April 18, 1973
His Holiness Pope Paul VI Vatican City
Your Holiness:
At Vatican Council II, called by your predecessor Pope John XXIII, the Holy Spirit, like a tender loving mother hovering over her infant child, breather a warm breath of new life throughout the entire Catholic Church. We know, however, from the Pentecostal account in the Acts of Apostles and have witnessed this throughout the history of the Catholic Church down to our day, that the Holy Spirit comes only to. men of good will descending upon them as a mighty wind and in fiery tongues or as a gentle breeze to stir Christians to greater life.
Inspired by that same Holy Spirit, we Ukrainian Catholic layment and women, request Your Holiness to accept this letter of ours as an attempt to stir our Particular Church to new and greater life. We planned to write to Your Holiness protesting against Jean Cardinal Villot’s communication of September 1972, supposedly sent upon “mandate” of the Holy Father, and transmitted to all Ukrainian Catholic bishops. Indignation among Ukrainian Catholics at this humiliating action was so widespread and so intense that we even considered publishing our letter to Your Holiness in the Il Tempo as an open appeal to the conscience of the entire Christian world. We were deterred from this action by news of the blessing Your Holiness bestowed upon our Major-Archbishop Joseph Cardinal Slipyj for his journey to Melbourne to attend the Eucharistic Congress. We took this as a turning point in Vatican’s policy toward the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Our joy and hope were rudely and painfully wrenched from our hears by the Cardinal Secretary of State’s letter of January 22 to the head of our Church and its transmission in xerox copy to every Ukrainian Catholic bishop through the office of the apostolic delegate or nuncio in the country of the particular bishop’s residence. This procedure is indicative of of flagrant disrespect toward our Confessor of Faith His Beatitude Joseph Cardinal Slipyj. It is a new low in the protocol of Vatican bureaucracy. It makes it necessary for us to take our sorrows to Your Holiness.
Your Holiness, we protest against the interference of Vatican’s bureaucracy in the internal affairs of our Church, against Cardinal Villot’s efforts to intimidate our bishops. We solemnly declare that we are determined to continue our struggle for the restoration of the rights of our Church, that we will always defend the dignity of our beloved primate and our bishops. We appeal to Your Holiness to permit Christian justice to prevail over politics and bureaucracy.
In his letter of September 197 2, Cardinal Villot informs our bishops that the Archiepiscopal Constitution which Major-Archbishop Joseph Slipyj sent to them for comment and eventual ratification is unacceptable to the Holy See. He presumes to censure the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church for drafting and forwarding it to the bishops “without the knowledge of the Holy See” and for failure to inform it subsequently that he had done so. Cardinal Villot rejects out of hand administrative self-rule for the Ukrainian Church within the Universal Church. He would permit our bishops to meet in “consultation” to “update the legislation of their Church, particularly for improving the structure of their present episcopal conference” but warns them that, “in such a consultation the problem of erecting a patriarchate of Ukrainian Rite cannot be brought into discussion because of the already known pronouncement of the Holy See upon this matter.” He instructs our bishops that the suggested consultation be held “with due respect to the dogmatic postulates of the Catholic Church and without prejudice to the competence of the Holy See, and, naturally, in harmony with the work entrusted to the new Commission for Drafting the Code of Eastern Canon Law.”
At stake in the situation created by Cardinal Villot’s letter is the very existence of our Ukrainian Church. We must, therefore, reply to the points raised in his letter.
1. On July 7, 1971, in a letter to our Major-Archbishop Joseph Slipyj, Your Holiness denied our Church the formality of recognizing “at least at this time” a patriarchal administration. How, then, are we to understand that:
a) The provisions of the Union of Brest of 1596 signed by the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Church and Pope Clement VIII guarantee this Church administrative self-government. The present efforts of the Ukrainian Catholic hierarchy to establish a synodal administration for our Particular Church are not requests of the Holy See for something new for this Church. The authority to rule their Church autonomously has been a right enjoyed by Ukrainian major-archbishops and their bishops in synod from the earliest days of the Metropolia of Kiev, then of Halych, and finally, of Lviv (with recognition in 1807 of this Metropolia as the successor of the ancient See of Kiev-Halych).
b) In 1625, Pope Urban VIII (the pope who thought of the Ukrainian Catholic Church as the bridge to the Orthodox Churches) requested the Metropolitan-Archbishop of Kiev to call a sobor within one year and urged that “thereafter throughout all times” such sobors be held at least every four years. The Pope authorized the Metropolitan-Archbishop of Kiev to punish any bishop who “without legitimate reason” failed to attend the sobor or departed from it before its adjournment. (Missive from March 12, 1625. Sacro-sanctum Apostolatus Officium.)
c) Pope Pius X recognized that for the purpose of administering the needs of the faithful of the Ukrainian (Byzantine-Ruthenian) Church Metropolitan Andrij Sheptytsky had worldwide patriarchal authority. He had the right to appoint bishops, create new exarchates, and call synods. He also exercised jurisdiction over the Eastern Catholic Church in Russia and Bilorus’. Metropolitan Sheptytsky exercised this jurisdiction until his death. Pope Pius XII recognized all episcopal appointments made by Metropolitan Sheptytsky including the naming of Father Joseph Slipyj as Auxiliary Bishop and his successor.
d) Cleri Sanctitati, the existing Eastern Canon Law promulgated in 1957, recognizes a major-archiepiscopate as equivalent to a patriarchate.
e) You, Your Holiness, reaffirmed that the Metropolitan of Lviv for Ukrainians should be recognized as a major-archbishop according to the provisions of Cleri Sanctitati (canons 324-339) and directed that this be publicly pronounced. On December 23, the Sacred Congregation for Eastern Churches issued a declaration to this effect. In substance this is a reaffirmation of the fact that the status of the Metropolitan-Archbishop of Lviv for Ukrainians is equivalent to that of a patriarch.
f) On January 31, 1964, S.I.C.O., the official bulletin of the Sacred Congregation for the Eastern Churches, published an article by Monsignor Mario Rizzi emphasizing the fact that traditionally the primate of the Church in Ukraine has a status equal to that of a patriarch and explaining that the rights of a major-archbishop and a patriarch are equivalent. This article was subsequently reprinted in L’Osservatore Romano, on February 6,
g) On November 21, 1964, Your Holiness promulgated the Decree of the Eastern Catholic Churches wherein 2,600 bishops solemnly reaffirmed this equivalence (#10).
It is, therefore, clearly evident that there exists a solid canonical basis for administrative autonomy for the Ukrainian Catholic Church, including the right to convoke a sobor or synod — the traditional forms of administering a patriarchate or a major-archiepiscopate. We insist, with our Major-Archbishop Joseph Slipyj and his entire episcopate, upon the canonical validity of all five Synods held between 1963 and 1971. On the basis of the provision in the Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches which states, “wherever a hierarch of any rite is appointed outside the boundaries of the patriarchal (or archiepiscopal) territory, he remains attached to the hierarchy of the patriarchate (or archiepiscopate) of that rite in accordance with canon law” (#7), we defend the right of Ukrainian Catholic bishops throughout the world to participate in sobors or synods of our Particular Church.
A “Declaration” issued on March 25, 1970 (AAS,62,172), imposes a territorial limitation on the rights of a patriarch (or major-archbishop). May we remind Your Holiness that territorial boundaries are the results of political accidents. Patriarchates and major-archiepiscopates exist for the purpose of the salvation of souls and not for political expediency. Section two of canon 326 clearly states that the principle of territoriality is applicable “unless some other reason demands otherwise…” For centuries the good of souls was the primary consideration in establishing administrative units. How many times has the Latin Church set up jurisdictions in Eastern lands because her faithful had either migrated there or because Latin missionaries had made converts to the Latin Rite among the native Eastern Rite Christians or non-Christiansi This happened in Palestine and the Near last during and after the Crusades, in India side by side with the native Malabar Rite Christians, in Egypt, and in Ethiopia. In Lviv, itself, there existed for centuries three jurisdictions within the very same territory — a Ukrainian Catholic Metropolitan-Archbishop, an Armenian Rite Archbishop, and a Latin Rite Archbishop. At times even the Pope of Rome has resided beyond the territorial limits of Rome, yet his jurisdiction as bishop of Rome and patriarch of the West was in noway curtailed, much less did it cease. Why does the Holy See now call upon the out-dated principle of territoriality to restrict the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in his efforts to exercise jurisdiction over Ukrainian Catholics wherever they may reside? Is it in order to find a loophole to justify the policy of rapprochement with the Soviet Union conducted by Archbishop Agostino Casaroli and Jan Cardinal Willebrands? Should the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches enter into communion with Rome would their patriarchs have to ask the Vatican for permission to exercise jurisdiction over their faithful beyond their territorial limits? Does the out-of-date territorial limitation on the jurisdiction of patriarchs (and major-archbishops) provide Vatican with justification for the betrayal of the Ukrainian Church? We have no objections to a Vatican-Moscow dialogue but we vehemently protest the policy of making the Ukrainian Catholic Church the pawn in the pursuit of this policy.
2. The Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches stipulates that:
a) The churches of the East are “in duty bound to rule themselves, each in accordance with its own established disciplines” (#5).
b) If “they have fallen short owing to contingencies of times and persons, they should take steps to return to their ancestral traditions” (#6).
c) “The rights and privileges in question are those obtained in the time of union between East and West; though they should be adapted somewhat to modern conditions” (#9).
We, therefore, affirm that a sobor or a synod of our bishops has the right to draw up a constitution for our Church. Each patriarch or major-archbishop rules his Church according to a constitution regulating his particular traditional form of synodal administration. Major-Archbishop Joseph Slipyj and his bishops not only have the right to meet in sobor or synod and adopt a constitution for the Ukrainian Church but they are in duty bound to do so. They have equal responsibility to revise an ancient constitution.
3. We reject the Romanizing notion of an episcopal “consultation” for “improving the structure of their present episcopal conference.” Not only is this suggestion made on a false premise but it is a violation of the principle of catholicity within the Church. From the June 20, 1972 issue of Visty z Rymu (p. 8), we know that Major Archbishop Joseph Slipyj informed Vatican officials that such a conference does not exist in our Church, that in the Ukrainian Catholic Church there exists only a sobor or synod under the chairmanship of the major-archbishop.
National conferences of bishops were designed as a part of the western patriarchate. To impose such a conference on Ukrainian bishops would be to introduce a gross and inappropriate Latinism into our Church. It would be a violation of Article 6 of the Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches. It would be contrary to the wishes of Your Holiness and of 2,600 bishops who accepted this decree at Vatican Council II.
4. We vigorously protest against Cardinal Villot’s warning to our bishops to meet “with due respect to the dogmatic postulates of the Catholic Church.” On what basis was such a precautionary directive given? When have Ukrainian Catholic bishops voiced opposition to the Holy See in any dogmatic matters? What people at any time in the history of the Universal Church have suffered more martyrdom for the principles of catholicity and loyalty to the First See of Christendom than have the Ukrainians? What church prelate of the contemporary era has suffered as much as has Major-Archbishop Joseph Slipyj for loyalty to the Holy See? How can anyone entertain the notion of a possibility of a challenge to dogmatic postulates from this fortress of loyalty?
5. We protest against the Cardinal Secretary of State’s directive to our bishops to deliberate “in harmony with the work entrusted to the new Commission for Drafting the Code of Eastern Law.” Have the members of this Commission been appointed with consideration for the interests of each Particular Church? If so, why has Major-Archbishop Joseph Slipyj, the head of the Ukrainian Church, not been named a member of this Commission? Does such procedure by the Vatican breed confidence in the effective operation of this Commission? What is the task of this small Commission? Certainly it cannot be to reinterpret the Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches. Why, then, is it necessary for Cardinal Villot to direct our bishops, as he did, when these bishops are acting in accordance with decrees passed at Vatican Council II?
6. We vigorously protest against the manner in which Cardinal Villot transmitted his letter to the Ukrainian bishops. By sending it through the apostolic delegate or nuncio of the country in which the individual bishops reside, he completely ignored our Major-Archbishop as the channel of communication between the Holy See and our hierarchy. We possess our own canonical intermediary between the Holy See and our episcopate. We do not recognize the apostolic delegate or nuncio as superseding the head of our Particular Church, whose rights have been acquired through tradition and canon law and confirmed by numerous ecumenical councils. The manner in which Cardinal Villot’s letter was transmitted is indicative of Vatican efforts to divide the unity which exists among the Ukrainian bishops throughout the world, place them directly under the jurisdiction of the apostolic delegates of the various countries in which the bishops reside, and thus fragment the Ukrainian Catholic Church. This policy is clearly revealed in Bulletin No. 281 issued on November 4, 1972, by the Vatican Press Bureau which states that:
Even though in the Ukrainian Catholic Church there are groups of dioceses united under a supra-episcopal jurisdiction in the form of a Metropolia, an ecclesiastical authority does not exist to which jurisdiction the bishops as a total entity are subjected in union with the Roman Pontiff.
This conclusion, based on statements made by Vatican officials, is substantiated by Vatican procedure:
a) In the United States the Vatican crowned its policy of dismemberment of our Particular Church on February 21, 1969, with the creation of the Byzantine Rite Archeparchy of Munhall for the faithful described as “Byzantine Ruthenian Rite Catholics.” The ancestors of the faithful for whom this archdiocese was created constituted an integral part of the Particular Church formerly headed by Metropolitan Andrij Sheptytsky and now by Major-Archbishop Slipyj. (It was, after all. Metropolitan Sheptytsky who sent — on his own patriarchal authority — priests and administrators of his rite to administer to these Christians!) They migrated to the United States from parts of Ukraine under various political occupations bringing with them different terminology to describe the same national origin. This at times resulted in confusion as to national origin but there was never any doubt that whether they called themselves “Ruthenians” or “Ukrainians” they constituted the same Particular Church. (This was recognized by the Holy See, Bulla seu Litterae Apostolicae: “Ea semper fuit Apostolicae Sedisi” June 14,1907.) By dividing this faithful of this Church on the same territory into two administrative supra-episcopal units, the Vatican created an anomaly contrary to all canon law — both Eastern and Western.
b) The eparchy of Krizevci is not listed in the Annuario Pontificio as a part of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Archbishop Gabriel Bukatko is not listed as archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Yugoslavia but as the Apostolic Administrator of all Catholics in the Yugoslavian Banat.
c) The city of Peremyshl is an ancient eparchial seat of Ukrainian Catholic bishops. Bishop Josaphat Kocylovsky, the last bishop to occupy this seat, was arrested after the second Soviet invasion of this territory and tortured to death in prison. His Auxiliary,
Bishop Hryhorij Lakota, was also arested. He died in Soviet exile. Today, no Ukrainian Catholic bishop occupies this seat. The Ukrainian Catholics residing in present-day Poland do not even have an Apostolic Administrator of their own — they are under Latin Rite jurisdiction.
d) In Czechoslovakia Bishop Vasyl Норко has been denied jurisdiction over the eparchy of Pryashiv (Presov) of which he had been Auxiliary Bishop before his imprisonment by Communist regime. Upon Bishop Норkо’s release, jurisdiction over this diocese was given to Msgr. John Hirka.
e) In the spring of 1972, the Ukrainian Catholic Exarchate in Brazil was raised to an Eparchy but was made a suffragan see of the Latin Rite Archdiocese of Curitiba. Thus, another attempt was made to amputate an integral part of the Ukrainian Catholic Church from the body of this Particular Church.
f) In Ukraine, where, in the words of Major-Archbishop Joseph Slipyj, Ukrainian Catholics have already “sacrificed rivers of blood and mountains of bodies because of their loyalty to the Holy See” and continue to suffer to this day these faithful worshipping in modern catacombs are demoralized by the failure of the Holy See to defend their rights. When Metropolitan Pimen of Krutitsy and Kolomna was installed as Patriarch of Moscow, he publicly rejoiced that It was the 25th anniversary of the liquidation of the Union of Brest. Jan Cardinal Willebrands and Father John Long, S.J., who understands Russian very well, were in the Soviet Union at that time. During their sojourn not only did they make no protest against Metropolitan Pimen’s statement but they also failed to do so upon their return to the Vatican. Similarly, not a single word of protest appeared in the Vatican press against the heinous crime perpetrated in March of 1946 at which the Ukrainian Catholic Church was declared nonexistent in Ukraine — the act which 25 years later caused so much joy to the newly installed Patriarch of Moscow.
Where is the defense of the faithful of the Ukrainian Catholic Church whom Pope Pius XII so often exhorted to heroic martyrdom behind the Iron Curtain? These same People of God now see that their very survival is causing embarrassment to high curial officials engaged in Vatican-Moscow politics. Justice has been sacrificed for political expediency. Where, today, is the pastor of the Universal Church who, as we are taught by the Holy Gospel, should be ready to lay down his life for his flock?
The present Vatican policy toward the Ukrainian Catholic Church is tantamount to religious genocide. It may well accomplish what religious persecution in Soviet Ukraine and in the other Communist countries now occupying Ukrainian territory has failed to achieve — the destruction of this Church. The Ukrainian Catholic Church stands before the world as a test case to Orthodox, Anglicans, and all other Christians as to whether the Roman Church truly believes in collegial, self-governing forms for Particular Churches united in faith with the supreme Pontiff in Rome.
To date the prospects for a good example are not promising. Before the Communist revolution Ukrainians of the Orthodox faith constituted a majority of the population of Ukrainian territory. After the revolution they witnessed the destruction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, numbering forty million faithful, saw it forcibly incorporated into the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate. With the Communist occupation of western Ukrainian territories after the Second World War, the Ukrainian Orthodox saw the same faith befall the Ukrainian Catholic Church. In the post-Vatican II age of ecumenism, the Ukrainian Orthodox residing beyond the territorial limits of Ukraine watch for Vatican defense of the rights of the Ukrainian Church on its native territory. Not only do they see no such effort there but rather they see the negotiations of certain high Vatican officials abrogating the rights of the Ukrainian Catholic Church which exists in the free world because of political expediency. They see this occurring concurrently with Vatican advances to Christians not in union with Rome in order to establish affiliation with the Supreme Pontiff with guarantees of administrative autonomy. It is not logical for them to wonder what the fate of their Church would be should it be politically inopportune at some future time for the Vatican to respect their rights?
That this is not a theoretical supposition is evident from one of the resolutions adopted at the Sobor of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church held from October 13 through 17, 1972, in London. This Sobor, under the Chairmanship of Metropolitan Mstyslav Skrypnyk, in its resolutions expressed condolences to Ukrainian Catholics. Resolution No. 8 reads:
The Ukrainian Catholics who at present are painfully enduring the contemptuous attitude of Vatican policy makers toward their efforts to preserve the traditional forms of their Particular Church, our Sobor expresses deep sympathy. We sincerely hope that you will survive the troublesome era brought about by the close cooperation of the Vatican and the atheistic Kremlin — both indifferent to the needs of Ukrainian Catholics. (Ukrainian Orthodox Word, South Bound Brook, NJ., Vol. XXIII, No. 12, December 1972, p. 4.)
Suffering has sharpened the vision of Ukrainian Catholics. It has given our People of God the clarity of vision to discern what is self-seeking from what builds up the Body of Christ. We, Ukrainian Catholic layment and women, write this letter in the hope that Your Holiness will effect what the Holy Spirit so clearly formulated during the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in regard to the administrative self-government of all Eastern Catholic Churches — the Ukrainian Catholic Church among them. If the Holy See continues to negate the rights of all Eastern Catholic Churches whenever ecclesiastical or political expediency requires, the Ukrainian Church, together with all Eastern Catholic Churches, will become a classic example of the credibility gap between Vatican promises and curial procedures. In that case Vatican policy makers could well become the laughing stock of the modern ecumenical era. The good of the Universal Church would hardly be served by such a development.
Your Holiness, at a special audience granted the Ukrainian delegation on Thursday, February 25, 1965, at which Major-Archbishop Joseph Slipyj was installed as Cardinal, you said:
By elevating a Ukrainian Metropolitan to the dignity of cardinal, We wished to attest to the Church and to the whole world that his sufferings, his steadfastness in the profession of Christ’s faith, and his heroism are priceless treasures of the entire Universal Church, and belong to the history of ages.
You, my Ukrainian sons, are scattered throughout the world, but We are well aware how staunchly you preserve your traditions, and the special care with which you endeavor to keep your beautiful rite, your language, your culture. By this elevation of your Metropolitan in the eyes of the Church and the world We wished to give you an authoritative leader on whom you can rely, and whom you can trust implicitly…We wish to say that by elevating your great Metropolitan to the dignity of cardinal, We hope to give you, Ukrainians, a high spokesman for your unity, to establish a strong center for your religious and national life… And We would like to share with you one more consideration. By placing a heroic Ukrainian Metropolitan and the Ukrainian people before the attention of the Catholic Church and the whole world. We wish to revive great hopes among the Ukrainian people. Continue your struggle! Lift up your hearts, my dear Ukrainian sons. Work, pray, rely on God. May the Lord bless your efforts, fulfill your hopes and your dreams.
Your Holiness, we have taken these words to heart. We have rallied around the efforts of our hierarchy, under the leadership of our Major-Archbishop, to obtain recognition of patriarchal status for the Ukrainian Church. We are rebuffed at every turn. Will the words of Your Holiness — giving us encouragement and hope for the future of our Church — become high-sounding rhetoric to lull us into an acquiescence of the abrogation of the rights guaranteed to our Particular Church? If so, what will become of the dignity and credibility of the Holy See?
May God grant Your Holiness the strength to withstand the influence of those advisers who, in considering the problems of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, have fallen under impact of the spokesmen for the Communist line. They categorize the Ukrainian efforts to establish a synodal administration for the Ukrainian Church as a spearhead of a “nationalistic separatist movement.” This tendency is clearly reflected in the memorandum by rector of the Russicum, Father Paul Mailleus, S.J., entitled, “Quelques considerations sur la question ucrainienne,” a copy of which is enclosed. It portrays the attitude governing the action of a number of the highest ranking curial officials. Such an interpretation is devoid of considerations of justice, ecumenism, and humanism. The motivation behind our efforts to establish a synodal form of administration for our Church is strictly religious. These efforts are a defense of the rights of all Eastern Catholic Churches.
Since 1965, we have sent Your Holiness countless letters, cables, and memoranda signed by thousands of faithful of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. They have not only remained unanswered but they have not been granted the courtesy of acknowledgment by the Holy See. We cannot believe that Your holiness chose to ignore our letters. We are convinced that they have been withheld from Your Holiness by the curial bureaucracy. We hope that this letter will reach Your Holiness and that we shall receive a response.
May Your Holiness be blessed with the inspiration for the solution of the pressing problems which are so painful to Ukrainians Catholics. May we soon learn that Your Holiness has given His blessing to the erection of a patriarchal status for the Ukrainian Church. Such a just solution is a fundamental factor in the future development of the entire Universal Church.
We pray for the health of Your Holiness and the success of Your Pontificate.
In deep concern we remain in Christ.
Myroslas Nawrockyj, President
Leonid Biidnytsky, Secretary
Eva Piddubcheshen Chairman, Public Affairs
cc: Major-Archbishop Joseph Slipyj Enc.
