IS of the .Apo.stolic Letter "Ea semper",
which will be referred to later. The growing impor-
tance of the Greek Rite in America, the dissensions
arising out of old-country political factions among the
Hutheiiians, which will be mentioned later on, and
which occasioned serious interference with the normal
growth of the Greek Church, and the increasing in-
tensity of the elTorts of the Ru.ssian Orthodox to
detach the Ruthenians in America from their faith
and unity (.see CinEEK Orthodox Cihirch in Amer-
ica) cau.sed the Holy Father in 1907 to provide a
Greek Catholic bishop for America. Previous to this
(1902) the Holy See had sent the Right Rev. Andrew
Hodobay, titular abbot and canon of the Greek Dio-
cese of Eperies, as ."Vpostolic visitor to the Ruthenians
in .'Vmerica. who examined the conditions of the
Catholics of the Greek Rite in all parts of the United
States and returned to Europe in 190<; with his report.
The choice of a bishop for the Ruthenian Greek Cath-
olics fell upon the Right Rev. Stephen Soter Ortynski,
a Basilian monk, hegumenos of the monastery of St.
Paul, Michaelovka, Galicia. On 12 May, 1907, he
was consecrated titular Bishop of Daulia by the Mo.st
Rev. .4ndrew Roman Ivanovitch Scheptitzky, Greek
Metropolitan of Lemberg, and the other Greek bishops
of Galicia, and he arrived in America on 27 .-Vugust,
1907. Shortly after his arrival (September, 1907) the
Apostolic Letter "Ea semper", concerning the new
bishop for the Ruthenian Greek Catholics in the
LTnited States, his powers and duties, and the general
constitution of the Greek Rite in America was pul>
lished. It created considerable dissatisfaction among
the Greek clergy and laity inasmuch as it did not pro-
vide for any diocesan power or authority for the new
bishop, but placed him as an auxiliary to the Latin
bishops, and as it modified several of their immemorial
privileges in various ways. The S.acrament of Con-
firmation was thereafter to be withheld from infants
at baptism, and was not to be conferred by priests, but
was reserved for the bishop only (as in the Latin Rite
and among the Greeks in Italy), and married priests
were not thereafter to be ordained in America or to be
.sent thither from abroad, while the regulations as to
the marriage of persons of the two rites were also
modified. The Greek Ruthenian laity saw in it an
attack upon their Slavic nationality and Eastern Rite,
an idea which the Russian Orthodox Church eagerly
fostered and magnified. They were told by the Or-
thodox that the whole letter was a latinization of
their Greek Rite in regard to confirmation and Holy
orders, and was a nullification in America of the
Decrees of the popes that their rite shoulil be kept
intact. This resulted in some losses (about 10,000)
from the Ruthenians to the Russian Church, but
already many of them are coming back. Matters,
however, adjusted themselves, and the work of
the new bishop is having good results. The whole
matter of a Greek bishop in America is so far in an
experimental stage, and it rests upon the extent of
the current and future immigration, the stability
and solidarity of the Ruthenians in their adherence
to their faith antl rite, as to what powers and
authority their bi.shop .shall ultimately have. Where
there is an evident anil actual need for It the Holy See
has always granted the erection of Oriental dioceses,
but where a minority of a population seems boimd to
become assimilated with , and eventually absorbed into,
the surroimding population the case may be entirely
othervvi.se. The newly appointed bishop has had
success in establisliing churches and parochial .schools
aufl in inilucing his Kutlieniau Hock to become Ameri-
can citizens and identify themselves with American
life while not abandoning their faith and their Eiust-
ern Rite. He aims to establish English-Ruthenian
-schools in each Greek parish ami to open a Ruthenian-
American seminary at I'liiladelpliia for the education
of .\merican-born Ruthenians as priests of the Greek
Rite. There is already one American-Ruthenian
priest, lately ordained. In purely theological matters
they will be educated as in Latin seminaries, if not
actually sent there for lectures, but in the Oriental
church rites, discipline, liturgical language, nmsic, and
customs the proposed seminary will fill a place for the
Ruthenians which our present diocesan seminaries do
not fill. The number of church or parochial schools
of the Ruthenians is about fifty, where instruction
in English, Ruthenian, church catechism, and the ele-
ments of a general education is given. No organized
