Russian Greek Catholic Church: Difference between revisions
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In 1721, [[Peter the Great|the same Tsar]] and [[Theophan Prokopovich]], as part of their [[Church reform of Peter the Great|Church reforms]], replaced the [[Patriarch of Moscow]] with a department of the [[civil service]] headed by an [[Procurator (Russia)|Ober-Procurator]] and called the [[Most Holy Synod]], which oversaw the appointment and deposition of the Church Hierarchy, as a further extension of the Tsar's Government.<ref>{{Cite book |first=James |last=Cracraft |date=1971 |title=The Church Reform of Peter the Great |publisher=Stanford University Press |pages=112–302 |isbn=978-0-8047-0747-3}}</ref> |
In 1721, [[Peter the Great|the same Tsar]] and [[Theophan Prokopovich]], as part of their [[Church reform of Peter the Great|Church reforms]], replaced the [[Patriarch of Moscow]] with a department of the [[civil service]] headed by an [[Procurator (Russia)|Ober-Procurator]] and called the [[Most Holy Synod]], which oversaw the appointment and deposition of the Church Hierarchy, as a further extension of the Tsar's Government.<ref>{{Cite book |first=James |last=Cracraft |date=1971 |title=The Church Reform of Peter the Great |publisher=Stanford University Press |pages=112–302 |isbn=978-0-8047-0747-3}}</ref> |
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Meanwhile, with the grudging exception of the [[Armenian Catholic Church]], the [[Eastern Catholic Churches]] were increasingly treated as illegal in the [[Russian Empire]] beginning with the [[forced conversion]] of the [[Ruthenian Catholic Archeparchy of Polotsk–Vitebsk|Archeparchy of Polotsk-Vitebsk]] by Bishop [[Joseph Semashko]] |
Meanwhile, with the grudging exception of the [[Armenian Catholic Church]], the [[Eastern Catholic Churches]] were increasingly treated as illegal in the [[Russian Empire]] beginning with the [[forced conversion]] of the [[Ruthenian Catholic Archeparchy of Polotsk–Vitebsk|Archeparchy of Polotsk-Vitebsk]] by Bishop [[Joseph Semashko]] between 1837 and 1839 and continuing with the 1874–1875 [[Conversion of Chelm Eparchy]] and the [[martyrdom]] of [[Pratulin Martyrs|13 unarmed men and boys]] by the [[Imperial Russian Army]] in the village of [[Pratulin]], near [[Biała Podlaska]] on January 24, 1874. |
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As the face of the Synod of Polotsk, Metropolitan bishop Semashko's name instantly became notorious in Catholic circles worldwide. This notoriety reached its peak in 1845 when a Greek Catholic nun, Mother {{ill|Makrina Mieczyslavska|pl|Makryna Mieczysławska}} arrived in Rome with an account of atrocities committed with the full knowledge and approval of [[Nicholas I of Russia|Tsar Nicholas I]] by the [[Imperial Russian Army]] and by Bishop Semashko against the Basilian nuns of Minsk. She stated that in 1838 Semashko personally ordered the [[forced conversion]] of the nuns of the convent and that when they refused had them imprisoned, starved, [[flogging|flogged]], sexually assaulted, and repeatedly tortured.<ref name="healy">{{cite book |last1=Healy |first1=Róisín |title=Poland in the Irish Nationalist Imagination, 1772-1922: Anti-colonialism within Europe |date=2017 |location=Cham, Switzerland |isbn=9783319434315}}</ref> She gave a detailed and graphic account of these events,<ref>{{cite web |title=The Basilian Nuns of Minsk: The Ordeals of Saintly Mother Makrina |url=https://catholicism.org/the-basilian-nuns-of-minsk.html |website=Catholicism.org |access-date=19 November 2022 |language=en |date=24 February 2009}}</ref> causing outrage in Rome, while the account was further publicised by [[Polish nobility|aristocratic]] [[Great Emigration|Polish refugees]] in Paris.<ref name="bailey">{{cite book |last1=Bailey |first1=Heather L. |title=The Public Image of Eastern Orthodoxy: France and Russia, 1848-1870 |date=2020 |location=Ithaca |isbn=9781501749520}}</ref> Within [[Romanticism in Poland|Polish Romantic literature]], both [[Juliusz Słowacki]] and [[Stanisław Wyspiański]] made Mother Makrina the subject of immortal works of [[Polish poetry]].<ref> Wasyl Lencyk, Ph.D. (1966), ''The Eastern Catholic Church and Czar Nicholas I'', Centro di Studies Universitari Ucraini a Roma, Rome & New York. Page 139.</ref> Although [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire|Russian Foreign Office]] [[diplomat]]s and [[Metropolitan bishop]] Yosyf Semashko himself adamantly denied Mother Makrina's story, it was widely believed, including by [[Pope Gregory XVI]] and his successor [[Pope Pius IX|Pius IX]]. Over the course of the following decades, her story of the Nuns of Minsk was regularly reprinted as far as [[Ireland]] and [[North America]]. In 1923 the [[Jesuit]] scholar {{ill|Fr. Jan Urban|pl|Jan Urban (jezuita)}} wrote a book in which he investigated the account of Mother Makrina Mieczyslavska and concluded that it was a fabrication<ref>Urban, Jan (1923), ''Makryna Mieczysławska w świetle prawdy'', nakł. Przeglądu Powszechnego, Kraków 1923.</ref> and that Mother Makrina was, "an imposter."<ref> Wasyl Lencyk, Ph.D. (1966), ''The Eastern Catholic Church and Czar Nicholas I'', Centro di Studies Universitari Ucraini a Roma, Rome & New York. Page 139.</ref> |
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In 1966, however, historian Wasyl Lencyk wrote, "In favor of her trustworthiness, Fr. Edmund Maykowski published some documents, namely her correspondence with Cardinal Ledochovski and the official report of the commission appointed by the Archbishop of Poznan Przyluski. Important in this matter is a medical report signed by two respected physicians of Poznan, Dr. Kramarkewicz and Dr. Jagielski, who gave her medical care after she escaped from Russia. The documents speak in favor of Mieczyslavska, nevertheless her story cannot be proved with certainty though it was very possible under the existing conditions in Russia."<ref> Wasyl Lencyk, Ph.D. (1966), ''The Eastern Catholic Church and Czar Nicholas I'', Centro di Studies Universitari Ucraini a Roma, Rome & New York. Page 139.</ref> |
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The same policy continued under [[Alexander II of Russia|Tsar Alexander II]] with the 1874–1875 [[Conversion of Chelm Eparchy]] and the [[martyrdom]] of [[Pratulin Martyrs|13 unarmed men and boys]] by the [[Imperial Russian Army]] in the village of [[Pratulin]], near [[Biała Podlaska]] on January 24, 1874. |
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It was almost certainly with these events in mind that [[Leonid Feodorov]], the future Greek Catholic Exarch of Russia and [[Belarus]], predicted at [[Anagni]] to a fellow Catholic seminarian more than a decade before the fall of the [[House of Romanov]], "Russia will not repent without travelling the [[Red Sea]] of the blood of her martyrs and numerous sufferings of her apostles."<ref> Cyril Korolevsky (1993), ''Metropolitan Andrew (1865–1944)'', Stauropegion, Lviv. Volume 1. Page 285.</ref> |
It was almost certainly with these events in mind that [[Leonid Feodorov]], the future Greek Catholic Exarch of Russia and [[Belarus]], predicted at [[Anagni]] to a fellow Catholic seminarian more than a decade before the fall of the [[House of Romanov]], "Russia will not repent without travelling the [[Red Sea]] of the blood of her martyrs and numerous sufferings of her apostles."<ref> Cyril Korolevsky (1993), ''Metropolitan Andrew (1865–1944)'', Stauropegion, Lviv. Volume 1. Page 285.</ref> |
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==Intellectual precursors== |
==Intellectual precursors== |
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The modern Russian Catholic Church owes much to the inspiration of poet and philosopher [[Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)|Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov]] (1853–1900), who |
The modern Russian Catholic Church owes much to the inspiration of poet and philosopher [[Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)|Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov]] (1853–1900). Inspired by the writings of Fr. [[Ivan Gagarin]], who had sought to win over the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] to reunification with the [[Holy See]] without abandoning either the [[Byzantine Rite]] or the traditional [[Old Church Slavonic]] [[liturgical language]]<ref> Jeffrey Bruce Beshoner (2002), ''Ivan Sergeevich Gagarin: The Search for Orthodox and Catholic Union'', [[University of Notre Dame]] Press. pp. 49-208.</ref> and the ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' of [[Dante Alighieri]], Solovyov argued that, just as the world needed the [[Tsar]] as a universal monarch, the [[Christian Church|Church]] needed the [[Pope of Rome]] as a universal ecclesiastical hierarch. Solovyov further argued, however, that the Russian Orthodox Church, "is only separated from Rome ''de facto'', so that one can profess the totality of Catholic doctrine while continuing to belong to the Russian Orthodox Church."{{Sfn|Korolevsky|1993|p=251}} |
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On August 9, 1894, a Russian Orthodox priest and protegé of Solovyov, Fr. [[Nicholas Tolstoy]], entered into full communion with the [[Holy See]] by making profession of faith before Bishop [[Félix Julien Xavier Jourdain de la Passardière]] at the [[Church of St. Louis of the French (Moscow)|Church of St. Louis des Français]] in [[Moscow]]. Under oath, Fr. Nicholas renounced all contrary to Catholic doctrine and accepted both the [[Council of Florence]] and the [[First Vatican Council]]. At Fr. Nicholas's request, all documents relating to his conversion were conveyed to [[Pope Leo XIII]], who kept them along with a personal archive of papers having, "to do with matters in which the Pope was particularly interested."{{Sfn|Korolevsky|1993|p=251}} |
On August 9, 1894, a Russian Orthodox priest and protegé of Solovyov, Fr. [[Nicholas Tolstoy]], entered into full communion with the [[Holy See]] by making profession of faith before Bishop [[Félix Julien Xavier Jourdain de la Passardière]] at the [[Church of St. Louis of the French (Moscow)|Church of St. Louis des Français]] in [[Moscow]]. Under oath, Fr. Nicholas renounced all contrary to Catholic doctrine and accepted both the [[Council of Florence]] and the [[First Vatican Council]]. At Fr. Nicholas's request, all documents relating to his conversion were conveyed to [[Pope Leo XIII]], who kept them along with a personal archive of papers having, "to do with matters in which the Pope was particularly interested."{{Sfn|Korolevsky|1993|p=251}} |
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}}</ref> [[Old Believers]] were prominent in the early years of the movement. |
}}</ref> [[Old Believers]] were prominent in the early years of the movement. |
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After the [[Russian Revolution of 1905]], Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, who was seeking to assume jurisdiction over the growing number of Eastern Catholics in Russia, had two audiences, in 1907 and 1908, with [[Pope Pius X]] in which the matter of creating an underground Byzantine Catholic Church in the Russian Empire was discussed at length. After being asked, the Pope confirmed Metropolitan Andrey's belief that he, instead of the local Roman Rite Bishops, already held jurisdiction over all Byzantine Catholics living under [[Tsarism]]. In order to spread the [[Catholic Church in Russia]], the Pope also granted Sheptytsky all the authority of an [[Patriarch]] of a [[Catholic particular churches and liturgical rites|self-governing Eastern Catholic Church]], but without the actual title, over the Russian Empire. Sheptytsky was told that he was free to ordain priests and even to consecrate Bishops while reporting only to the Pope himself. Pope Pius advised Sheptytsky, however, to delay using his powers openly until a more opportune time, as otherwise the infamously anti-Catholic Imperial Russian Government would cause an enormous amount of trouble for him.{{Sfn|Korolevsky|1993|p=261-269}} |
After the [[Russian Revolution of 1905]], Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, who was seeking to assume jurisdiction over the growing number of Eastern Catholics in Russia, had two audiences, in 1907 and 1908, with [[Pope Pius X]] in which the matter of creating an underground Byzantine Catholic Church in the Russian Empire was discussed at length. After being asked, the Pope confirmed Metropolitan Andrey's belief that he, instead of the local Roman Rite Bishops, already held jurisdiction over all Byzantine Catholics living under [[Tsarism]]. In order to spread the [[Catholic Church in Russia]], the Pope also granted Sheptytsky all the authority of an [[Patriarch]] of a [[Catholic particular churches and liturgical rites|self-governing Eastern Catholic Church]], but without the actual title, over the Russian Empire. In addition to the extremely rare privilege of ''[[Communicatio in sacris]]'' as a tool of Greek Catholic evangelisation, Sheptytsky was told that he was free to ordain priests and even to consecrate Bishops while reporting only to the Pope himself. Pope Pius advised Sheptytsky, however, to delay using his powers openly until a more opportune time, as otherwise the infamously anti-Catholic Imperial Russian Government would cause an enormous amount of trouble for him.{{Sfn|Korolevsky|1993|p=261-269}} |
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Soon after, the semi-underground parish of the Russian Greek Catholic Church in [[St. Petersburg]] split between the followers of [[Liturgical latinisation|Pro-Latinisation]] priest Fr. [[Aleksei Zerchaninov]] and those of Pro-Orientalist priest Fr. [[Ivan Deubner]]. When asked by Metropolitan [[Andrey Sheptytsky]] to make a decision on the dispute, [[Pope Pius X]] decreed that Russian Greek Catholic priests should offer the [[Divine Liturgy]] ''Nec Plus, Nec Minus, Nec Aliter'' ("No more, No Less, No Different") than priests of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] and the [[Old Believers]].<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250135379 |last=Khomych |first=Taras |date=2006 |title=Eastern Catholic Churches and the Question of 'Uniatism' |journal=Louvain Studies |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=214–237 |doi=10.2143/LS.31.3.2028184 |via=ResearchGate}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |editor1-first=George Thomas |editor1-last=Kurian |editor2-first=Mark A. |editor2-last=Lamport |first=Brian A. |last=Butcher |title=Other Eastern Orthodox Communities |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=73xfDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1724|date=2016|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-1-4422-4432-0|page=1724}}</ref>{{Sfn|Korolevsky|1993|p=269-274}} |
Soon after, the semi-underground parish of the Russian Greek Catholic Church in [[St. Petersburg]] split between the followers of [[Liturgical latinisation|Pro-Latinisation]] priest Fr. [[Aleksei Zerchaninov]] and those of Pro-Orientalist priest Fr. [[Ivan Deubner]]. When asked by Metropolitan [[Andrey Sheptytsky]] to make a decision on the dispute, [[Pope Pius X]] decreed that Russian Greek Catholic priests should offer the [[Divine Liturgy]] ''Nec Plus, Nec Minus, Nec Aliter'' ("No more, No Less, No Different") than priests of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] and the [[Old Believers]].<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250135379 |last=Khomych |first=Taras |date=2006 |title=Eastern Catholic Churches and the Question of 'Uniatism' |journal=Louvain Studies |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=214–237 |doi=10.2143/LS.31.3.2028184 |via=ResearchGate}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |editor1-first=George Thomas |editor1-last=Kurian |editor2-first=Mark A. |editor2-last=Lamport |first=Brian A. |last=Butcher |title=Other Eastern Orthodox Communities |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=73xfDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1724|date=2016|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-1-4422-4432-0|page=1724}}</ref>{{Sfn|Korolevsky|1993|p=269-274}} |
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According to Father Georgii Friedman, Mother Catherine and the Sisters made an unusual choice for a religious community, inspired, it is believed, by the example of the [[Discalced Carmelites|Discalced Carmelite]] [[Martyrs of Compiègne]] during the [[French Revolution]], "In addition to the three usual religious vows, the sisters took a fourth vow, to suffer for the salvation of Russia. God heard their desire, and soon they were to suffer much, for many years."<ref>Osipova (2014), page 275.</ref> |
According to Father Georgii Friedman, Mother Catherine and the Sisters made an unusual choice for a religious community, inspired, it is believed, by the example of the [[Discalced Carmelites|Discalced Carmelite]] [[Martyrs of Compiègne]] during the [[French Revolution]], "In addition to the three usual religious vows, the sisters took a fourth vow, to suffer for the salvation of Russia. God heard their desire, and soon they were to suffer much, for many years."<ref>Osipova (2014), page 275.</ref> |
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While writing about her memories of the time before the arrest of the community, Sister Philomena Ejsmont recalled the sisters' involvement in preaching the Catholic Faith to the [[Russian people]] through the medium of ''[[Samizdat]]'', "In addition to her daily prayers and obligations, Mother Catherine still found time to translate spiritual texts - masterpieces of [[ascetic]] literature - into Russian for those sisters who did not know foreign languages. She herself wrote some meditations based on the liturgical year and Dominican feast days."<ref>Osipova (2014), page 39.</ref> |
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According to Anatolia Nowicka, "Our Mother Superior translated mainly the works of Dominican authors, such as the ''Regulations of the [[Third Order of St. Dominic]]'', ''[[Raymond of Capua|The Life of St. Catherine of Siena]]'', the '''Litany to St Dominic'' and to other Dominican Saints. Her own spiritual works were mainly Meditations for the sisters, to be used during retreats. I have read them, and they exerted an indelible impression on me. I was astonished at how a woman who did not have any special theological training could write so simply, clearly, and inspiringly about the most delicate and profound manifestations of spiritual life. Mother Anna Ivanovna was also able to understand the needs and psychological difficulties of contemporary men and women. Among her Meditations, I remember ''The Last Words of Christ on the Cross'', ''The Mass of St. Dominic'', ''The Patronage of the Mother of God'', [and] ''Go and Teach''."<ref>Anatolia Nowicka (Sister Józefata), ''Memoir from the History of the Moscow Chapter of the Sisters of St. Dominic 1921-1932'', ''[[The Sarmatian Review]]'', September 1989, pages 1-15.</ref> |
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According to Father Georgii Friedman, "The only composition of Mother Catherine that survived intact is ''The Seven Words of Christ on the Cross''. It was not an exact copy that was preserved, but what we have gives us an idea of the very lofty spirituality of the author. I would even be so bold as to say that the level of this work is no less than the writings of Saint [[Theresa of Avila]]. Especially in ''The Third Word'' one can see the personal, burning pain of voluntary suffering borne by Mother Catherine - the renunciation, and then even the separation from, her ardently loved spouse. This work became, as it were, the spiritual-sacrificial program for the sisters' life in her community."<ref>Osipova (2014), page 275.</ref> |
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The [[October Revolution]] and [[Anti-Catholicism in the Soviet Union|Anti-Catholic]] [[religious persecution]] |
The [[October Revolution]] and [[Anti-Catholicism in the Soviet Union|Anti-Catholic]] [[religious persecution]] |
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At the same time, though, conversions continued to take place. In 1918, Fr. [[Potapy Emelianov]], a [[priest]] of the [[Edinoverie|Old Ritualist]] tradition within [[Russian Orthodoxy]], entered into communion with the Holy See along with his entire parish, which was located at [[Bohdanivka, Luhansk Oblast|Nizhnaya Bogdanovka]], near [[Lugansk]], in modern Ukraine.<ref> Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), ''Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow'', [[Loreto Publications]]. Pages 160–165.</ref><ref> Fr. Constantin Simon, S.J. (2009), ''Pro Russia: The Russicum and Catholic Work for Russia'', Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, Roma. Pages 142–143.</ref><ref> [http://catholicmartyrs.org/index.php?mod=pages&page=emelyanovarticle The Life and Death of Father Potapy Emelianov] {{in lang|ru}} by [[Pavel Parfentiev]].</ref> |
At the same time, though, conversions continued to take place. In 1918, Fr. [[Potapy Emelianov]], a [[priest]] of the [[Edinoverie|Old Ritualist]] tradition within [[Russian Orthodoxy]], entered into communion with the Holy See along with his entire parish, which was located at [[Bohdanivka, Luhansk Oblast|Nizhnaya Bogdanovka]], near [[Lugansk]], in modern Ukraine.<ref> Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), ''Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow'', [[Loreto Publications]]. Pages 160–165.</ref><ref> Fr. Constantin Simon, S.J. (2009), ''Pro Russia: The Russicum and Catholic Work for Russia'', Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, Roma. Pages 142–143.</ref><ref> [http://catholicmartyrs.org/index.php?mod=pages&page=emelyanovarticle The Life and Death of Father Potapy Emelianov] {{in lang|ru}} by [[Pavel Parfentiev]].</ref> |
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During his imprisonment during the [[Russian Civil War]] at [[Starobielsk]], an [[anti-communist]] [[White Movement|White Army]] [[Procurator (Russia)|Procurator]], who believed that the [[Catholic Church in Ukraine]] had, "ensnared", Fr. Potapy, demanded that the priest renounce his, "[[Jesuit]] politics". Fr. Potapy replied, "I follow no earthly politics. I wish only to help spread the knowledge of the Tsardom of [[Jesus Christ]] and to show the Rock upon which it is founded to those who wish to enter it. If you choose to call this Jesuit politics, that is your affair. I would simply tell you that this is the command of Christ our Tsar. If it became necessary to suffer and if the Lord gave me strength, I would not only not renounce this position, I would agree to affirm it a thousand times with my blood. This is my goal and this is what I am committed to and if you choose to call this politics, do as you please."<ref>[http://catholicmartyrs.org/index.php?mod=pages&page=emelyanovarticle The Life and Death of Father Potapy Emelianov] {{in lang|ru}} by [[Pavel Parfentiev]].</ref> |
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During his imprisonment, Fr. Potapy alone was exempted at the last moment from a prisoner transfer that would have meant certain death. All of prisoners in the transfer were subsequently shot by the White Army, officially while attempting to escape. On December 23, 1919, Starobielsk was again occupied by the [[Red Guards (Russia)|Red Guards]], who released everyone who had been imprisoned under General Denikin.<ref>[http://catholicmartyrs.org/index.php?mod=pages&page=emelyanovarticle The Life and Death of Father Potapy Emelianov] {{in lang|ru}} by [[Pavel Parfentiev]].</ref> |
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In a letter written after his release to a fellow priest, Fr. Potapy recalled, "My appearance there seemed to them like a resurrection from the dead. Tears of joy flowed uncontrollably. It was as if everyone, young and old, had to touch me to be convinced that I was really alive, since they had long since been assured that I no longer existed." Later in the same letter, Fr. Potapy added, "Do not worry that they persecute and torment us; we stand firmly upon the Rock of [[Peter the Apostle|Peter]]."<ref>[http://catholicmartyrs.org/index.php?mod=pages&page=emelyanovarticle The Life and Death of Father Potapy Emelianov] {{in lang|ru}} by [[Pavel Parfentiev]].</ref> |
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Meanwhile, Exarch Leonid Feodorov made presentations, participated in discussions with Orthodox clergy,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Парфентьев|first=Павел|title=Служение блаженного Леонида Федорова в России|publisher=Православные католики Одессы|year=2017|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref> including Patriarch [[Tikhon of Moscow]] and Metropolitan [[Benjamin of Petrograd]]. At the time, Patriarch Tikhon was faced with the ongoing Soviet-backed [[Renovationism|Living Church Schism]] and was determined defend the hard won independence of the [[Moscow Patriarchate]] from again being lost to [[Caesaropapism|control by the State]]. For this reason, Patriarch Tikhon was both meeting regularly to discuss possible reunion with both the Exarch and with Father [[Vladimir Abrikosov]]. The Patriarch was also urging those Orthodox clergy and laity who remained loyal to him to similarly meet with the Russian Catholics in order to discuss the possible reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the [[Holy See]] under the terms laid down at the [[Council of Florence]] in 1439. |
Meanwhile, Exarch Leonid Feodorov made presentations, participated in discussions with Orthodox clergy,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Парфентьев|first=Павел|title=Служение блаженного Леонида Федорова в России|publisher=Православные католики Одессы|year=2017|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref> including Patriarch [[Tikhon of Moscow]] and Metropolitan [[Benjamin of Petrograd]]. At the time, Patriarch Tikhon was faced with the ongoing Soviet-backed [[Renovationism|Living Church Schism]] and was determined defend the hard won independence of the [[Moscow Patriarchate]] from again being lost to [[Caesaropapism|control by the State]]. For this reason, Patriarch Tikhon was both meeting regularly to discuss possible reunion with both the Exarch and with Father [[Vladimir Abrikosov]]. The Patriarch was also urging those Orthodox clergy and laity who remained loyal to him to similarly meet with the Russian Catholics in order to discuss the possible reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the [[Holy See]] under the terms laid down at the [[Council of Florence]] in 1439. |
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During a later conversation, the Exarch confided in Danzas, "The true [[Messianism]] of the Russian Church is not what the [[Slavophile]]s have imagined, but it is the example of suffering. It is in this way that she shows that she is the continuation of Christ in this world."<ref> Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), ''Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow'', [[Loreto Publications]]. Page 237.</ref> |
During a later conversation, the Exarch confided in Danzas, "The true [[Messianism]] of the Russian Church is not what the [[Slavophile]]s have imagined, but it is the example of suffering. It is in this way that she shows that she is the continuation of Christ in this world."<ref> Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), ''Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow'', [[Loreto Publications]]. Page 237.</ref> |
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Missions also continued among [[White émigré]]s in the [[Russian diaspora]]. Following her conversion, [[Hélène Iswolsky]] |
Missions also continued among [[White émigré]]s in the [[Russian diaspora]]. Following her conversion, [[Hélène Iswolsky]] regularly attended the [[Divine Liturgy]] at the Church of the Holy Trinity, located near the [[Porte d'Italie]] in [[Paris]]. She later praised the pastor, Mgr. [[Alexander Evreinov]], in her memoirs. Mgr. Alexander, Iswolsky wrote, offered the [[Byzantine Rite]] without the [[liturgical latinisation]]s commonly added in Galicia and, "one might have thought oneself at an Orthodox service, except that prayers were offered for the Pope and our hierarchical head, the Archbishop of Paris." Iswolsky added that the chapel, although humble, "was decorated in the best of taste and according to the strictest Russian religious style; the [[iconostasis]] was the work of a Russian painter well-versed in ancient Eastern iconography. The central panel was a faithful copy of [[Trinity (Andrei Rublev)|Rubleff's Trinity]]."<ref>{{Cite book |first=Helen |last=Iswolsky |date=1942 |title=Light Before Dusk: A Russian Catholic in France, 1923–1941 |publisher=Longmans, Green |pages=57–59 |oclc=1737899}}</ref> |
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While teaching the [[Old Church Slavonic]] [[liturgical language]], the [[vernacular]] [[Russian language]], and [[Russian literature]] following his own emigration from Russia at the [[Pontifical Oriental Institute]] in Rome,<ref>Fr. Constantin Simon, S.J. (2009), ''Pro Russia: The Russicum and Catholic Work for Russia'', Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, Roma. Page 52-53.</ref> [[Russian Symbolism|Russian Symbolist]] poet [[Vyacheslav Ivanov (poet)|Vyacheslav Ivanov]] and his children were also formally received as [[Eastern Catholic Churches|Eastern Rite Catholic]]s into the Russian Greek Catholic Church.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/298230/Vyacheslav-Ivanovich-Ivanov Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov (Russian poet) – Encyclopædia Britannica]</ref> |
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On 17 March 1926, Ivanov pronounced a prayer for reunification composed by his hero Vladimir Soloviev followed by a standard [[abjuration]] under oath of all theological principles upon which Russian Orthodoxy differs from Catholicism.<ref name="Robert Bird 2006 Page 37"/> In a 1930 open letter in French explaining his conversion to [[Charles Du Bos]],<ref name="Robert Bird 2006 Page 39">Robert Bird (2006), ''The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov'', University of Wisconsin Press. Page 39.</ref> Ivanov recalled, "When I pronounced the Creed, followed by a formula of adherence, I felt Orthodox in the full sense of the word for the first time in my life, in full possession of the sacred treasure that had belonged to me since my baptism, the joy of which had, however, been encumbered for many years by a sense of growing anguish and by the consciousness that I had been severed by the other half of this living treasure of sanctity and grace, that, like a consumptive, I had been breathing with only one lung."<ref>Robert Bird (2006), ''The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov'', University of Wisconsin Press. Page 237.</ref> |
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In his 1937 interview for the [[Russicum]]'s newspaper, Ivanov argued that, prior to their [[East–West Schism|Great Schism]], Latin and Byzantine Christianity were "two principles that mutually complement each other." After blaming, similarly to [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]] in ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]'', the lack of an indigenous tradition of active monasticism for the failure of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] to mount a far more effective challenge to the regressive [[secularization]] of pre-1917 [[Russian culture]], Ivanov concluded, "The Church must permeate all branches of life: social issues, art, culture, and just everything. The [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Church]] corresponds to such criteria and by joining this Church I become truly Orthodox."<ref>Puskas (2002, 29-31).</ref> Literary scholar Robert Bird confirms that Ivanov, whose greatest influences were [[Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)|Vladimir Soloviev]] and Fyodor Dostoevsky, viewed his conversion to the Russian Greek Catholic Church, "as an extension rather than a rejection of Russian Orthodoxy. This decision was in a sense preordained by the philosophy of Vladimir Soloviev."<ref name="ReferenceA">Handboek Geschiedenis van de Wijsbegeerte I, Article by Douwe Runia</ref> |
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In 1928, a second [[Apostolic Exarchate]] was set up, for the Russian Greek Catholic refugees in [[China]], based in [[Manchuria]] and led by [[Belarusian people|Belarusian]] missionary priest [[Fabijan Abrantovich]] and based from the now ruined St. Vladimir's Cathedral in [[Harbin]]; the [[Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Harbin]].<ref name=roberson/> Exarch Fabijan was arrested, however, by the [[NKVD]] after a visit to his family in the [[Second Polish Republic]] was interrupted by the beginning of the [[Second World War]]. After Exarch Fabijan was martyred in the [[Gulag]], the Harbin Exarchate fell under the Omophorion of Exarchs {{ill|Vendelín Javorka|cs}} and [[Andrzej Cikoto]], who both ultimately faced highly similar fates to Exarch Fabijan.<ref> Irina Osipova (2003), ''Hide Me Within Thy Wounds: The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the U.S.S.R.'', Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, [[North Dakota]]. Pages 137–176.</ref> |
In 1928, a second [[Apostolic Exarchate]] was set up, for the Russian Greek Catholic refugees in [[China]], based in [[Manchuria]] and led by [[Belarusian people|Belarusian]] missionary priest [[Fabijan Abrantovich]] and based from the now ruined St. Vladimir's Cathedral in [[Harbin]]; the [[Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Harbin]].<ref name=roberson/> Exarch Fabijan was arrested, however, by the [[NKVD]] after a visit to his family in the [[Second Polish Republic]] was interrupted by the beginning of the [[Second World War]]. After Exarch Fabijan was martyred in the [[Gulag]], the Harbin Exarchate fell under the Omophorion of Exarchs {{ill|Vendelín Javorka|cs}} and [[Andrzej Cikoto]], who both ultimately faced highly similar fates to Exarch Fabijan.<ref> Irina Osipova (2003), ''Hide Me Within Thy Wounds: The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the U.S.S.R.'', Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, [[North Dakota]]. Pages 137–176.</ref> |
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==Further reading== |
==Further reading== |
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* The Servant of God Mother Catherine Abrikosova, [[Third Order of Saint Dominic|TOSD]] (2019), ''The Seven Last Words of Our Lord Upon the Cross'', Translated by Joseph Lake and Brendan D. King. St. Augustine's Press, [[South Bend, Indiana]]. |
* The Servant of God Mother [[Anna Abrikosova|Catherine Abrikosova]], [[Third Order of Saint Dominic|TOSD]] (2019), ''The Seven Last Words of Our Lord Upon the Cross'', Translated by Joseph Lake and Brendan D. King. St. Augustine's Press, [[South Bend, Indiana]]. |
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* Jeffrey Bruce Beshoner (2002), ''Ivan Sergeevich Gagarin: The Search for Orthodox and Catholic Union'', [[University of Notre Dame]] Press. |
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* Antonio Costa and Enrica Zerni, ''La fede e il martirio. P. Pietro Leoni s.j.: un missionario italiano nell'inferno dei Gulag'', Il Cerchio. |
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* Fr. Cyril Korolevsky (1993), ''Metropolitan Andrew (1865–1944)'', translated by Fr. Serge Keleher. Eastern Christian Publications, [[Fairfax, Virginia]] OCLC-52879869. |
* Fr. Cyril Korolevsky (1993), ''Metropolitan Andrew (1865–1944)'', translated by Fr. Serge Keleher. Eastern Christian Publications, [[Fairfax, Virginia]] OCLC-52879869. |
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* [[Pietro Leoni]] (1959), ''Spio del Vaticano!'', Cinque lune. |
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* [[James Likoudis]] (2023), ''Heralds of a Catholic Russia: Twelve Spiritual Pilgrims from Byzantium to Rome'', Blue Army Press, [[World Apostolate of Fatima]]. |
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* Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), ''Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow'', Loreto Publications. |
* Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), ''Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow'', Loreto Publications. |
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* Sr. Mary of the Sacred Heart, OP (2013), ''To Courageously Know and Follow After Truth: The Life and Work of Mother Catherine Abrikosova'', DNS Publications |
* Sr. Mary of the Sacred Heart, OP (2013), ''To Courageously Know and Follow After Truth: The Life and Work of Mother Catherine Abrikosova'', DNS Publications |
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[[Category:Christian organizations established in 1917]] |
[[Category:Christian organizations established in 1917]] |
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[[Category:Christian organizations established in the 20th century]] |
[[Category:Christian organizations established in the 20th century]] |
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[[Category:Pope Pius X]] |
Revision as of 00:51, 21 June 2024
Russian Greek Catholic Church | |
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Russian: Российская греко-католическая церковь | |
Polity | Episcopal |
Pope | Francis |
Primate | Joseph Werth |
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Part of a series on |
Particular churches sui iuris of the Catholic Church |
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Particular churches are grouped by liturgical rite |
Alexandrian Rite |
Armenian Rite |
Byzantine Rite |
East Syriac Rite |
Latin liturgical rites |
West Syriac Rite |
Eastern Catholic Churches Eastern Catholic liturgy ![]() ![]() |
The Russian Greek Catholic Church[a] or Russian Byzantine Catholic Church[1] is a sui iuris Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic Church of the worldwide Catholic Church.[2] Historically, it represents a both a movement away from the control of the Church by the State and towards the reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Catholic Church. It is in full communion with and subject to the authority of the Pope of Rome as defined by Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.
Russian Catholics historically had their own episcopal hierarchy in the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Russia and the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Harbin, China. However, these offices are currently vacant. Their few parishes are served by priests ordained in other Eastern Catholic churches, former Eastern Orthodox priests, and Latin Church Catholic priests with bi-ritual faculties. The Russian Greek Catholic Church is currently led by Bishop Joseph Werth as its ordinary.[3] In a 2019 article for The Catholic Herald, Jon Anderson wrote, "The new frontier among the Eastern Catholic Churches is the Russian Greek Catholic Church, counting around 3,000 members. Even though an exarchate was established in 1917, Soviet repression meant that Eastern Catholics went underground. Their outstanding figure, Mother Catherine Abrikosova, was subjected to a Stalinist show trial and spent more than 10 years in solitary confinement before her death in 1936. The position of Eastern Catholics in Russia – as opposed to that of Poles or Lithuanians in the Latin Church – is still tenuous, with little organisation in place. Their existence remains a flashpoint in Rome’s relations with the Russian Orthodox, who are intensely suspicious of Catholic activity in Russia."[4]
Background
According to Fr. Christopher Lawrence Zugger, the conversion of Kievan Rus in 988 at the orders of the Grand Prince of Kiev St. Vladimir the Great was an entry into a still unified Christendom. It was only over the centuries following the Great Schism in 1054 that anti-Papal and anti-Catholic beliefs grew as a result of the Church in Rus strengthening its alliance with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In 1441, however, Grand Prince Vasily II of Moscow embraced Caesaropapism by ordering the imprisonment of Isidore of Kiev, the Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus', for attempting to implement the reunion decrees of the Council of Florence, and his replacement by Metropolitan Jonah. It was only then that the Church in Rus' became definitively schismatic and non-Catholic. The schism was further cemented in 1588, when the Metropolitan See of Moscow was raised to a patriarchate by the Ecumenical Patriarch. By this time, the separation had become so complete that both churches accused each other of being heretics.[5]
Out of all Eastern Orthodox Churches, what Max Weber was later to dub Caesaropapism reached its greatest extreme in the Tsardom of Russia, beginning when Ivan IV the Terrible assumed the title Czar in 1547 and gutted the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from control by the State.[6]
During a speech at the St. Procopius Unionistic Congress in 1959, Fr. John Dvornik explained, "...the attitude of all Orthodox Churches toward the State, especially the Russian Church is dictated by a very old tradition which has its roots in early Christian political philosophy... the Christian Emperor was regarded as the representative of God in the Christian commonwealth, whose duty was to watch not only over the material, but also the spiritual welfare of his Christian subjects. Because of that, his interference in Church affairs was regarded as his duty."[7] This is not so say, however, that State control over the Russian Orthodox Church was always accepted without criticism or opposition.
In defiance of the Tsar's absolute power, St. Philip, the former Starets and Hegumen of the Solovetsky Monastery, located above the Arctic Circle, and Metropolitan bishop of Moscow, preached sermons in Tsar Ivan the Terrible's presence that condemned the indiscriminate use of state terror against real and imagined traitors and their entire families by the Oprichnina. Metropolitan Philip also withheld the traditional blessing from the Tsar during the Divine Liturgy. In response, the Tsar convened a Church Council, whose bishops obediently declared Metropolitan Philip deposed on false charges of moral offenses and imprisoned him in a monastery. When the former Metropolitan refused a request from the Tsar to bless his plans for the 1570 Massacre of Novgorod, Tsar Ivan allegedly sent Malyuta Skuratov to smother the former Bishop inside his cell. Metropolitan Philip was canonized in 1636 and is still commemorated within the Orthodox Church as a, "pillar of orthodoxy, fighter for the truth, shepherd who laid down his life for his flock."[8] Within the Russian Greek Catholic Church, Blessed Leonid Feodorov, the 20th century Exarch of Russia, is known to have had a very deep devotion to Metropolitan St. Philip of Moscow.[9]
Over the centuries that followed, as growing numbers of members of the Eastern Catholic Churches fell under the rule of the House of Romanov as a result of the Khmelnytsky Uprising, the Great Northern War, and the Partitions of Poland, they similarly experienced escalating and brutal religious persecution.
For example, Tsar Peter the Great, whose anti-Catholicism and control over the Russian Church had already caused the martyrdom of Greek Catholic Deacon Peter Artemiev at Solovetsky Monastery on March 30, 1700,[10] was so enraged on 11 July 1705 to see icons of Eastern Catholic Starets, bishop, and martyr St. Josaphat Kuntsevych inside the Basilian monastery church in Polotsk, that the Tsar immediately desecrated the Eucharist and then personally murdered several priests who attempted to retrieve it.[11]
In 1721, the same Tsar and Theophan Prokopovich, as part of their Church reforms, replaced the Patriarch of Moscow with a department of the civil service headed by an Ober-Procurator and called the Most Holy Synod, which oversaw the appointment and deposition of the Church Hierarchy, as a further extension of the Tsar's Government.[12]
Meanwhile, with the grudging exception of the Armenian Catholic Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches were increasingly treated as illegal in the Russian Empire beginning with the forced conversion of the Archeparchy of Polotsk-Vitebsk by Bishop Joseph Semashko between 1837 and 1839 and continuing with the 1874–1875 Conversion of Chelm Eparchy and the martyrdom of 13 unarmed men and boys by the Imperial Russian Army in the village of Pratulin, near Biała Podlaska on January 24, 1874.
It was almost certainly with these events in mind that Leonid Feodorov, the future Greek Catholic Exarch of Russia and Belarus, predicted at Anagni to a fellow Catholic seminarian more than a decade before the fall of the House of Romanov, "Russia will not repent without travelling the Red Sea of the blood of her martyrs and numerous sufferings of her apostles."[13]
Intellectual precursors
The modern Russian Catholic Church owes much to the inspiration of poet and philosopher Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (1853–1900). Inspired by the writings of Fr. Ivan Gagarin, who had sought to win over the Russian Orthodox Church to reunification with the Holy See without abandoning either the Byzantine Rite or the traditional Old Church Slavonic liturgical language[14] and the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Solovyov argued that, just as the world needed the Tsar as a universal monarch, the Church needed the Pope of Rome as a universal ecclesiastical hierarch. Solovyov further argued, however, that the Russian Orthodox Church, "is only separated from Rome de facto, so that one can profess the totality of Catholic doctrine while continuing to belong to the Russian Orthodox Church."[15]
On August 9, 1894, a Russian Orthodox priest and protegé of Solovyov, Fr. Nicholas Tolstoy, entered into full communion with the Holy See by making profession of faith before Bishop Félix Julien Xavier Jourdain de la Passardière at the Church of St. Louis des Français in Moscow. Under oath, Fr. Nicholas renounced all contrary to Catholic doctrine and accepted both the Council of Florence and the First Vatican Council. At Fr. Nicholas's request, all documents relating to his conversion were conveyed to Pope Leo XIII, who kept them along with a personal archive of papers having, "to do with matters in which the Pope was particularly interested."[15]
The person most responsible for the creation of the Russian Greek Catholic Church, however, was Metropolitan bishop Andrey Sheptytsky of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. According to his biographer Fr. Cyril Korolevsky, Sheptytsky's lifelong obsession with reuniting the Russian people with the Holy See goes back at least to his first trip there in 1887. Afterwards, Sheptytsky "wrote some reflections" between October and November of 1887, and expressed his belief, "that the Great Schism, which became definitive in Russia in the fifteenth century, was a bad tree, and it was useless to keep cutting the branches without uprooting the trunk itself, because the branches would always grow back."[16]
Following his elevation to Metropolitan bishop of Lviv and Halych at the insistence of Emperor Franz Joseph in 1901, Metropolitan Andrey's interest in the Russian people continued. Posing as a Ukrainian lawyer on a pleasure trip, he made a secret visit to the Russian Empire in 1907, which he used as a cover for meeting and attempting to convert senior Russian Orthodox and Old Believer clergy.[17]
History
Tsarist policy of persecuting Eastern Catholics continued unchecked until the Russian Revolution of 1905, when Tsar Nicholas II grudgingly granted religious tolerance. Thereafter, communities of Russian Greek Catholics emerged and became organized.[18] Old Believers were prominent in the early years of the movement.
After the Russian Revolution of 1905, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, who was seeking to assume jurisdiction over the growing number of Eastern Catholics in Russia, had two audiences, in 1907 and 1908, with Pope Pius X in which the matter of creating an underground Byzantine Catholic Church in the Russian Empire was discussed at length. After being asked, the Pope confirmed Metropolitan Andrey's belief that he, instead of the local Roman Rite Bishops, already held jurisdiction over all Byzantine Catholics living under Tsarism. In order to spread the Catholic Church in Russia, the Pope also granted Sheptytsky all the authority of an Patriarch of a self-governing Eastern Catholic Church, but without the actual title, over the Russian Empire. In addition to the extremely rare privilege of Communicatio in sacris as a tool of Greek Catholic evangelisation, Sheptytsky was told that he was free to ordain priests and even to consecrate Bishops while reporting only to the Pope himself. Pope Pius advised Sheptytsky, however, to delay using his powers openly until a more opportune time, as otherwise the infamously anti-Catholic Imperial Russian Government would cause an enormous amount of trouble for him.[19]
Soon after, the semi-underground parish of the Russian Greek Catholic Church in St. Petersburg split between the followers of Pro-Latinisation priest Fr. Aleksei Zerchaninov and those of Pro-Orientalist priest Fr. Ivan Deubner. When asked by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky to make a decision on the dispute, Pope Pius X decreed that Russian Greek Catholic priests should offer the Divine Liturgy Nec Plus, Nec Minus, Nec Aliter ("No more, No Less, No Different") than priests of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Old Believers.[20][21][22]
After the outbreak of World War I, the heavily Eastern Catholic Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was occupied by the Imperial Russian Army. Count Georgiy Bobrinsky, an infamously anti-Catholic member of the Tsarist civil service, was appointed as Governor General of a Province which had long been claimed as Russian territory by both extreme and moderate Slavophiles. A policy of anti-Eastern Catholic religious persecution, anti-Jewish pogroms, and forced Russification and both voluntary and forced conversions to Russian Orthodoxy was immediately implemented. Despite his efforts to maintain a purely apolitical stance, Metropolitan Andrey almost immediately became one of the many Habsburg loyalists, Ukrainophile intellectuals, and clergy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church who were arrested by the Tsarist secret police and deported to Siberia. Despite angry questions being raised about his incarceration by members of the Opposition in the Duma, Sheptytsky spent a total of three years as a prisoner of conscience held by the Russian Orthodox monks at the Monastery of Saint Euthymius in Suzdal.[22]
After the February Revolution of 1917 and the forced abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the new Russian Provisional Government ordered his release. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky travelled immediately to St. Petersburg, where he convened an ecclesiastical council under the secret authority granted to him by Pope Pius X in 1907 and 1908. During the Council, the Metropolitan organized the first Apostolic Exarchate for Russian Catholics with Most Reverend Leonid Feodorov,[23] formerly a Russian Orthodox seminarian, as the first Exarch.[24]
On 19 May 1917, Vladimir Abrikosov, who along with his wife Anna Abrikosova, had long been the driving force behind the formerly underground Russian Catholic parish in Moscow, was ordained to the priesthood by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.[25] Even though the ordination of married men to the priesthood is allowed by the canon law of the Eastern Catholic Churches, the Abrikosovs had already taken a vow of chastity[26] in a ritual which the rule of the Dominican Third Order at the time only very rarely permitted to married couples and only after first receiving the approval of "a prudent spiritual director."[27]
On the feast of St. Dominic in August 1917, Anna Abrikosova took vows as a Dominican sister, assuming at that time her religious name in honor of Catherine of Siena, and founded a Greek-Catholic religious congregation of the Order in her Moscow apartment. Several of the women among the secular tertiaries joined her in taking vows as well. Thus was a community of the Dominican Third Order Regular, with Father Vladimir Abrikosov as its chaplain, established in what was soon to be Soviet Russia. Mother Catherine took as her motto in the religious life, "Christ did not come down from the Cross, they took Him down dead."[28]
According to Father Georgii Friedman, Mother Catherine and the Sisters made an unusual choice for a religious community, inspired, it is believed, by the example of the Discalced Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne during the French Revolution, "In addition to the three usual religious vows, the sisters took a fourth vow, to suffer for the salvation of Russia. God heard their desire, and soon they were to suffer much, for many years."[29]
The October Revolution and Anti-Catholic religious persecution soon followed, dispersing Russian Greek Catholics to Siberia, the Gulag and the Russian diaspora throughout the world.
At the same time, though, conversions continued to take place. In 1918, Fr. Potapy Emelianov, a priest of the Old Ritualist tradition within Russian Orthodoxy, entered into communion with the Holy See along with his entire parish, which was located at Nizhnaya Bogdanovka, near Lugansk, in modern Ukraine.[30][31][32]
Meanwhile, Exarch Leonid Feodorov made presentations, participated in discussions with Orthodox clergy,[33] including Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and Metropolitan Benjamin of Petrograd. At the time, Patriarch Tikhon was faced with the ongoing Soviet-backed Living Church Schism and was determined defend the hard won independence of the Moscow Patriarchate from again being lost to control by the State. For this reason, Patriarch Tikhon was both meeting regularly to discuss possible reunion with both the Exarch and with Father Vladimir Abrikosov. The Patriarch was also urging those Orthodox clergy and laity who remained loyal to him to similarly meet with the Russian Catholics in order to discuss the possible reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Holy See under the terms laid down at the Council of Florence in 1439. [34]
This was why, when Fr. Edmund A. Walsh, the head of the American and Papal relief missions during the Russian famine of 1921, and the Exarch of the Russian Greek Catholic Church first met one another and conversed in Ecclesiastical Latin, Feodorov, who admired Patriarch Tikhon and felt only contempt for the so-called Living Church, urged that the Famine Relief food supplies be entrusted to not only to Catholic clergy, but also to those Russian Orthodox priests who remained loyal to Patriarch Tikhon for distribution to the starving. Fr. Walsh enthusiastically agreed with the Exarch's idea and ensured that it was carried out. In Orenburg alone, his assistant, Fr. Louis J. Gallagher hosted six local Russian Orthodox bishops to his table to organize the delivery of food supplies to the starving.[35]
Meanwhile, according to historian Edward E. Roslof, to a much greater extent than the Rurikid and Romanov Tsars before them, the Soviet State and it's secret police, the GPU, had no intention of tolerating the possible reunion of East and West, and were especially determined to snuff out all efforts to preserve the continued independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from the State's power and control. For this reason,[36] in the spring of 1923, along with multiple codefendants including Archbishop Jan Cieplak and Monsignor Konstanty Budkiewicz, Exarch Leonid Feodorov was prosecuted for counterrevolution and anti-Soviet agitation by Nikolai Krylenko. Feodorov was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in the Soviet concentration camps at Solovki,[37][38] located above the Arctic Circle in the former Solovetsky Monastery in the White Sea.
During a conversation inside the anti-religious museum at Solovki with fellow Russian Greek Catholic political prisoner Julia Danzas, the Exarch revealed that felt profoundly moved to be incarcerated in the former monastery complex once led by St. Philip of Moscow. The Exarch also reverently kissed both the vestments once used by the former Hegumen and the stone which St. Philip had once used instead of a pillow. The Exarch commented, "On this stone, the Saint had not only radiant visions, but how many bitter tears did he shed!"[39]
When Danzas described her own recent struggles inside the Irkutsk labor camp against spiritual despondency and doubt, the Exarch advised her, "That is well. The Lord will sustain you, but if ever the moment returns when you no longer feel this support, don't be frightened. The Lord's aid is perhaps precisely the most abundant when it seems that He has forsaken us."[40]
During a later conversation, the Exarch confided in Danzas, "The true Messianism of the Russian Church is not what the Slavophiles have imagined, but it is the example of suffering. It is in this way that she shows that she is the continuation of Christ in this world."[41]
Missions also continued among White émigrés in the Russian diaspora. Following her conversion, Hélène Iswolsky regularly attended the Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Holy Trinity, located near the Porte d'Italie in Paris. She later praised the pastor, Mgr. Alexander Evreinov, in her memoirs. Mgr. Alexander, Iswolsky wrote, offered the Byzantine Rite without the liturgical latinisations commonly added in Galicia and, "one might have thought oneself at an Orthodox service, except that prayers were offered for the Pope and our hierarchical head, the Archbishop of Paris." Iswolsky added that the chapel, although humble, "was decorated in the best of taste and according to the strictest Russian religious style; the iconostasis was the work of a Russian painter well-versed in ancient Eastern iconography. The central panel was a faithful copy of Rubleff's Trinity."[42]
In 1928, a second Apostolic Exarchate was set up, for the Russian Greek Catholic refugees in China, based in Manchuria and led by Belarusian missionary priest Fabijan Abrantovich and based from the now ruined St. Vladimir's Cathedral in Harbin; the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Harbin.[18] Exarch Fabijan was arrested, however, by the NKVD after a visit to his family in the Second Polish Republic was interrupted by the beginning of the Second World War. After Exarch Fabijan was martyred in the Gulag, the Harbin Exarchate fell under the Omophorion of Exarchs Vendelín Javorka and Andrzej Cikoto, who both ultimately faced highly similar fates to Exarch Fabijan.[43]
The Collegium Russicum, which was founded on August 15, 1929 by Pope Pius XI, was intended to train Russian Greek Catholic priests to serve as missionaries in the growing Russian diaspora of anti-communist political refugees and, despite the anti-religious persecution taking place in the Soviet Union, in that very country. The money for the college building and its reconstruction was taken from an aggregate of charity donations from faithful all over the world on the occasion of the canonization of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the Pope chose to place the Russicum under her patronage. The Russicum faculty included the prominent Russian Symbolist poet, literary scholar, and Catholic convert Vyacheslav Ivanov.
Meanwhile, Russian Orthodox Archbishop Bartholomew Remov had at first supported the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Metropolitan Sergei's 1927 declaration of loyalty to the Soviet State. According to recent historian Irina Osipova, however, Metropolitan Bartholomew, "could not accept the harsh policy which Sergei adopted after the schism that divided the clergy in two camps. Bartholomew was disturbed by threats to visit punishment on every 'insubordinate' priest and by the mass arrests and sentencing of these recalcitrants."[44]
In 1932, Bartholomew Remov was secretly received into the Russian Greek Catholic Church by underground Latin Bishop Pie Eugène Neveu. After Remov's conversion became known to Joseph Stalin's NKVD, the Archbishop was arrested on 21 February 1935 and was accused of being, "a member of the Catholic group of a counterrevolutionary organization attached to the illegal Petrovsky Monastery" and of anti-Soviet agitation.[45]
Exarch Leonid Feodorov died on 14 March 1935 at Viatka, Russia, where he had been assigned to live in internal exile following his release from the Gulag.
On June 17, 1935, a closed session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union sentenced Archbishop Bartholomew Remov, "to the supreme penalty, death by shooting, with confiscation of property. The sentence is final and no appeal is allowed."[46] Metropolitan Bartholomew Remov was executed soon after.
Mother Catherine Abrikosova died of spinal cancer based in the sacral bone in Butyrka prison on 23 July 1936. Similarly to Metropolitan Bartholomew Remov, her remains were secretly cremated at buried in a Mass grave at the Donskoy Cemetery of central Moscow.
Following the outbreak of the Second World War, several Greek Catholic Jesuit priests who had graduated from the Russicum in Rome, including Frs. Walter Ciszek, Pietro Leoni, Ján Kellner, Viktor Novikov, and Jerzy Moskwa, used the ensuing chaos as a means of entering the U.S.S.R. incognito with the intention of running clandestine apostolates there. All were captured almost immediately,[47] having been betrayed by Alexander Kurtna, a convert from Estonian Orthodoxy, former Russicum seminarian, and NKVD mole, who worked between 1940 and 1944 as a lay translator for the Vatican's Congregation for the Eastern Churches. Ironically, Kurtna and Fr. Walter Ciszek, who had been friend at the Russicum, met once again in 1948 as fellow political prisoners in the Norillag labor camp region of the Soviet Gulag.[48][49]
Meanwhile, because of the rigorous training and spiritual formation that Anna Abrikosova had given to the surviving sisters of her convent and the converts they made in secret over the decades following their arrests, the Russian Greek Catholic Church continued to exist on Soviet soil among both the sisters and the laity, even when there were no longer any Russian Catholic priests left to administer the Sacraments. This continued until 1979, when the surviving Sisters arranged for Soviet Jewish convert and former Jazz saxophonist Georgii Davidovich Friedmann to be secretly and illegally ordained by a Bishop of the underground Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.[50]
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the surviving Russian Greek Catholics, many of whom were directly connected to the Greek Catholic community of Dominican Sisters founded in August 1917 by Mother Catherine Abrikosova, began to appear in the open. At the same time, the martyrology of the Russian Greek Catholic Church began to be investigated.[51]
In 2001, Exarch Leonid Feodorov was beatified during a Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy offered in Lviv by Pope John Paul II.[37][38]
In 2003, a positio towards the Causes for Beatification of six of what Fr. Christopher Zugger has termed, "The Passion bearers of the Russian Catholic Exarchate":[52] Fabijan Abrantovich, Anna Abrikosova, Igor Akulov, Potapy Emelianov, Halina Jętkiewicz, and Andrzej Cikoto; was submitted to the Holy See's Congregation for the Causes of Saints by the Bishops of the Catholic Church in Russia.[53]
With the religious freedom experienced after the fall of Communism, there were calls from Russian Greek Catholic clergy and laity to for a new Exarch to the long existing vacancy. Such a move would have been strongly objected to by the Russian Orthodox Church, which caused Cardinal Walter Kasper to repeatedly persuade Pope John Paul II to refuse out of concern for damaging ecumenism. For the same reason, Cardinal Kasper repeatedly told Russian Catholics to their faces to either switch to the Latin Church or convert to Orthodoxy. In 2004, however, the Vatican's hand was forced when a convocation of Russian Greek Catholic priests met in Sargatskoye, Omsk Oblast and used their rights under canon law to elect Father Sergey Golovanov as temporary Exarch. The Pope then moved quickly to replace Father Sergey with Bishop Joseph Werth, the Latin Church Apostolic Administrator of Siberia, based in Novosibirsk. Bishop Werth was appointed by Pope John Paul II as ordinary for all non-Armenian Catholic Church Eastern Catholics in the Russian Federation. By 2010, five parishes had been registered with civil authorities in Siberia, while in Moscow two parishes and a pastoral center operate without official registration. There are also communities in Saint Petersburg and Obninsk.[18]
In the Russian diaspora, there are Russian Catholic parishes and faith communities in San Francisco, New York City, El Segundo, Denver, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Dublin, Paris, Chevetogne, Lyon, Munich, Rome, Milan, and Singapore.[citation needed] Many are all under the jurisdiction of the respective local Latin Church bishops. The communities in Denver,[54] Dublin, and Singapore do not have a Russian national character but exist for local Catholics who wish to worship in the Russo-Byzantine style.[citation needed] The community in Denver is currently under the jurisdiction of the Ruthenian Eparchy of Phoenix.
In a 2005 article, Russian Catholic priest Fr. Sergei Golovanov stated that three Russian Greek Catholic priests served on Russian soil celebrating the Russian Byzantine Divine Liturgy. Two of them used the recension of the Russian Liturgy as reformed by Patriarch Nikon of Moscow in 1666. The other priest used the medieval rite of the Old Believers, that is to say, as the Russian liturgical recension existed before Patriarch Nikon's reforms of the Russian Liturgy. All Eastern Catholics in the Russian Federation strictly maintain the use of Church Slavonic, although vernacular Liturgies are more common in the Russian diaspora.
As of 2014, the two Exarchates of Russia and Harbin are still listed in the Annuario Pontificio as extant, but they have not yet been reconstituted, nor have new Russian-Rite bishops been appointed to head them.
By 2018, there have been reports of 13 parishes and five pastoral points in Siberia with seven parishes and three pastoral points in European Russia. Some parishes serve the Ukrainians in Russia. The Ordinariate has minimal structure. A Byzantine Catholic mitered archpriest serves as Secretary to the Ordinary. There is a priest coordinator for the parishes in Siberia and a liturgical commission and a catechetical commission.[55]
- 1997 – 2004 Protopresbyter Sergey Golovanov
- 2004 – Present Bishop Joseph Werth (temporary)
Hierarchy
Apostolic Exarchate of Russia
It has been vacant since 1951, having had only two incumbents, both belonging to the Ukrainian Studite Monks (M.S.U., a Byzantine Rite Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church monastic order):
- Blessed Leontiy Leonid Feodorov, M.S.U. (1917.05.28 – 1935.03.07)
- Blessed Klymentiy Sheptytsky, M.S.U. (1939.09.17 – 1951.05.01); also first Hegumen of Ukrainian Studite Monks (1919 – 1944.11), then Archimandrite of Ukrainian Studite Monks (1944.11 – 1951.05.01)
Apostolic Exarchate of Harbin
Name | Term | Order | Notes | Refs |
---|---|---|---|---|
Fabijan Abrantovich | 20 May 1928 – 1939 | Marian Fathers | Arrived in Harbin in September 1928. Recalled to Rome in 1933. Died 1946. | [56] |
Vendelín Javorka | 1933–1936 | Jesuit | Apostolic administrator sede plena | [56] |
Andrzej Cikoto | 20 October 1939 – 13 February 1952 | Marian Fathers | 1933–1939 superior general of the Marian Fathers in Rome. Later made archimandrite. Died in office in prison |
Further reading
- The Servant of God Mother Catherine Abrikosova, TOSD (2019), The Seven Last Words of Our Lord Upon the Cross, Translated by Joseph Lake and Brendan D. King. St. Augustine's Press, South Bend, Indiana.
- Jeffrey Bruce Beshoner (2002), Ivan Sergeevich Gagarin: The Search for Orthodox and Catholic Union, University of Notre Dame Press.
- Antonio Costa and Enrica Zerni, La fede e il martirio. P. Pietro Leoni s.j.: un missionario italiano nell'inferno dei Gulag, Il Cerchio.
- Fr. Cyril Korolevsky (1993), Metropolitan Andrew (1865–1944), translated by Fr. Serge Keleher. Eastern Christian Publications, Fairfax, Virginia OCLC-52879869.
- Pietro Leoni (1959), Spio del Vaticano!, Cinque lune.
- James Likoudis (2023), Heralds of a Catholic Russia: Twelve Spiritual Pilgrims from Byzantium to Rome, Blue Army Press, World Apostolate of Fatima.
- Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow, Loreto Publications.
- Sr. Mary of the Sacred Heart, OP (2013), To Courageously Know and Follow After Truth: The Life and Work of Mother Catherine Abrikosova, DNS Publications
- Irina I. Osipova (2003), Hide Me Within Thy Wounds; The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the USSR, Germans From Russia Heritage Collection.
- Irina Osipova (2014), Brides of Christ, Martyrs for Russia: Mother Catherine Abrikosova and the Eastern Rite Dominican Sisters, Translated and Self Published by Geraldine Kelley.
- Christopher Zugger (2001), The Forgotten; Catholics in the Soviet Empire from Lenin to Stalin, Syracuse University Press.
In popular culture
- Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn interviewed surviving Russian Greek-Catholic Dominican sister Nora Rubashova in Moscow during his research process.[57] For this reason, Mother Catherine Abrikosova and the persecution of her monastic community and of their fellow Russian Catholics by the Soviet Government are mentioned by Solzhenitsyn in the first volume of his 1973 non-fictional expose The Gulag Archipelago.[58]
- The opening scene of the 1980 romantic comedy The Black Marble was filmed inside St. Andrew's Russian Greek Catholic Church in El Segundo, California.
See also
- Anna Abrikosova
- Peter Artemiev
- Byzantine Rite
- Chevetogne Abbey
- Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (Moscow)
- Church Slavonic language
- Eastern Catholic Churches
- Florentine Union
- Metropolitan Isidore of Kiev, All Russia and Moscow
- Niederalteich Abbey
- Russicum
- Theresa Kugel
- Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov
- Church of the Assumption of Mary (Astrakhan)
Notes
References
- ^ Rocca, Francis X. (7 June 2017). "Feeling Abandoned, Russian Catholics Appeal to the Pope". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ "Russian Byzantine Catholic Church: caught between the Vatican and Russian Orthodox". Rome Reports. 10 July 2017. Archived from the original on 13 July 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ "Apostolic Exarchate of Russia, Russia (Russian Rite)". GCatholic. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ The Beautiful Witness of the Eastern Catholic Churches, by Jon Anderson, The Catholic Herald, March 7, 2019.
- ^ Zugger 2001, pp. 12–14.
- ^ Bainton, Roland H. (1966), Christendom: A Short History of Christianity, vol. I, New York: Harper & Row, p. 119
- ^ Hélène Iswolsky (1960), Christ in Russia: The History, Tradition, and Life of the Russian Church, The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee. Page 80.
- ^ Constantine de Grunwald (1960), Saints of Russia, The Macmillan Company, New York. Pages 104–124.
- ^ Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow, Loreto Publications. Pages 236–237.
- ^ Father Cyril Korolevsky, Metropolitan Andrew (1865–1944), Stauropegion, 1993. Distributed in North America by Eastern Christian Publications. Page 250.
- ^ Historia o pozabiianiu bazilianów w połockiey cerkwi przez cara moskiewskiego etc. w roku 1705tym, dnia 30 Junia starego. Paris: Renou at Maulde. 1863.
- ^ Cracraft, James (1971). The Church Reform of Peter the Great. Stanford University Press. pp. 112–302. ISBN 978-0-8047-0747-3.
- ^ Cyril Korolevsky (1993), Metropolitan Andrew (1865–1944), Stauropegion, Lviv. Volume 1. Page 285.
- ^ Jeffrey Bruce Beshoner (2002), Ivan Sergeevich Gagarin: The Search for Orthodox and Catholic Union, University of Notre Dame Press. pp. 49-208.
- ^ a b Korolevsky 1993, p. 251.
- ^ Korolevsky 1993, p. 249.
- ^ Korolevsky 1993, p. 254-256.
- ^ a b c Roberson, Ronald (2005). "Other Eastern Catholic Communities". The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey. University Press of the Pontifical Oriental Institute. ISBN 9788872103593 – via Catholic Near East Welfare Association.
- ^ Korolevsky 1993, p. 261-269.
- ^ Khomych, Taras (2006). "Eastern Catholic Churches and the Question of 'Uniatism'". Louvain Studies. 31 (3): 214–237. doi:10.2143/LS.31.3.2028184 – via ResearchGate.
- ^ Butcher, Brian A. (2016). "Other Eastern Orthodox Communities". In Kurian, George Thomas; Lamport, Mark A. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 1724. ISBN 978-1-4422-4432-0.
- ^ a b Korolevsky 1993, p. 269-274.
- ^ Zariczniak, Larysa (5 November 2015). "Metropolitan Sheptytsky's Importance to History". Ukrainian Echo. Retrieved 15 December 2020.
- ^ Korolevsky 1993, p. 282-287.
- ^ Korolevsky (1993), p. 311.
- ^ Irina Osipova (2014), Brides of Christ, Martyrs for Russia: Mother Catherine Abriksova and the Eastern Rite Dominican Sisters, Translated and Self Published by Geraldine Kelley. Page 33.
- ^ Dominican Tertiaries Manual, (1952 Edition), pages 23–26, 350–353.
- ^ Irina Osipova (2014), Brides of Christ, Martyrs for Russia: Mother Catherine Abrikosova and the Eastern Rite Dominican Sisters, Translated and Self Published by Geraldine Kelley. Page 358.
- ^ Osipova (2014), page 275.
- ^ Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow, Loreto Publications. Pages 160–165.
- ^ Fr. Constantin Simon, S.J. (2009), Pro Russia: The Russicum and Catholic Work for Russia, Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, Roma. Pages 142–143.
- ^ The Life and Death of Father Potapy Emelianov (in Russian) by Pavel Parfentiev.
- ^ Парфентьев, Павел (2017). Служение блаженного Леонида Федорова в России. Православные католики Одессы.
- ^ Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow, Loreto Publications. Pages 155–187.
- ^ Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow, Loreto Publications. Pages 150-153.
- ^ Edward E. Roslof, Red Priests: Renovationism, Russian Orthodoxy, & Revolution, 1905–1946 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 98.
- ^ a b "Blessed Leonid Feodorov". CatholicSaints.Info. 12 February 2009. Retrieved 15 December 2020.
- ^ a b "Bl. Leonid Feodorov – Saints & Angels". Catholic Online. Retrieved 15 December 2020.
- ^ Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow, Loreto Publications. Pages 236–237.
- ^ Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow, Loreto Publications. Page 237.
- ^ Fr. Paul Mailleux, S.J. (2017), Blessed Leonid Feodorov: First Exarch of the Russian Catholic Church; Bridgebuilder between Rome and Moscow, Loreto Publications. Page 237.
- ^ Iswolsky, Helen (1942). Light Before Dusk: A Russian Catholic in France, 1923–1941. Longmans, Green. pp. 57–59. OCLC 1737899.
- ^ Irina Osipova (2003), Hide Me Within Thy Wounds: The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the U.S.S.R., Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, North Dakota. Pages 137–176.
- ^ I.I. Osipova (2003), Hide Me Within Thy Wounds: The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the USSR from Material in Criminal Investigation and Labor Camp Files, Germans from Russia Heritage Collection. Fargo, North Dakota. Pages 43–44.
- ^ Osipova 2003, p. 42.
- ^ Osipova 2003, p. 47.
- ^ Irina Osipova (2003), Hide Me Within Thy Wounds: The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the U.S.S.R., Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, North Dakota. Pages 137–176.
- ^ David Alvarez and Robert A. Graham, S.J. (1997), Nothing Sacred: Nazi Espionage Against the Vatican, Frank Cass, London. Pages 114–139.
- ^ David Alvarez (2002), Spies in the Vatican: Espionage and Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust, University Press of Kansas. Pages 222–236, 316–318.
- ^ Irina Osipova (2014), Brides of Christ, Martyrs for Russia: Mother Catherine Abrikosova and the Eastern Rite Dominican Sisters, Translated and self published by Geraldine Kelley. Pages 241–313.
- ^ "News from the Catholic Newmartyrs of Russia Program". Catholic Newmartyrs of Russia. 16 June 2002.
- ^ Zugger 2001, pp. 157–169.
- ^ "News from the Catholic Newmartyrs of Russia Program". Catholic Newmartyrs of Russia. 16 June 2002.
- ^ "Ss. Cyril & Methodius Russian Byzantine Community". St. Elizabeth of Hungary Parish. Archived from the original on 12 November 2017. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
- ^ "Католики византийского обряда в России".
- ^ a b Zugger 2001, p. 462.
- ^ Irina Osipova (2014), Brides of Christ, Martyrs for Russia: Mother Catherine Abrikosova and the Eastern Rite Dominican Sisters, Translated and self published by Geraldine Kelley. Page 257.
- ^ Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1973), The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation: I-II, Harper & Row Publishers. Page 37.
Sources
- Korolevsky, Cyril (1993). Metropolitan Andrew (1865–1944). Translated by Keleher, Serge. Fairfax, Virginia: Eastern Christian Publications. OCLC 52879869.
- Osipova, Irina (2003). Hide Me Within Thy Wounds: The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the USSR. Fargo, North Dakota: Germans from Russia Cultural Preservation Foundation. ISBN 978-1-891193-38-5.
- Zugger, Fr. Christopher (2001). The Forgotten: Catholics in the Soviet Empire from Lenin to Stalin. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0-8156-0679-6.
External links
- Directory of Russian Greek Catholic churches, monasteries and institutions in the world.
- The website of Saint Michael's Russian Catholic Church in New York City is a must for anyone desiring to delve deeper into the history of the Russian Catholic Movement.
- “A Brief History of The Russian Byzantine Catholic Church and the Russian Catholics.” Archived 24 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- An online article about a visit to Moscow's Russian Catholics shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union.
- A visit to the same Russian rite Catholic community from 2001.
- The Catholic Newmartyrs of Russia
- Normalization of the Position of Byzantine Rite Catholics in Russia
- The Byzantine – Slavic Rite
- www.damian-hungs.de (in German)