WHY IS THE UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U.S. DIVIDED IN TWO

WHY IS THE UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE U.S. DIVIDED IN TWO? A quick search for “Ukrainian Catholic Church” in a big American city might yield confusing results. One might find Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches, several Ukrainian Catholic churches, Byzantine Greek Catholic churches, Ruthenian Catholic churches. Attend Mass at any of them, and you’ll note similarities in the rites. This is confusing. Current events have increased broad public recognition of Ukraine, its history and its culture. The little-known history of the Ukrainian diaspora in the U.S. reveals the source of this profusion of churches. This history is scattered in disjointed nuggets that illustrate the interaction between Ukrainian American society and that of the home country. One result of such interaction was the separation of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the U.S. into two separate churches, even as it exists as a single entity in the homeland. This August marks the centenary of the unprecedented arrival of two Ukrainian Catholic bishops to the United States. The bishops’ mission was to prevent the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the United States from disintegrating into warring parishes. Their individual successes perpetuated the regional divisions that had dogged the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the United States since the arrival of the first clergy in the middle of the 1880s. Ukrainian Catholic immigrants to the United States tended to identify themselves as members of the specific area from which they emigrated. Immigrants who came from the Carpathian Mountains considered themselves Carpathian Rusyns, preferring an older term over “Ukrainians,” and eventually Anglicizing the term to “Ruthenian.” Immigrants from other parts of Ukraine, especially Catholics from Western Ukraine, called themselves Ukrainians. Harried American immigration officials stamped a variety of names for places of origin in Eastern Europe. Ukrainian territories were divided among many states, so there was no single jurisdiction to determine nomenclature, not to mention transcription. Arguments over Rusyn vs. Ukrainian encapsulated a myriad other issues – organizational, ritual and personal. Since the physical object of the Catholic Church was often the main gathering place for the immigrants, political issues arose alongside spiritual topics. Priests (Ukrainian and Rusyn) were therefore placed in dual roles: organizing the church and the community. Neither church nor community at the time had a firm structure or authority among immigrants to mitigate the discord and the public strife. The bishops, it was hoped, would organize the church, and the community would follow, ending disputes over politics, religion and real estate. The thinking of the Ukrainian upper clergy at the time was that eventually, the two bishoprics would form one metropolia/archbishopric . In theory, the Pope appoints all bishops; in practice the Pontiff relies on the advice of the pertinent clergy as well as of Vatican personnel. Soter Ortynsky, the first Ukrainian Catholic bishop in the U.S., died in 1916. Since he had come from the Lviv Eparchy (Western Ukraine or Halychyna), the offices at the Holy See began considering candidates for the new U.S. Ukrainian bishop from the Carpathian region’s Mukachiv Eparchy. Deliberations proceeded through World War I, the death of Pope Benedict XV in 1922, and the election of Pope Pius XI that same year. Seismic political changes occurred in Ukrainian home areas when the AustroHungarian Empire was replaced by independent states, three with significant Ukrainian minorities: Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Through all these years, all involved in the process agreed that the situation of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the United States was critical and that a bishop had to be named as soon as possible. All of Ukraine was devastated by the First World War and the independence struggle that followed. Ukrainians could not maintain an independent state and came under various foreign governments. During this period – 1915 to 1922 – the head the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky, was exiled by the Tsarist Russians and then had to escape to the new Polish Republic. In 1922, he was able to visit the United States. He returned to Europe dejected by what he saw in the States: the priests on whom he had placed his hopes for the American church failed him. He saw the Catholic Church in ruins. The solution, he argued, was to appoint two Ukrainian bishops to America, one for the Rusyns, the other for the Western Ukrainians. The Pope would have to pressure the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. to accept two bishops of a different Rite, since the Americans had earlier objected to even one bishop. But Sheptytsky made such a very strong argument that Rome pressured the IS Catholic Church to agree to the presence of two Ukrainian bishops. Vasyl Takach, a high-ranking priest in the Mukachiv bishopric, quickly floated to the top of the list of candidates for the Rusyn Catholics. He was ideally suited – well educated, skilled in church administration, young, and independently wealthy (the latter an important factor in view of the poverty of Ukrainian American Church). Selecting a bishop for the Western Ukrainians would prove much more complicated, a long process full of intrigue and tied up with the discriminatory anti Ukrainian policies carried out by the new, formally Catholic Polish Republic against Ukrainian Catholic clergy and faithful. During the First World War, the Vatican had been a strong proponent for the reestablishment of an independent Poland. Achilles Ratti (nominated Cardinal in 1921 and elected Pope the following year) served as a Papal troubleshooter briefly in the Russian Empire. He was then sent to Poland where he sought to mitigate the rising ethnic tensions that arose from changed national borders. Ratti was especially shocked by Polish abuse of the Ukrainian Catholic clergy, and the arrest of the Vicar of Peremyshl (a Ukrainian city that came under Polish control) , Constantine Bohachevsky. Ratti met Bohachevsky, who had been obviously beaten and starved, when the priest was transported from Peremyshl to a prison in western Poland. Bohachevsky’s courage, intelligence, and measured demeanor impressed the future Pope. Ratti protested Polish violence against Ukrainians, especially the clergy, and succeeded in having Bohachevsky’s sentence for sedition suspended. Bohachevsky resumed his clerical functions in Peremyshl, then Poland, and he continued his broadscale social policies in Peremyshl. His own legal status remained in limbo, with all his personal documents confiscated. Polish mistreatment of Ukrainians escalated as Ukrainians fought back. Ukrainian Americans responded to the plight of their brethren with renewed activism. At the same time the Soviet regime picked up old Russian Tsarist practices of wreaking havoc in Ukrainian American communities, especially in its Catholic communities. The presence of a Ukrainian Catholic bishop in the U.S. was an urgent need. As noted earlier, Pope Pius XI was persuaded by Metropolitan Sheptytsky’s plea for a second Ukrainian bishop in America, and the Vatican initiated its search for a bishop from Western Ukraine for the U.S. Bohachevsky emerged quickly as a top choice. The young priest was a protégé of Metropolitan Sheptytsky, held a doctorate in theology from Innsbruck, Austria, and he demonstrated extensive administrative abilities in Lviv and in Peremyshl with both church and community matters. The only difficulty was that, as far as the local Polish administration was concerned, Bohachevsky was still on parole. Removing Bohachevsky quietly from Poland would give the Vatican and Polish diplomats a chance to make the whole issue of the arrest of a high-ranking Ukrainian cleric disappear. Nobody in the Church – Polish, Ukrainian, Vatican – wanted to exacerbate national tensions. All involved agreed that Bohachevsky’s appointment as Bishop had to be an utmost secret. Bohachevsky was summoned to Warsaw for what he thought was a routine matter. He packed for an overnight. Once in the presence of the Vatican Nuncio, he was told that the Pope requested him to take a difficult appointment. Before World War I, Bohachevsky had trained seminarians for service in Eastern Ukraine, so he readily accepted what he thought would be an assignment to Soviet Ukraine. Only then was he told he would go to the U.S. Within days, and without contacting anyone, Bohachevsky was whisked illegally with the help of two Vatican staffers through Eastern and Western Europe to Rome. The bishop-to-be was as surprised as the Vatican staff who met him. Takach and Bohachevsky were ordained at a joint ceremony in Rome. Takach immediately travelled back home to hold traditional visits with Ukrainian bishops. Bohachevsky, now with dubious documents, had to stay in the Vatican. He holed himself at the Basilian Convent and learned English, the better to serve his new flock. The two bishops were friendly, but not close. They travelled to New York together and readily agreed on the terms of division of the Philadelphia exarchate. The two branches of the Ukrainian American church went their separate ways. Takach quickly agreed to renounce all claims to existing Philadelphia properties. The Rusyn immigrants had saved enough money to build their bishop all the necessary accoutrements of a diocese. A seminary followed in short order. Sheptytsky had warned his former protégé that he would have to sacrifice himself for his flock, but Bohachevsky could not have envisaged how difficult his first decade as bishop would be. He had no personal resources. The diocese was on the verge of bankruptcy. Bohachevsky took an unpreceded step: he turned the episcopal residence into a dormitory for high school boys. The bishop moved into two unheated rooms above his office. This would be where he received all his visitors, a far cry from the palatial setting in Lviv or Peremyshl. He borrowed money from the Roman Catholic Church to offset bankruptcy. He did not disclose the financial difficulties of the Ukrainian Church even to the clergy in the home country or to his family. Rather, he helped what causes he could, including sending five dollars monthly to his mother in Ukraine. He finally moved into a modest private house in north Philadelphia in the late 1940s when a high Vatican official announced his visit to the diocese. Both bishoprics separately went through a period of crisis directed at each respective bishop. Separately both bishops built strong congregations, ready to face the challenges of World War II and the new wave of immigrants. Each diocese lived its life, and the two congregations peacefully drifted further apart. By the 1960s, each was elevated to an Archbishopric (Metropolitanate). By the end of the 1980s, the Ukrainian Catholic Churches in the U.S. were able to offer meaningful support to the Ukrainian Catholic Church as it sought to legalize its status. It had been banned and brutally suppressed under the Soviets. The Carpathian Church, by now known as the Byzantine Greek Catholic Church or the Ruthenian Catholic Church perpetuated the Eastern Catholic rite and traditions from home among growing generations of Americans. In Ukraine, time softened regional distinctions and the Church remained united. A small irony (or prank) history plays: America, the melting pot of nations, preserved regionalism in the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the U.S. Martha Bohachevsky Chomiak