Steve,
My friend and brother, Al (a pilgrim), is absolutely correct when he states that there is not a “Ruthenian Rite”. The time has come (again) to explain the distinction between “Rite” and “Church”. Unfortunately, the two are sometimes used incorrectly by Eastern and Oriental Catholics, as well as by Latin Catholics.
For centuries, one who was a member of a particular religious group within Eastern or Oriental Catholicity was spoken of as being of the ____ Rite (e.g., Melkite, Ruthenian, Ukrainian) - with the concept being that each was a Rite within the Latin Church (e.g., the Ambrosian Rite). Several years ago, Rome finally recognized that what had been termed “Rites”, when applied to those of the East and Orient, were actually separate Churches, which together with the Latin Church, constitute the Catholic Church.
Thus, the Catholic Church is comprised of 23 self-governing Churches, also referred to as Churches sui iuris (“Churches of their own law”), also sometimes as Particular Churches or Autonomous Ritual Churches.
Correct usage of the term “Rite” is important, more so in the Eastern and Oriental Churches than in the Latin Church (although there are other Rites within the Latin Church, the Latin Rite vastly predominates in the West - the others are used only in very limited areas or under very particular circumstances).
Each Church sui iuris worships according to a particular Rite. A simple definition of a Rite is that it is the collected form of ritual, ceremony, and prayers according to which the members of a Church conduct their worship and other liturgical services; for the most part, Rites reflect the cultures in which they were developed.
Western Catholics use the Latin Rite (with a few exceptions, as I noted above). Eastern and Oriental Catholic Rites developed from the customs and style of worship practiced in what were the 3 most important centers of Christian development, other than Rome (i.e., Alexandria, Antioch, and Byzantium [later called Constantinople, and now Istanbul]). This happened at a time when achieving uniformity of liturgical practice was hampered by the limitations that resulted from geography and the difficulties of communication.
Initially, there were three Rites used by Eastern and Oriental Catholics: the Alexandrean, Antiochene, and Byzantine Rites. Eventually, as those Rites were carried back to other cities, modifications occurred. Three of the variations that arose developed in very isolated areas and, as a result, changed to such an extent that they came to be considered Rites unto themselves; those are the Armenian, Chaldean, and Maronite Rites.
In other instances, the changes which occurred in the Rites were less drastic and insufficient to merit being designated as a separate rite; such localized variations came to be termed “Traditions”. Thus, the Antiochene Rite is further divided into the East and West Syrian Traditions. The Alexandrean Rite is comprised of the Coptic and Ge’ez Traditions. The Byzantine Rite, largest of the six Eastern and Oriental Rites (in terms of the number of Churches that use it), has both Byzantine-Greek and Byzantine-Slav Traditions.
The Armenian and Maronite Rites are each utilized only by a single Church sui iuris, so, within those two, there is no further breakdown by tradition. Although, historically, the Chaldean Rite was utilized by the Syro-Malabarese Catholic Church sui iuris, as well as by the Chaldeans, the present usage of the Malabarese is more closely aligned to the Antiochene Rite, for a variety of reasons. Thus, the Chaldean Rite presently can be said to be without any breakdown by tradition.
The Byzantine-Greek and Byzantine-Slav Traditions are each used by several Churches, with further local variations due to the ethno-cultural differences among the faithful of those Churches. Such variations are termed Recensions - thus, for example, there are Ruthenian and Great Russian Recensions (among others) within the Byzantine-Slav Tradition and Greek and Greico-Arabic Recensions (among others) within the Byzantine-Greek Tradition.
There are also rescensions within the East and West Syrian Traditions.
(cont’ed)
JackQ:
hmmm) 
