The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is facing new challenges in the coming years and the Church’s Synod of Bishops (the Sobor) has decided to meet the challenge head-on: the Synod elected and the Pope confirmed communion with, a 40 year bishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, a man who’s been bishop for less than 2 years and a moral theologian.
Words that are on everyone’s lips are words like “historic,” “cataclysmic,” “revolutionary,” “high-minded,” “a sign of hope,” and “daring.” The are others no doubt, but what the Synod of Ukrainian bishops did and Pope Benedict XVI confirmed is a paradigm shift in the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Catholic Church’s risk with the newly elected Beatitude is singularly bold. He’s got little pastoral experience as a bishop, limited global experience as a man and a slim portfolio as a professor of moral theology and yet with these seemingly significant deficits according to human standards, the new head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is now the instrument of God’s grace on earth. Shevchuk is the key principle of Communion among millions around the world and he’s responsible for the faithful reaching their destiny in Jesus Christ. What are seen as limitations are really brand new horizons for a church that is quickly losing steam in proclaiming Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life. Ongoing conversion to Christ is everyone’s job. But let’s be fair to the new leader: he is not exclusively responsible for the burdens of the Church– but he does have to stand before God and account for his leadership for everyone has to step up to the cross to carry it. Shevchuk’s election can’t be the easy of passing the buck to someone younger because the older generation has run out of ideas and energy.
The witness of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church –along with the other Eastern Churches– is pretty dire in North America. In the Americas the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is perceived as dying, as are some of the of Eastern Churches. No pastoral outreach to the young of any age, a tired and entrenched clergy in the old ways of doing things, an episcopate who is almost inept, a senior clergy, a high amount of nationalism (which is a sin), a poor liturgical life and a lack of liturgical preaching, divisions created by an insistence on the calendar, divisions on which language to use in the Liturgy, and the list goes on…. So the burden to lead the Church out of the morass is going to be heavy. Of course, in order to be a leader you have to have followers. The trouble these days there are fewer and fewer followers.
Who are the ones to help this Eastern Church arrive in the 21st century? Some of the institutions and people to keep in mind….
- Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies
- Saint Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Seminary
- Father Mark Morozowich, Catholic University of American
- Father Borys Gudziak, Ukrainian Catholic University
- Bishop Hlib Lonchyna, MSU
- Bishop David Motiuk
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church together with the Latin Archdiocese of Lviv, are led by relatively young men. The archbishop for Latin Archdiocese is the 49 year old Mieczysław Mokrzycki who took the reigns of his archdiocese in 2008 at the age of 47 having no episcopal service (he worked in the Apostolic Household caring for the temporal needs of John Paul II) and now Shevchuk will turn 41 in 6 weeks.
As the archbishop of the Kievan Church, Shevchuk not only leads God’s people of that archeparchy but he heads the Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and leads a Church of nearly 7.5 million members.
I respectfully disagree. His Beatitude the Major Archbishop does not lead a dying Church at all. Perhaps the situation in USA of this ritual Church is not particularly brilliant, but the huge majority of the faithfulls of the UGCC are in Ukraine, country that is experiencing a huge spiritual awakening. In the Old Country, the UGCC is dynamic, and grows exponentially since the early 90’s. The Bishops even have to refuse postulant in already full seminaries and monasteries. No the UGCC is not dying, on the contrary it is experiencing an incredible spiritual spring.
+ Pax et Bonum
Dear Don Henri,
May the Lord give you His peace!
Thank you for reading the Communio blog and taking the time to write. I appreciate it. I am aware that the English language is not your first language hence you have missed the point. I did not make a sweeping generalization that’s applicable to the entire Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was properly nuanced. The sentence you object to is addressed to the Church in North America NOT the Ukraine. Neverthless, the Church in the Ukraine is not perfectly catechizing and evangelizing the people there and so much work has to be done. The measure of “success” is not measured in numbers coming to church on Sunday but the adherence to Christ personally. You may want to read Pope Benedict XVI’s writing on the subject of proclaiming Christ. I look forward to hearing from you again.
PAX