Questions About The History Of Latinizations

[Hesychios]

Hello father Deacon,

I’ve seen some pictures in GCU books from Bishop Elko’s time of ACROD and Ruthenian priests together - one could not tell who was who from the clean-shaven faces, Roman collars and cassocks.

Not a surprise, even the ACROD priests who had been elevated to Monsignor when they were under Rome retained the title for themselves when they came under the EP.

I don’t think that even the BCC calls the dignity Monsignor any longer, preferring Archpriest, perhaps?

The ACROD formation was completed in the late 1930’s, the Toth movement was from the 1890’s to around 1910 I think. So we can see a number of Byzantine Catholic parishes formed after Toth or sticking with Rome at the turn of the century, only to leave twenty to thirty years later after an intensive three decades of forming new clergy in Latin institutions.

 

[Ungcsertez]

Thanks for the clarification.

I suppose then that the erection of Passaic followed or accompanied the change or the Ruthenian Exarchate of Pittsburgh to an Archeparchy.

Would you be able to describe the actual difference in rights and responsibilities between an exarch and an eparch? Is it a change in dignity only, or something more substantial?

It looks quite likely then, that His Grace Elko received a promotion when he was named an Archbishop of the Roman Catholic church.

Thanks,
Michael

An Exarchate is an ecclessiastical body set up in a mission territory. In 1924, the seperate Ruthenian Exarchate was canonically erected. Rome never changed the status of the Ruthenian Church until Bp. Elko was called to Rome. Then when Bp. Kocisko came to Pittburgh, Rome created the Parma Eparchy to give reason to establish a Metropolitan Church with the Archeparchial seat being Munhall (later changed to Pittsburgh), with Passaic and Parma being suffragan Eparchies.

Ung

 

[Hesychios]

Hello Ung,

Was not Peremyshl the last Eparchy to accept the Brest Union?

Ung

Yes, I think probably so, but I was working from memory and I can’t spell it either.

What was significant to me was L’viv, which is so substantially UGCC today.

Michael

 

[Diak]

Not everything that is label a latinization is indeed a latinization. Small traditions very over time and from place to place. The church is organic and it customs sometimes change with the people, the church is a living being, it is not affixed to one ideal place in time.

This is very true, and the term is wrought with difficulty and much gray area. Certainly there are examples in all of the Eastern Catholic churches of directly copying Latin devotions and aesthetics.

But not all aspects are always that clear cut. For example several Russian liturgists of the late 19th century have labelled aspects as “latinizations” that were present in Greek texts and particular customs maintained by Italo-Greeks, Albanians and some other Balkan churches.

The Union of Brest also occured before the Nikonian reforms and there were particular traditions in Kyivan Rus’ that when compared with a strict, post-Nikonian development of the Russian liturgy would be differences and potentially might be seen as a “latinization” by an observer looking through purely Muscovite Synodal eyes.

The liturgical development of the Church of Kyivan Rus’ is quite complex; as Fr. Borys Gudziak and others have pointed out it is a liturgical synthesis of Greek and later particular Kyivan Rus’ development, with some other influences such as Balkan (Bulgarian) and as such there are differences from the later developed Muscovite liturgical practice that cannot be just simply dismissed as “latinizations”.

The post-Nikonian penchant for liturgical conformity of the Russian liturgy is well documented; the intolerance for the pre-Nikonian and other variants (including the particular Kyivan traditions) are also well documented. It is not as straightforward as it may seem.

Even one look at the inventory of the icon prints offered by Sofrino, the Patriarchal religious goods store of Moscow, will be enlightening.
FDRLB

 

[bpbasilphx]

The Union of Brest also occured before the Nikonian reforms and there were particular traditions in Kyivan Rus’ that when compared with a strict, post-Nikonian development of the Russian liturgy would be differences and potentially might be seen as a “latinization” by an observer looking through purely Muscovite Synodal eyes.

Among these are the short mandyas (without a train) for monks and bishops and having the antimension permanently unfolded on top of the mensa under the altar cloths.

These two practices are not Latinizations, but are actually pre-Nikonian and are done by the Old Rite church in Erie, PA.

 

[Diak]

Among these are the short mandyas (without a train) for monks and bishops and having the antimension permanently unfolded on top of the mensa under the altar cloths.

These two practices are not Latinizations, but are actually pre-Nikonian and are done by the Old Rite church in Erie, PA.

Exactly. It has been often said that our Ukrainian practice (also used by some of the Ukrainian Orthodox) of having the Antimension permanantly unfolded under the altar cloth and using the illiton on top of the altar for folding and unfolding is a latinziation; indeed it is not as can be seen from Old Rite and older Greek sources and it is reflective of the older Kyivan practice.

I was just recently explaining this very aspect to a very well-intentioned Melkite young man who wondered why we had covered the Antimension in one of our parishes they borrow for their Melkite mission, as he had wrongly thought it to be a latinization.
FDRLB

p.s. The parish in Erie is fantastic and I have long been a lover of many of the Old Rite traditions and spirituality. Spasi Khristos!

 

[Seamus_L]

I’ve seen photos of iconostasis’ in the UGCC and Byzantine Catholic Churches, that had small crucifixes at the top and sometimes angel statues attached. Don’t know if this would be considered a Latinization.
Also, is it my imagination, or do the Ruthenian Rite Churches have noticeably fewer Latinizations than the UGCC ? I've noticed they don't have churches named Immaculate Conception, and for some reason, I believe they don't celebrate the Feast of St Josaphat.

 

[ASimpleSinner]

I seem to have heard conflicting accounts about this topic, so I’d like to get as good an answer as possible on the following questions. And of course I realise the history from church to another may vary greatly.

1.When was the peak period for Latinizations ?
2.Were they mandated, and if so by whom ?
3.Has anyone higher than a parish priest in the East ever been openly supportive of them ?
4.Have any Latinizations come about through the laity ?

                        Thanks

Seamus, the Eastern Catholic Churches are not one big homogenous church with a singular history. Each church has its own trends and histories, with some having adopted a lot of Latinizations at some point, and others very little.

For example, their exists TWO different offices for veneration of the Blessed Sacrament - a Ukrainian/Ruthenian version (still used in some places) of Polish influence and a Melkite version of French influence. I have never heard of a Melkite parish that uses it. They were introduced at different times and used in different places.

Some were mandated, some were adopted. Some bishops promoted them, and did so against the express orders of Rome not to do so. Some Ukrainian parishes took up some practices to make certain they held unto their own faithful in their own parishes after popular piety had spread among the laity. (i.e. When the Sacred Heart devotions started to become popular, some Greek Catholic parishes adopted them to make certain that their faithful, interested in this devotion, would stay at their own parishes and not drift toward the Polish parishes of the Latin Rite.)

The Maronites and Chaldeans have their own history of Latinization and westernization that follows a different course from each other or from Byzantine Catholic Churches.

At one point the Italo-Albanian parishes in Italy served what essentially looked like a Greek Language Tridentine Mass with Latin Vestments. A trip to Grotta Ferrata (their main monastery in Italy that survived) will allow one to see on display fiddlebacks that were used there at one point!

But you have to sort of ask these questions in reference to each particular church, and in some instances to each particular region a church was in. The Latinizations in the UGCC in the US were sometimes different than in Ukraine and Canada…

The Russian Orthodox communities that entered into Unia with Rome were commanded to make no changes in their liturgical praxis up to and including the veneration of post-1054 Russian saints. That being said, a small group of women opted to form a Russian-Rite Dominican community!

Even today their exists wide discrepency among various parishes… My own parish was developped and built under the watchful eye of a priest who had an eye for detail in making certain every last detail was as Byzantine-Slavonic as possible… Of course we have, among 3 dozen framed icons on the back of the church wall - if you are paying close enough attention - one small icon of Saint Francis of Assisi that was donated to the parish as a set by a parishoner years ago. Is that a Latinization? Some would say yes, others would say not exactly.

Again, we are not one big singular church where one set of answers would work for all the different Eastern Catholic communities. Some had more, some had less, some were introduced at different times.

 

[dvdjs]

H
The ACROD formation was completed in the late 1930’s, the Toth movement was from the 1890’s to around 1910 I think. So we can see a number of Byzantine Catholic parishes formed after Toth or sticking with Rome at the turn of the century, only to leave twenty to thirty years later after an intensive three decades of forming new clergy in Latin institutions.

I am not sure that I get your drift entirely. But if you are suggesting some new practices intensively cultivated as a reaction to the Toth movement, I think your history is off.

The Orthodox movement had already antecedents in the Old country, where it was connected with a pro-Moscow orientation. That orientation, together with strong counter-measures against this proselytization served to limit the success of the movement. The Moscow orientation also limited the success of the Toth movement. While people were unhappy with the direction of Rome, they did not want to give up local customs for those of Moscow. This resistance against external pressure to change - Russification - probably included any number of Latinizations that were traditional practice. A salient feature of the later Chronok movement was keeping to “our way” (neither Rome nor Moscow). Latinizations were kept for decades and longer after the formation of ACROD.

 

[Diak]

I’ve seen photos of iconostasis’ in the UGCC and Byzantine Catholic Churches, that had small crucifixes at the top and sometimes angel statues attached. Don’t know if this would be considered a Latinization.

You can even find Orthodox churches in Russia in the “Imperial” or “Baroque” periods with various statuary on the iconostas. Some of these churches were designed by Italian architects. So again, one size does not fit all when it comes to discussing this subject. Placing a statue in a church in lieu of devotional icons likely would be something considered a latinization.

Also, is it my imagination, or do the Ruthenian Rite Churches have noticeably fewer Latinizations than the UGCC ? I’ve noticed they don’t have churches named Immaculate Conception, and for some reason, I believe they don’t celebrate the Feast of St Josaphat.

In the US both came originally from a single Greek Catholic exarchate (Ukrainian Catholic Bishop Soter Ortynsky was the first Exarch) and you can find examples of various kinds of latinizations in churches of both jurisdictions such as no iconostasis, statuary, etc.

It is really difficult to compare one to the other as we have discussed how complex the whole history of latinization is, politically, culturally, and spiritually, and how any discussion will be filled with exceptions and variations.

Both the “Ruthenians” (BCC Metropolia) and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia have returned the celebration of the Conception of St. Anne to December 9th. Both still keep the commemoration of St. Josaphat. But yes, you can still find UGCC parishes for example called Immaculate Conception and Ruthenian parishes called Sacred Heart or Holy Ghost.

On the other end of the scale are such “vostochnik” or “easternized” parishes like St. Elias in Brampton, Ontario saintelias.com/ca/index.php and Sts. Volodymyr and Olha in Chicago stsvo.org/index.php that have been very successful parishes faithful to a fuller liturgical life according to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic tradition.
FDRLB

 

[bpbasilphx]

Out of curiousity, has anyone read the Articles of the Union of Brest?

ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TREATBR.HTM

The clear meaning of these articles forbids any Latinization.

Comments, anyone?

 

[ASimpleSinner]

Out of curiousity, has anyone read the Articles of the Union of Brest?

ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TREATBR.HTM

The clear meaning of these articles forbids any Latinization.

Comments, anyone?

What are you looking for exactly?

 

[Diak]

Yes, the Union has been discussed numerous times on this and other Forums. Even in the first article we are exhorted to “remain with that which was handed down to us in the Holy Scriptures, in the Gospel, and in the writings of the holy Greek Doctors” and in the second “…the divine worship and all prayers and services of Orthros, Vespers, and the night services shall remain intact (without any change at all) for us according to the ancient custom of the Eastern Church…”
FDRLB

 

[Hesychios]

I am not sure that I get your drift entirely. But if you are suggesting some new practices intensively cultivated as a reaction to the Toth movement…

New practices? Not at all.

But the church was turning out larger numbers of priests in America, trained at the Latin institutions already quite well established. And the process of homogenization simply continued unabated.

In America, the church was quite lacking in Greek Catholic monasteries in those decades, so any future native bishops would be coming out from the ranks of celibate parish clergy, quite like the Roman Catholic practice. The newer American clergy were absorbing much about what it means to be a Catholic priest from predominately Latin seminary environments.

ACROD was formed out of parishes which had either earlier rejected the possibility of following Toth into the Russian Metropolia, or were planted by the Exarchate in the aftermath of that experience. These people weren’t expecting to leave obedience to Rome in those early decades and their parishes were just like any other Greek Catholic parishes. This was also a time when there were more second and third generation Greek Catholics who might have fealt a bit ostrcized in their heavily Roman Catholic working class neighborhoods by attending the “Orthodox” parish. So I would say they had an open attitude to those latinizing tendencies already present among them.

To be sure, most proto-ACROD people in the 1930’s had little problem with Rosary before Mass, Statues, Latin style Cassocks on their priests or many milder forms of Latinization.

What they separated over is quite simple, it amounted to two major issues:

1. 
   *]The optional celbacy was banned once again, it was thought by many to have been dealt with sufficiently in the compromises which kept many parishes from from leaving for Orthodoxy years before (but within memory of many). So there was a feeling of betrayal in 1929 when Rome opened it up as a serious complaint again.
   *]The bishop was ordered by Rome to collect the titles to parish properties. This was resisted by many parishes which ultimately conceded anyway, as well as those who left. I think it was far and away the biggest reason at that time, and I would not call it latinization.
   Protests were muzzled. Priests who complained were removed from service, some of these were very popular men in their parishes. There was a sense of being silenced, with their opinions and feelings treated as inconsequential.
   
   These people were not upset about confessional boxes, pews and sanctus bells, they were very open to all of it.

 

[Diak]

It is interesting as well to consider the political/polemical impetus behind certain “latinizations”, the filioque being a case in point in the UGCC. The Union of Brest is quite clear about the understanding at the time of the union and the liturgical books of the time are certainly devoid of the addition.

In the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church during the Soviet persecution, the filioque took on essentially a political identity. After the forced liquidation of all of the Greek Catholic parishes in 1946 and the transferral of many of those to the Moscow Patriarchate, the filioque became a sort of anti-Muscovite liturgical “code word” in the underground. It had little or nothing to do with any complex theological notion of procession or Florentine dogmatic definitions but was simply a means to distance the underground church from the Muscovites, who otherwise were trying to make the liturgies look the same as much as possible to sway the believers into leaving the Union.

In fact before the 1946 liquidation Metropolitan Andrey and like-minded bishops such as Blessed Mykola Charnetsky, etc. were already in the process of the gradual removal of the filioque. The Studite monasteries and parishes they served as well as some of the Redemptorists in Volyn and other parishes were succeeding in the gradual removal of the filioque.

It is also interesting that the recently excommunicated Fr. Basil Kovpak cites the removal of the filioque as one of his primary disagreements with the UGCC hierarchy (Rome as well, citing Pope John Paul II’s public omission of it several times, and considering he relies on the SSPX for support).

In fact he had to get Bishop Williamson of the SSPX to ordain the other two priests using the Traditional Latin Rite. Now that’s real latinization, especially the Latin-Byzantine liturgical mishmash. Not to mention schismatic as well, as stated in the excommunication from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and consented to by Rome.
FDRLB

 

[ASimpleSinner]

In the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church during the Soviet persecution, the filioque took on essentially a political identity. After the forced liquidation of all of the Greek Catholic parishes in 1946 and the transferral of many of those to the Moscow Patriarchate, the filioque became a sort of anti-Muscovite liturgical “code word” in the underground. It had little or nothing to do with any complex theological notion of procession or Florentine dogmatic definitions but was simply a means to distance the underground church from the Muscovites, who otherwise were trying to make the liturgies look the same as much as possible to sway the believers into leaving the Union.

You bring up a notable and important point that is often overlooked here. In some circles, “looking too eastern” or “looking too Orthodox” was codespeak for “Looking too Russian”. Some (not all) Latinizations were adopted, welcomed and encouraged by some (not all) Greek Catholics to add a touch of distinction that demonstrated they were NOT Russian Orthodox.

With no small amount of irony, Russian Orthodox in communion with Rome in the early days of the efforts to create a lasting Russian Orthodox unia with Rome made great efforts to demonstrate how Russian Orthodox they remained even after communion with the Holy See was established.

Sometimes Latinizations were not so much for the Romans to see as though we were trying to say “We are just like you” as it was for the Russians to see “We are NOT like you!”

One of those situations where people are motivated to turn molehills into mountains to prove how different they are.

Of course, adopting foreign customs to “prove something” isn’t a winner in my book, no matter what you are trying to prove. But such issues should at least be considered by some parties (internally and externally) who are all too quick to judge what they see, without coming to a proper understanding of what lead to all that.

Seamus, I gotta hand it to you, you really opened wide a big issue with your OP!

 

[Seamus_L]

Thanks for the compliment, and I’m sorry I haven’t posted for awhile. Problems with my home servor on this site for some reason.
I believe that during the height of the Cold War, tensions in the emigre communities ran the highest. I've heard of UGCC members picketing Orthodox Churches in the US, and Ukrainian Catholics and Orthodox who wouldn't speak to each other.