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| Russian Greek Catholic Church | |
|---|---|
| Russian:Российская греко-католическая церковь | |
| Type | Particular church (sui iuris) |
| Classification | Christian |
| Orientation | Eastern Catholic |
| Polity | Episcopal |
| Pope | Leo XIV |
| Liturgy | Byzantine Rite |
TheRussian Greek Catholic Church[a] orRussian Byzantine Catholic Church[b][1] is asui iuris (self-governing)Byzantine RiteEastern Catholicparticular church that is part of the worldwideCatholic Church.[2] Historically, it represents both a movement away from thecontrol of the Church by the State and towards the reunion of theRussian Orthodox Church with the Catholic Church. It is infull communion with and subject to the authority of thePope inRome as defined byCode of Canons of the Eastern Churches.
Russian Catholics historically had their own episcopal hierarchy in theRussian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Russia and theRussian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Harbin,China. In 1907,Pope Pius X appointedUkrainian Greek Catholic MetropolitanAndrey Sheptytsky, theArchbishop of Lviv, to be responsible for supporting Russian Catholics due to the precarious position of their Church within Russia. He continued in this role throughWorld War II.Leonid Feodorov was the first Exarch of Russia, and was imprisoned and exiled by the Soviets for over a decade before dying in 1935. In 1939 Sheptytsky appointed his brotherKlymentiy Sheptytsky as Exarch, and he died in a Soviet prison in 1951. Since the 1950s both Russian Catholicexarchates have been vacant, though they are listed as extant in theAnnuario Pontificio.
In 1928,Pope Pius XI founded theCollegium Russicum, whose graduates have includedWalter Ciszek,Pietro Leoni, andTheodore Romzha, as amajor seminary to train their clergy.[3] A Latin Church bishop, BishopJoseph Werth, is currently theordinary for Byzantine Catholics in Russia.[4]
As of 2019[update], there were around 3,000 members of the church. An exarchate was established in 1917, and Soviet repression meant that Eastern Catholics went underground. Their outstanding figure, MotherCatherine Abrikosova, was subjected to aStalinist-erashow trial and spent more than 10 years insolitary confinement before her death in 1936. The position of Eastern Catholics in Russia – as opposed to that ofPoles orLithuanians in theLatin Church – is still tenuous, with little organisation in place. Their existence remains a flashpoint inRome's relations with theRussian Orthodox, who are intensely suspicious ofCatholic activity in Russia.[5]
According to Fr. Christopher Lawrence Zugger, the conversion ofKievan Rus in 988 at the orders of theGrand Prince of Kiev St.Vladimir the Great was an entry into a still unifiedChristendom. It was only over the centuries following theGreat Schism in 1054 that anti-Papal andanti-Catholic beliefs grew as a result of the Church in Rus strengthening its alliance with theEcumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In 1441, however, Grand PrinceVasily II of Moscow embracedCaesaropapism by ordering the imprisonment ofIsidore of Kiev, theMetropolitan of Kiev and all Rus', for attempting to implement the reunion decrees of theCouncil of Florence, and his replacement by MetropolitanJonah. It was only then that the Church in Rus'became definitively schismatic and non-Catholic. The schism was further cemented in 1588, when theMetropolitan See of Moscow was raised to apatriarchate by the Ecumenical Patriarch. By this time, the separation had become so complete that both churches accused each other of being heretics.[6]
Out of all Eastern Orthodox Churches, whatMax Weber was later to dubCaesaropapism reached its greatest extreme in theTsardom of Russia, beginning whenIvan IV the Terrible assumed the titleCzar in 1547 and gutted the independence of theRussian Orthodox Church from control by the State.[7]
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."[8] 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 formerStarets andHegumen of theSolovetsky Monastery, located above theArctic Circle, andMetropolitan bishop of Moscow, preached sermons in Tsar Ivan the Terrible's presence that condemned the indiscriminate use ofstate terror against real and imagined traitors and their entire families by theOprichnina. Metropolitan Philip also withheld the traditional blessing from the Tsar during theDivine 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 1570Massacre of Novgorod, Tsar Ivan allegedly sentMalyuta 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."[9] Within the Russian Greek Catholic Church, BlessedLeonid Feodorov, the 20th century Exarch of Russia, is known to have had a very deep devotion to Metropolitan St. Philip of Moscow.[10]
Over the centuries that followed, as growing numbers of members of the Eastern Catholic Churches fell under the rule of theHouse of Romanov as a result of theKhmelnytsky Uprising, theGreat Northern War, and thePartitions of Poland, they similarly experienced escalating and brutalreligious persecution.
For example, TsarPeter the Great, whoseanti-Catholicism and control over the Russian Church had already caused themartyrdom of Greek Catholic DeaconPeter Artemiev atSolovetsky Monastery on March 30, 1700,[11] was so enraged on 11 July 1705 to seeicons of Eastern CatholicStarets, bishop, and martyr St.Josaphat Kuntsevych inside theBasilian monastery church inPolotsk, that the Tsar immediately desecrated theEucharist and then personally murdered several priests who attempted to retrieve it.[12]
In 1721,the same Tsar andTheophan Prokopovich, as part of theirChurch reforms, replaced thePatriarch of Moscow with a department of thecivil service headed by anOber-Procurator and called theMost Holy Synod, which oversaw the appointment and deposition of the Church Hierarchy, as a further extension of the Tsar's Government.[13]
Meanwhile, with the grudging exception of theArmenian Catholic Church, theEastern Catholic Churches were increasingly treated as illegal in theRussian Empire beginning with theforced conversion of theArcheparchy of Polotsk-Vitebsk by BishopJoseph Semashko between 1837 and 1839 and continuing with the 1874–1875Conversion of Chelm Eparchy and themartyrdom of13 unarmed men and boys by theImperial Russian Army in the village ofPratulin, nearBiała Podlaska on January 24, 1874.
It was almost certainly with these events in mind thatLeonid Feodorov, the future Greek Catholic Exarch of Russia andBelarus, predicted atAnagni to a fellow Catholic seminarian more than a decade before the fall of theHouse of Romanov, "Russia will not repent without travelling theRed Sea of the blood of her martyrs and numerous sufferings of her apostles."[14]
The modern Russian Catholic Church owes much to the inspiration of poet and philosopherVladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (1853–1900). Inspired by the writings of Fr.Ivan Gagarin, who had sought to win over theRussian Orthodox Church to reunification with theHoly See without abandoning either theByzantine Rite or the traditionalChurch Slavonicliturgical language[15] and theDivine Liturgy, Solovyov argued that, just as the world needed theTsar as a universal monarch, theChurch needed thePope of Rome as a universal ecclesiastical hierarch. Solovyov further argued, however, that the Russian Orthodox Church, "is only separated from Romede facto, so that one can profess the totality of Catholic doctrine while continuing to belong to the Russian Orthodox Church."[16]
On August 9, 1894, a Russian Orthodox priest and protegé of Solovyov, Fr.Nicholas Tolstoy, entered into full communion with theHoly See by making profession of faith before BishopFélix Julien Xavier Jourdain de la Passardière at theChurch of St. Louis des Français inMoscow. Under oath, Fr. Nicholas renounced all contrary to Catholic doctrine and accepted both theCouncil of Florence and theFirst Vatican Council. At Fr. Nicholas's request, all documents relating to his conversion were conveyed toPope Leo XIII, who kept them along with a personal archive of papers having, "to do with matters in which the Pope was particularly interested."[16]
The person most responsible for the creation of the Russian Greek Catholic Church, however, wasMetropolitan bishopAndrey Sheptytsky of theUkrainian Greek Catholic Church. According to his biographer Fr. Cyril Korolevsky, Sheptytsky's lifelong obsession with reuniting theRussian people with theHoly 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 theGreat 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."[17]
Following his elevation toMetropolitan bishop of Lviv and Halych at the insistence ofEmperor 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 andOld Believer clergy.[18]
Tsarist policy of persecuting Eastern Catholics continued unchecked until theRussian Revolution of 1905, whenTsar Nicholas II grudgingly granted religious tolerance. Thereafter, communities of Russian Greek Catholics emerged and became organized.[19]Old Believers were prominent in the early years of the movement.
After theRussian 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, withPope 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 underTsarism. In order to spread theCatholic Church in Russia, the Pope also granted Sheptytsky all the authority of aPatriarch of aself-governing Eastern Catholic Church, but without the actual title, over the Russian Empire. In addition to the extremely rare privilege ofCommunicatio in sacris[20] 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.[21]
Soon after, the semi-underground parish of the Russian Greek Catholic Church inSt. Petersburg split between the followers ofPro-Latinisation priest Fr.Aleksei Zerchaninov and those of Pro-Orientalist priest Fr.Ivan Deubner. When asked by MetropolitanAndrey Sheptytsky to make a decision on the dispute,Pope Pius X decreed that Russian Greek Catholic priests should offer theDivine LiturgyNec Plus, Nec Minus, Nec Aliter ("No more, No Less, No Different") than priests of theRussian Orthodox Church and theOld Believers.[22][23][24]
After the outbreak ofWorld War I, the heavily Eastern CatholicKingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in theAustro-Hungarian Empire wasoccupied by theImperial Russian Army. CountGeorgiy Bobrinsky, an infamously anti-Catholic member of the Tsarist civil service, was appointed asGovernor General of a Province which had long been claimed as Russian territory by both extreme and moderateSlavophiles. A policy of anti-Eastern Catholicreligious persecution, anti-Jewishpogroms, and forcedRussification and both voluntary andforced conversions to Russian Orthodoxy was immediately implemented. Despite his efforts to maintain a purelyapolitical stance, Metropolitan Andrey almost immediately became one of the manyHabsburg loyalists,Ukrainophile intellectuals, and clergy of theUkrainian Greek Catholic Church who were arrested by theTsarist secret police and deported toSiberia. Despite angry questions being raised about his incarceration by members of the Opposition in theDuma, Sheptytsky spent a total of three years as aprisoner of conscience held by the Russian Orthodox monks at theMonastery of Saint Euthymius inSuzdal.[24]
After theFebruary Revolution of 1917 and the forced abdication ofTsar Nicholas II, the newRussian Provisional Government ordered his release. MetropolitanAndrey Sheptytsky traveled immediately toSt. Petersburg, where he convened an ecclesiastical council under the secret authority granted to him byPope Pius X in 1907 and 1908. During the Council, taking place at theChurch of St. Catherine from 18–29 May 1917, the Metropolitan organized the firstApostolic Exarchate for Russian Catholics with Most ReverendLeonid Feodorov,[25][26] formerly aRussian Orthodoxseminarian, as the firstExarch.[27] Among the notable measures accepted at the 1917 synod were recognition of the pope as the head of the church, the use of the same rite as the Russian Orthodox Church rather than the Roman Rite, the acceptance of all saints of the Catholic Church, and the usage of the canon law of the Eastern Catholic Churches.[28]
On 19 May 1917,Vladimir Abrikosov, who along with his wifeAnna Abrikosova, had long been the driving force behind the formerly underground Russian Catholic parish in Moscow, wasordained to thepriesthood byMetropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky of theUkrainian Greek-Catholic Church.[29] Even though the ordination of married men to the priesthood is allowed by thecanon law of theEastern Catholic Churches, the Abrikosovs had already taken a vow of chastity[30] 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 "aprudentspiritual director."[31]
On the feast ofSt. Dominic in August 1917,Anna Abrikosova took vows as a Dominican sister, assuming at that time her religious name in honor ofCatherine of Siena, and founded a Greek-Catholicreligious 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."[32]
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 theDiscalced CarmeliteMartyrs of Compiègne during theFrench 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."[33]
TheOctober Revolution andAnti-Catholicreligious persecutionsoon followed, dispersing Russian Greek Catholics toSiberia, theGulag and theRussian diaspora throughout the world.
At the same time, though, conversions continued to take place. In 1918, Fr.Potapy Emelianov, a formerPriestlessOld Believer andpriest of theOld Ritualist tradition within theRussian Orthodox Church, entered into communion with the Holy See along with his entire parish, which was located atNizhnaya Bogdanovka, nearKadiivka, in theLuhansk Oblast of modern Ukraine.[34][35][36]
Meanwhile, Exarch Leonid Feodorov made presentations, participated in discussions with Orthodox clergy,[37] including PatriarchTikhon of Moscow and MetropolitanBenjamin of Petrograd. At the time, Patriarch Tikhon was faced with the ongoing Soviet-backedLiving Church Schism and was determined defend the hard won independence of theMoscow Patriarchate from again being lost tocontrol by the State. For this reason, Patriarch Tikhon was both meeting regularly to discuss possible reunion with both the Exarch and with FatherVladimir 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 theHoly See under the terms laid down at theCouncil of Florence in 1439.[38]
This was why, when Fr.Edmund A. Walsh, the head of the American and Papal relief missions during theRussian famine of 1921, and the Exarch of the Russian Greek Catholic Church first met one another and conversed inEcclesiastical 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. InOrenburg 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.[39]
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, theGPU, 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,[40] in the spring of 1923, along with multiple codefendants including ArchbishopJan Cieplak and MonsignorKonstanty Budkiewicz,ExarchLeonid Feodorov was prosecuted forcounterrevolution andanti-Soviet agitation byNikolai Krylenko. Feodorov was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in the Sovietconcentration camps atSolovki,[41][42] located above theArctic Circle in the formerSolovetsky Monastery in theWhite Sea.
During a conversation inside the anti-religious museum at Solovki with fellow Russian Greek Catholicpolitical prisonerJulia Danzas, the Exarch revealed that felt profoundly moved to be incarcerated in the former monastery complex once led bySt. Philip of Moscow. The Exarch also reverently kissed both the vestments once used by the formerHegumen 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!"[43]
When Danzas described her own recent struggles inside theIrkutsklabor 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."[44]
During a later conversation, the Exarch confided in Danzas, "The trueMessianism of the Russian Church is not what theSlavophiles 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."[45]
Missions also continued amongWhite émigrés in theRussian diaspora. Following her conversion,Hélène Iswolsky regularly attended theDivine Liturgy at the Church of the Holy Trinity, located near thePorte d'Italie inParis. She later praised the pastor, Mgr.Alexander Evreinov, in her memoirs. Mgr. Alexander, Iswolsky wrote, offered theByzantine Rite without theliturgical 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; theiconostasis was the work of a Russian painter well-versed in ancient Eastern iconography. The central panel was a faithful copy ofRubleff's Trinity."[46]
In 1928, a secondApostolic Exarchate was set up, for the Russian Greek Catholic refugees inChina, based inManchuria and led byBelarusian missionary priestFabijan Abrantovich and based from the now ruined St. Vladimir's Cathedral inHarbin; theRussian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Harbin.[19] Exarch Fabijan was arrested, however, by theNKVD after a visit to his family in theSecond Polish Republic was interrupted by the beginning of theSecond World War. After Exarch Fabijan was martyred in theGulag, the Harbin Exarchate fell under the Omophorion of ExarchsVendelín Javorka [cs] andAndrzej Cikoto, who both ultimately faced highly similar fates to Exarch Fabijan.[47]
TheCollegium Russicum, which was founded on August 15, 1929 byPope Pius XI, was intended to train Russian Greek Catholic priests to serve as missionaries in the growingRussian diaspora of anti-communist political refugees and, despite the anti-religious persecution taking place in theSoviet 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 thecanonization of St.Thérèse of Lisieux and the Pope chose to place the Russicum under her patronage. The Russicum faculty included the prominentRussian Symbolist poet,literary scholar, and Catholic convertVyacheslav Ivanov.
Meanwhile, Russian Orthodox ArchbishopBartholomew Remov had at first supported the Deputy PatriarchalLocum Tenens MetropolitanMetropolitan 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."[48]
In 1932, Bartholomew Remov was secretly received into the Russian Greek Catholic Church by underground Latin BishopPie Eugène Neveu. After Remov's conversion became known toJoseph Stalin'sNKVD, 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 illegalPetrovsky Monastery" and ofanti-Soviet agitation.[49] Neveu continued to receive Orthodox into the Catholic Church secretly during his time in Russia, until he had to leave in 1936 for medical treatment, after which he was not allowed to return by the Soviet government.
Exarch Leonid Feodorov died on 14 March 1935 atViatka,Russia, where he had been assigned to live in internal exile following his release from theGulag.
On June 17, 1935, a closed session of theMilitary 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."[50] Metropolitan Bartholomew Remov was executed soon after.
Mother Catherine Abrikosova died ofspinal cancer based in thesacral bone inButyrka prison on 23 July 1936. Similarly to Metropolitan Bartholomew Remov, her remains were secretly cremated at buried in aMass grave at theDonskoy Cemetery of central Moscow.
Following the outbreak of theSecond World War, several Greek Catholic Jesuit priests who had graduated from theRussicum 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 clandestineapostolates there. All were captured almost immediately,[51] having been betrayed byAlexander Kurtna, a convert fromEstonian Orthodoxy, former Russicum seminarian, andNKVDmole, who worked between 1940 and 1944 as a lay translator forthe Vatican'sCongregation for the Eastern Churches. Ironically, Kurtna and Fr. Walter Ciszek, who had been friend at the Russicum, met once again in 1948 as fellowpolitical prisoners in theNorillaglabor camp region of the SovietGulag.[52][53]
Meanwhile, because of the rigorous training and spiritual formation thatAnna 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 forSoviet Jewish convert and formerJazzsaxophonist Georgii Davidovich Friedmann to be secretly and illegally ordained by a Bishop of the undergroundUkrainian Greek Catholic Church.[54]
In theRussian diaspora, there are Russian Catholic parishes and faith communities inSan Francisco, New York City,El Segundo,Denver,Melbourne,Buenos Aires,Dublin,Paris,Chevetogne,Lyon,Munich,Rome,Milan, andSingapore. Many are all under the jurisdiction of the respective local Latin Church bishops.[28] The communities in Denver,[55] 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 theRuthenian Catholic Eparchy of Phoenix.[56]
The parishes in Asia and Australia are descended from the Exarchate of Harbin, established on 20 May 1928 by the Pontifical Commission for Russia documentFidelium Russorum. In the United States, the St. Andrew's Russian Greek Catholic Church was opened in El Segundo, California, in 1937, by aCollegium Russicum graduate. In 1945 the Our Lady of Fatima Russian Byzantine Catholic Church was opened in San Francisco by Russian emigrants from Harbin who went to the U.S. after World War II. One of its first priests was a Russian former tsarist diplomat who served at the Vatican and later became Catholic, joining the Jesuit order: Fr. Nikolai von Bok, SJ. In the late 1940s the rector of the Pontifical Russian College sent priests to serve communities in Latin America.[28][57]
The former head of the Russian Catholic parish in Paris, Alexander Evreinov, was made the bishop of the Byzantine Rite in Rome in 1936, and was replaced in 1961 byAndrei Katkov. The next year Katkov was also named theapostolic visitator for all Russian Greek Catholic parishes in the world, at the Congregation for the Eastern Churches. In 1978 the pastor of the Holy Trinity Russian parish in Paris,Georgy Roshko, was named apostolic visitator. He remained as the visitator until 1991, when the Holy See decided to no longer have such a position.[28] According to one account, as of 1992 "there survive a thousand or so Russian-rite Catholics in diaspora, with pastoral and sacramental care provided most often by priests trained at the Roman Collegium Russicum."[58]
Following thecollapse of the Soviet Union, the surviving Russian Greek Catholics, many of whom were directly connected to the Greek Catholic community ofDominican Sisters founded in August 1917 by MotherCatherine Abrikosova, began to appear in the open. At the same time, the martyrology of the Russian Greek Catholic Church began to be investigated.[59]
In 2001,ExarchLeonid Feodorov wasbeatified during aByzantine RiteDivine Liturgy offered inLviv byPope John Paul II.[41][42]
In 2003, apositio towards the Causes forBeatification of six of what Fr. Christopher Zugger has termed, "ThePassion bearers of the Russian Catholic Exarchate":[60]Fabijan Abrantovich,Anna Abrikosova,Igor Akulov,Potapy Emelianov,Halina Jętkiewicz, andAndrzej Cikoto; was submitted to theHoly See'sCongregation for the Causes of Saints by the Bishops of theCatholic Church in Russia.[61]
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 CardinalWalter Kasper to repeatedly persuadePope John Paul II to refuse out of concern for damagingecumenism. 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 inSargatskoye,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 BishopJoseph Werth, the Latin Church Apostolic Administrator of Siberia, based inNovosibirsk. Bishop Werth was appointed byPope John Paul II asordinary for all non-Armenian Catholic Church Eastern Catholics in theRussian Federation. By 2010, five parishes had been registered with civil authorities inSiberia, while inMoscow two parishes and a pastoral center operate without official registration. There are also communities inSaint Petersburg andObninsk.[19] These communities and their statistics are not counted in theAnnuario Pontifico.[28]
In a 2005 article, Russian Catholic priest Fr. Sergei Golovanov stated that three Russian Greek Catholic priests served onRussian soil celebrating the Russian Byzantine Divine Liturgy. Two of them used therecension of the RussianLiturgy as reformed byPatriarch Nikon of Moscow in 1666. The other priest used the medieval rite of theOld Believers, that is to say, as the Russian liturgicalrecension existed beforePatriarch Nikon's reforms of the Russian Liturgy. All Eastern Catholics in the Russian Federation strictly maintain the use ofChurch Slavonic, althoughvernacular Liturgies are more common in theRussian diaspora.
As of 2014, the two Exarchates ofRussia and Harbin are still listed in theAnnuario 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 theUkrainians in Russia. The Ordinariate has minimal structure. AByzantine Catholicmitered 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.[62]
It has been vacant since 1951, having had only two incumbents, both belonging to theUkrainian Studite Monks (M.S.U., a Byzantine RiteUkrainian Greek Catholic Church monastic order):
| 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. | [63] |
| Vendelín Javorka [cs] | 1933–1936 | Jesuit | Apostolic administratorsede plena | [63] |
| Andrzej Cikoto | 20 October 1939 – 13 February 1952 | Marian Fathers | 1933–1939superior general of the Marian Fathers in Rome. Later madearchimandrite. Died in office in prison |
| Patriarchal churches |
|  | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Major archiepiscopal churches | ||||||
| Metropolitan churches | ||||||
| Othersui iuris churches | ||||||
| Province of Moscow |  | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exempt jurisdiction | |||||
| Furthermore | |||||
| Bishops | |||||
| Apostolic Nuncio | |||||
| Education |
| ||||
| Order of the Holy Sepulchre Magistral Delegation of Russia | Igor Kovalevsky (Chaplain) | ||||
| Eastern Catholic Churches |
| ||||
| Former |
| ||||
| Cathedrals | |||||
