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Ukrainian Orthodoxy |
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Orthodoxie ukrainienne |
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Ukrainian Catholism and Orthdoxy
Question:
Can you tell me which faith is more similiar:
Ukrainian Catholic and Roman Catholic
or Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox?
Response:
Dr. Alexander Roman alex.roman@unicorne.org
Dear Friend,
Thank you for your very interesting question!
Simply put, both Ukrainian Catholics and Roman Catholics share the exact same faith as they both belong to Particular Churches whose centre of church unity and visible head is the Pope of Rome. If they did not, they would not be union with one another. However . . .
When the bishops of the Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Metropolia (which included both Ukrainians and Belarusyans in 1596) decided to become Eastern Catholic, they signed a 33-point doctrinal statement that was not, however, simply a submission to Rome. Certainly, Rome did not honour those terms and conditions nor would it, given its papal triumphalism. Notwithstanding the naivete of the bishops at that time, they did at least have a vision of themselves being “Orthodox in communion with Rome” and this is how the early Eastern Catholics at that time called themselves (as the Ukrainian Orthodox Metropolitan Ilarion Ohienko also affirmed in his writings).
This meant that they saw themselves as keeping to the fullest possible measure the width and breadth of their Eastern Christian spirituality, traditions, canonical laws and ethos as a whole. Eastern Catholic spirituality is therefore much closer to that of the Orthodox Church than to the Roman Catholic Church – despite historic attempts to Latinize Eastern Catholics, a process that came from Eastern Catholic leaders as much as from Rome, Poland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Even on those points of faith where Eastern Catholics differ for having accepted the Roman Catholic position, today they tend toward the Orthodox Christian perspective. So there are Ukrainian Catholic parishes where the Nicene Creed is recited in exactly the same way as in the Orthodox Church, where the Immaculate Conception is the “Conception of St Anne” and where their patriarch is seen as the most significant administrative head.
You will find that Ukrainian Catholics will feel out of place in a Roman Catholic parish and where there are no Eastern Catholic parishes, they would go to a Ukrainian Orthodox parish ahead of a Roman Catholic one.
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| Reactions previously posted: | |
| By: Joffridus I would add, also, that many Eastern Catholics have come a long way in the last 25 to 35 years in "de-Latinizing." And this with the encouragement of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. | |
| By: Mary I have a friend who is Ukranian Eastern Orthodox and since she could not find a church to attend, I invited her to the Catholic Church. She said it was similar, except they do not drink the Blessed Blood of Christ from a chalice, but the pastor puts it on the tip of a spoon and drops it on the tongue. I understood that the bread which becomes the Body of Christ during the Consecration (in the Catholic Church) it is only a piece of real bread that is also given to them on the tip of the tongue. She said something miraculous has happened to her since attending the Catholic Church with me. She was baptized Catholic in infancy and when she married the first time, she turned to her husband\'s religion which was the Ukranian-Orthodox. She said now that her husband has passed away, she feels compelled to return to the Catholic faith. She feels it is the right thing to do. She gets teary eyed when she comes into the Catholic Church to worship our Lord as this good feeling comes oer her. | |
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Ukrainian Orthodoxy - Українське Православ'я