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ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XII
ON THE THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE REUNION
OF THE RUTHENIAN CHURCH WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE
ON THE THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE REUNION
OF THE RUTHENIAN CHURCH WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE
- We think it will be useful if in this letter we give a brief historical summary of the events with which we are concerned. It must be observed in the first place that even before the union of the Ruthenians with the Apostolic See was happily concluded at Rome and confirmed at Brest in 1595 and 1596, these people had more than once looked to the Roman Church as the one mother of the whole Christian community and dutifully paid it due obedience and reverence. Thus, for instance, the noble prince who is reverenced by the numberless peoples of the Russian empire as the author and promoter of their conversion to the Christian faith, St. Vladimir, borrowed liturgical rites and sacred ceremonies from the Eastern Church; but he not only dutifully persevered in the unity of the Catholic Church, but also took pains to establish friendly relations between his nation and the Apostolic See. Not a few of his descendants also received the legates of the Roman pontiffs with due honor and were fraternally united with other Catholic communities, even after the Church of Constantinople was separated by the lamentable schism.
- It follows that the action of the metropolitan Isidore of Kiev and the Russians was in harmony with the most ancient tradition of the Ruthenian Church when, in 1439, at the ecumenical council of Florence he signed the decree which solemnly united the Greek to the Latin Church. Nevertheless upon his return from the council, although he was joyfully welcomed at Kiev, his titular see, shortly afterwards at Moscow he was cast into prison and compelled to take to flight and leave the country.
- However, although it might well have been totally blotted out on account of the sorry conditions of the period, the memory of this happy union of the Ruthenians with the Apostolic See was not wholly lost with the passage of time. For example in 1458 Gregory Mammas, patriarch of Constantinople, in this holy city, consecrated a certain Gregory as metropolitan of the Ruthenians, who were then subject to the grand duke of Lithuania; and again, more than one of the successors of this metropolitan strove to restore the bond of unity with the Roman Church, although adverse circumstances did not permit the solemn public promulgation of union.