Mukacˇevo, Church of the Rusyn People
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Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 67(3-4), 243-270. doi: 10.2143/JECS.67.3.3149534 © 2015 by Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. All rights reserved. MUKACˇEVO, CHURCH OF THE RUSYN PEOPLE CONSTANTIN SIMON The city of Mukačevo (Rusyn: Mukačevo, Hungarian: Munkács, Ukrainian: Mukačeve or Mukačiv), from which the diocese draws its own name, is now a small town on the Latorica (Hungarian: Latorca) river, located in the Transcarpathian region of today’s Ukraine. Separated from the rest of the Ukrainian republic by the Carpathian mountains, it faces Hungary, to which it belonged for most of its long history. Today, Mukačevo is overshadowed in importance by the younger city of Užhorod,1 the regional capital just on the Slovak border, and also the residence of the Greek Catholic bishop. A VISIT TO MUKACˇEVO About fifteen years ago, when I last visited the cathedral of the Holy Cross in Užhorod, it had been newly appropriated by the Greek Catholics from the Orthodox who had held it during the Soviet period. Much had not changed, except the antimension (corporal) on the main altar, since both confessions were employing similar rites. But I did notice some subtle alter- ations. Once again, the side altars were in full use, a rarity today in western Roman Catholic churches. The mass or liturgy which had just been cele- brated on one of them resembled nothing I had previously seen in the Byzantine world and followed a latinized form of service long since disa- vowed by the Uniats themselves. All, including the proskomedia (Byzantine 1 The name Užhorod is a modern invention of the nineteenth century and popularized during the time the region was part of Czechoslovakia during the last century. The Hungarian form Ungvár is actually the older name of the city, previously used by the Slavs themselves and derived from the name of the river Ung or Ug which flows through it. The name of the town adds the river name Ung to the Hungarian word for fortress (vár), therefore the fortress or castle on the Ung. See A. Petrov, Karpatorusskija meževyja nazvanija (Carpatho-Russian Boundary Toponyms) (Praha, 1929). On the history of Užhorod or Ungvár, see the introduction to Antal Hodinka, Adalékok az ungvári vár és tartománya, és Ungvár város történetéhez (Contributions to the History of the Castle of Ungvár, its Territory, and the Town of Ungvár) (Ungvár, 1917). 98830.indb 243 12/05/16 10:06 244 CONSTANTIN SIMON offertory), took place on one altar and all followed the directions given in a huge missal secure in its stand. Finally I looked up to the picture over the altar and saw a familiar representation of the Sacred Heart. But then I noticed. The heart itself had been erased by the Orthodox and the mark- ings of the defacement were still plainly apparent. But it had been newly painted over the erasure by the cathedral’s present Greek Catholic masters who apparently encourage such pious activities among their faithful. While personally I have nothing against Sacred Heart devotions and find them rather comforting when confronted with the aberrations of Latin rite mod- ernism which have taken hold over many of the churches of the Latin West, they are not appropriate in the Byzantine East. But their presence indicated the rather murky ecclesial identity of the Greek Catholic Rusyns of the diocese of Mukačevo,2 who have for centuries straddled the abyss dividing East and West. RUSYNS OR RUTHENIANS From its beginnings, the diocese of Mukačevo has been associated with the Rusyns or Ruthenians, an eastern Slavic people who formed the majority of its faithful. Although the word Ruthenian originally was used by western writers to identify all Eastern Slavs, including the Russians, it was later applied especially by the Vatican to those Eastern Slavs, who were once subjects of the kings of Poland and Hungary and later of the emperor-kings of Austria-Hungary. During the Soviet period, all Eastern Slav inhabitants of the Transcarpathian region of the Soviet Ukrainian Republic were offi- cially classed as Ukrainians. Other historical circumstances led portions of the faithful of the diocese to identify with the Slovaks, Hungarians or Roma- nians. But the majority continues to identify itself today as Rusyn, the Slavic 2 The classic study of the diocese of Mukačevo is that undertaken by Antal Hodinka, A Munkácsi görög-katholikus püspökség története (The History of the Greek Catholic Bishopric of Munkács) (Budapest, 1909), as well as his collection of documents published as A munkácsi görög-szertatársu püspökség okmánytára (A Collection of Documents Pertain- ing to the Catholic Greek Rite Bishopric of Munkács) (Ungvár, 1911). Unfortunately, to my knowledge they have never been translated into English and the original Hungarian makes for limited readership. An extremely ukrainophile presentation is offered in the three volumes work by Stepan Pap, Istorija Zakarpattja (A History of Transcarpathia) (Ivano-Frankivs’k, 2001) but many of this author’s conclusions are questionable. 98830.indb 244 12/05/16 10:06 MUKACˇEVO, CHURCH OF THE RUSYN PEOPLE 245 equivalent of Ruthenian, although other variants of the same name are also sometimes used (Rusyn, Carpatho-Rusyn, Carpatho-Russian, Carpatho- Ukrainian), each with its own ethnic shading. The Carpathian basin is home to a variety of ethnicities and historically includes Hungarians, Slovaks, Romanians, Croatians, Serbs, Jews, and Roma, in addition to the Rusyns, and some other lesser minorities. Each has its own version of the history of the region. In addition, Rusyns have traditionally espoused one of several (autoch- thonic Rusyn, Russian, Ukrainian, or Hungarian) ethnic identities each of which seeks to interpret history in its own fashion and often imposes that often conflicting version on all others. Close neighbours are often not very good neighbours and this hold nowhere as true as in eastern Europe. Here, history is painted in black and white rather than in shades of grey. ORIGINS: GENESIS OF A PEOPLE The ancestors of the Rusyns3 can be traced to Slavic peoples who began to appear in the valleys of the Carpathians in small numbers during the fifth and sixth centuries. Their presence is related to the question of the original homeland of the Slavs and the incursion into eastern and central Europe of nomadic peoples from Central Asia. Most scholars agree that the centre of the original homeland for all Slavic peoples was the region just north of the Carpathians in what are today eastern Poland, south-western Belarus, and north-western Ukraine. In the 440s, the Huns crossed through the Slavic 3 On the Rusyns themselves, see Antal Hodinka, A kárpátalji rutének: lakóhelye, gaz- daságuk és multjuk (The Carpatho-Ruthenians: Their Home Territory, Economy and Past) (Budapest, 1923); Irinej Kondratovič, Istorija podkarpatskoe Rusi (A History of Sub- carpathian Rus’) (Užgorod, 1930); Vasil’ Pačovskij, Istorija podkarpatskoe Rusi (A History of Subcarpathian Rus’) (Užgorod, 1920); Vera Fedeleš, Učebnik istorii podkarpatskoj Rusi (A Textbook of the History of Subcarpathian Rus’) (Mukačevo, 1922); Grigorij Kupčanko, Ugorska Rus’ i ei russkie žiteli (Hungarian Rus’ and its Russian Inhabitants) (Veden’, 1897); Ioann Duliškovič, Istoričeskija čerty ugro-russkich (Historical Outlines of the Hungarian Russians) (Ungvar, 1875; Alexander Bonkáló, The Rusyns (New York, 1990), and the articles in the voluminous Karpatorusskij sbornik (A Carpatho-Russian Anthology) (Užgorod, 1930). On their folk-culture and mythology see the fascinating study compiled in the 1920s by the noted Russian ethnographer Pierre Bogatyrev, Actes magiques, rites et croyances en Russie subcarpathique (Paris, 1929). 98830.indb 245 12/05/16 10:06 246 CONSTANTIN SIMON homeland and burst into central Europe, bringing with them Slavic peoples, some of which settled in areas of what later became known as Carpathian Rus’. A century later, the Avars crossed into the Danubian Basin, where they created a khanate and subjected to their rule, among others, the Slavs of the Carpathians. Among the tribes living in the original Slavic homeland were the White Croats, who began to settle the valleys of the Carpathian slopes. Between 896 and 898, the Magyars or ancient Hungarians crossed the Carpathians settling in Pannonia. From their new home, they eventually built the state called Hungary. According to traditional historiography, when the Magyars first crossed the Carpathians, they seizedthe White Croat fortress of Hungvar (Ungvár and today Užhorod) and defeated the semi-legendary Prince Laborec, who was subsequently transformed by patriotic writers into one of the first heroes of Rusyn history. The fortress of Mukačevo is the first citadel to be mentioned by an anonymous court chronicler of Hungarian King Béla IV, in his description of the route taken by the Magyar tribes across the Verecke pass in the Carpathians, to eventually occupy fertile Pannonia: ‘Et cum illuc pervenissent, locum, quem primo occupaverunt, Muncas nominaverunt eo, quod cum maximo labore ad terram, quam sibi adoptabant, pervenerant.’ (And when they came to that place, the first of which they occupied, they called it Muncas, since they had come to that land, which they took for themselves, only after much struggle.)4 The ancient Magyars called the fortress Muncas or Munkács, after their word munka meaning work, a word which itself ultimately derives from the Slavonic muka, and which in those languages is associated with heavy toil or torture. Anonymous however referred to the eventual building of a fortress and not to the diocese, the origins of which are much less clear. Despite their military victory, the Magyars were initially unable to take complete control of today’s Carpathian Rus’, which during the tenth and for most of the eleventh century remained a sparsely settled borderland (Latin: 4 P. Magistri, qui Anonymus dicitur, Gesta Hungarorum in Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum tempore ducum regumque stirpis arpadianae gestarum (The Acts of the Hungarians in Authors Writing About Hungarian Matters at the Times of the Princes and Kings of the House of Árpád) (Budapest, 1937), p.