Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/834

 GREEK

74S

GREEK

altered and rearranged for the necessities of their rite, while one or two are churches brought over from the schismatics. The first Greek Catholic Mass in New York City was celebrated in the basement of St. Brigid's church on Avenue A (which was put at the disposal of the Greeks by the late Archbishop Corri- gan), on 19 April, 1890, by the Rev. Alexander Dzu- bay, who is still in active parish work in America. This Greek congregation afterwards bought a church in Brooklyn iSt. Elias, 1892), and there was no Ru- thenian church in Manhattan until the Greek Catholic church of St. George was opened in 190;>. In Febru- ary, 1909, the Greek Bishop Soter bought a Protestant Episcopal church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, re- fitted it, and consecrated it as the Greek Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, and in the ad- joining parish house and rectory will also open a semi- nary for the education of American priests of the Greek Rite. Of course many Ruthenian settlements in various localities are too poor to build and maintain achurch, nor are there just at present sufficient priests in America to attend to their spiritual needs. Still there are at present (1909) about 140 Ruthenian (ireek Catholic churches in the United States, and there are also ten more new ones projected for waiting congregations. Their churches are distributed as follows: —

Pennsylvania

80

Indiana

3

New York

14

Missouri

3

Ohio

12

West Virginia

2

New Jersey

10

Minnesota

2

Connecticut

4

Rhode Island

1

Illinois

4

Virginia

1

Massachusetts

4

The Ruthenian Greek Catholic clergy in tlje United S ites consists (1909), of one bishop and 118 priests, or i nnatins from the following dioceses: —

1) ioce.se

Monks

Secular Clergy

Celiba

es

Married

\Vi

dowers

Lemberg

4

8

.5

5

I'l^niysl

6

12

2

Stauislau

2

2

1

Kperies

1

13

10

Munk:ics

2

1

.30

5

Krciilz

1

•Sfi anion

1

2

I'hihi.l.'lphia

4

Pittsh :rg

1

6

25

64

23

Several of these priests are converts from the Ortho- dox ( Irock Church in the United States. As has been said, men who are already married are ordained to the iliaconate and priesthood in the Greek Church, and so it naturally followed that married priests were .sent to .\rnerica. While a married priesthood seems repugnant to a Catholic of the Latin Rite, yet it is strongly adhered to by the Greek Catholics as vaguely a part of their nationality and Kastern Rite. .•\li ,\n"ierican Cireek (Jatholic priests will hereafter be ordained from celibate candidates only, according to the provisi ) IS of the .Apo.stolic Letter "Ea semper", which will be referred to later. The growing impor- tance of the Greek Rite in America, the dissensions arising out of old-country political factions among the Hutheiiians, which will be mentioned later on, and which occasioned serious interference with the normal growth of the Greek Church, and the increasing in- tensity of the elTorts of the Ru.ssian Orthodox to detach the Ruthenians in America from their faith and unity (.see CinEEK Orthodox Cihirch in Amer- ica) cau.sed the Holy Father in 1907 to provide a

Greek Catholic bishop for America. Previous to this (1902) the Holy See had sent the Right Rev. Andrew Hodobay, titular abbot and canon of the Greek Dio- cese of Eperies, as ."Vpostolic visitor to the Ruthenians in .'Vmerica. who examined the conditions of the Catholics of the Greek Rite in all parts of the United States and returned to Europe in 190<; with his report. The choice of a bishop for the Ruthenian Greek Cath- olics fell upon the Right Rev. Stephen Soter Ortynski, a Basilian monk, hegumenos of the monastery of St. Paul, Michaelovka, Galicia. On 12 May, 1907, he was consecrated titular Bishop of Daulia by the Mo.st Rev. .4ndrew Roman Ivanovitch Scheptitzky, Greek Metropolitan of Lemberg, and the other Greek bishops of Galicia, and he arrived in America on 27 .-Vugust, 1907. Shortly after his arrival (September, 1907) the Apostolic Letter "Ea semper", concerning the new bishop for the Ruthenian Greek Catholics in the LTnited States, his powers and duties, and the general constitution of the Greek Rite in America was pul> lished. It created considerable dissatisfaction among the Greek clergy and laity inasmuch as it did not pro- vide for any diocesan power or authority for the new bishop, but placed him as an auxiliary to the Latin bishops, and as it modified several of their immemorial privileges in various ways. The S.acrament of Con- firmation was thereafter to be withheld from infants at baptism, and was not to be conferred by priests, but was reserved for the bishop only (as in the Latin Rite and among the Greeks in Italy), and married priests were not thereafter to be ordained in America or to be .sent thither from abroad, while the regulations as to the marriage of persons of the two rites were also modified. The Greek Ruthenian laity saw in it an attack upon their Slavic nationality and Eastern Rite, an idea which the Russian Orthodox Church eagerly fostered and magnified. They were told by the Or- thodox that the whole letter was a latinization of their Greek Rite in regard to confirmation and Holy orders, and was a nullification in America of the Decrees of the popes that their rite shoulil be kept intact. This resulted in some losses (about 10,000) from the Ruthenians to the Russian Church, but already many of them are coming back. Matters, however, adjusted themselves, and the work of the new bishop is having good results. The whole matter of a Greek bishop in America is so far in an experimental stage, and it rests upon the extent of the current and future immigration, the stability and solidarity of the Ruthenians in their adherence to their faith antl rite, as to what powers and authority their bi.shop .shall ultimately have. Where there is an evident anil actual need for It the Holy See has always granted the erection of Oriental dioceses, but where a minority of a population seems boimd to become assimilated with, and eventually absorbed into, the surroimding population the case may be entirely othervvi.se. The newly appointed bishop has had success in establisliing churches and parochial .schools aufl in inilucing his Kutlieniau Hock to become Ameri- can citizens and identify themselves with American life while not abandoning their faith and their Eiust- ern Rite. He aims to establish English-Ruthenian -schools in each Greek parish ami to open a Ruthenian- American seminary at I'liiladelpliia for the education of .\merican-born Ruthenians as priests of the Greek Rite. There is already one American-Ruthenian priest, lately ordained. In purely theological matters they will be educated as in Latin seminaries, if not actually sent there for lectures, but in the Oriental church rites, discipline, liturgical language, nmsic, and customs the proposed seminary will fill a place for the Ruthenians which our present diocesan seminaries do not fill. The number of church or parochial schools of the Ruthenians is about fifty, where instruction in English, Ruthenian, church catechism, and the ele- ments of a general education is given. No organized