It's interesting because if you look on the official UGCC website, they seem to be Traditional. They also seem a bit anti-Francis and they demonstrate that they are against is agenda at least. There is a post with videos urging Ukranian Catholics to sign to stop the "promotion of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ relationships". And one where they suspect Francis of playing the fiddle after his meeting with Russian Orthodox Kirill.
I'm thinking about attending my first Byzantine liturgy with the UGCC this Sunday. Never known anything other than the Latin Mass, so still kinda having reservations about going.
I've attended Ukrainian Liturgy. Not bad for the most part. Eastern Liturgies take a bit of getting used to for a lifelong Roman Rite person, but they're really beautiful in their own way. While the Roman Rite is typically much more austere, the Eastern Liturgy has more of a mystical feel to it. In the West, the sacrifice of the Mass is emphasized, while in the East it's about all about the transcendence of God. And the East has a much greater emphasis on Our Lady in the Liturgy ... they must mention her a couple dozen times during the Ordinary of their Liturgy. And, for the most part, their clergy have the faith ... although some are slightly liberal (nothing compared to Novus Ordo). They have a church here in Akron, OH where the priest just happens to be the brother of the current "Major Archbishop". Ukrainians don't strictly have a "Patriarch". Now, the East hasn't changed their liturgy much. Ukrainians offer liturgy in the vernacular (either Ukrainian or English in the U.S.) ... but sometimes use old Church Slavonic. Same holds of the Byzantine-Ruthenians. But they haven't changed the liturgy much at all (unlike, say, the Maronites). Translations have changed a little, and their singing melodies. But there's no question whatsoever regarding their validity. Now, with regard to the vernacular, the Slavic (Sts. Cyril+Methodius derived) Eastern Churches originally used Slavonic, and the "Old Slavonic" has become their Sacred Language ... although you'll occasionally find some reverting back to Greek. This has been the case since the beginning. I recall that during his reign St. Pius X asked the Hungarian Byzantines to convert over to Greek (from Hungarian) ... but he gave them several years to transition over (so he didn't consider it intrinsically bad, just less than ideal). But St. Pius X died before the transition was made and Benedict XV dropped it. So they remained using Hungarian. Honestly, if all V2 did, was to allow English offering of the Tridentine Mass, I wouldn't have had a huge issue with it (although my preference would always have been Latin or Greek or Aramaic for the Maronite Liturgy). I actually love the Maronite Aramaic ... and they still do the core part of the Canon in the old Aramaic. Recall that Greek and Latin were vernacular languages in the early days.
When Catherine Emmerich was describing the modern state of decay in her visions, she specifically called out the WESTERN Liturgy (vs. Eastern) as having become corrupted ... implying perhaps that the Eastern hadn't.
Now, the Ukrainians have always been very Romanized compared to the Ruthenians. They have kneelers in the church and many kneel during their Canon (called "Anaphora" in the Greek). Used to be that everyone knelt, but they mostly stand now (depending on the church) due to adopting the more Eastern custom; they bow deeply at the consecration. They also use Confessionals (vs. confessing before an icon at the front of the church). At the Church in Akron they have Stations of the Cross on the walls of the church (not found in the other Eastern Rites), and they pray the Rosary before Sunday liturgy.
I've personally known several Ukrainian and Maronite and Byzantine bishops. There are a couple who were/are staunchly Traditional. While at SSPX seminary, while a number of us stayed in Chicago during part of the summer, we attended Mass at a Maronite church during the week (only Sunday Tridentine Mass there), and the Maronite bishop was very supportive of SSPX. He welcomed the SSPX seminarians very warmly and would enjoy talking with us. He would battle with this younger priest there because he was a liberal, and he used the original Aramaic and older form of the Maronite Liturgy. He would (in good fun) argue with us about whether the Aramaic Maronite Liturgy or the Roman Rite Liturgy was the more ancient. [I personally believe that Our Lord did the Consecration at The Last Supper in Hebrew, not Aramaic.]
Now, I do feel a bit out of place at Ukrainian because they're nearly all, well, Ukrainian ... for the most part. You get some transplanted Western Rite people who went over in reaction to Vatican II. Ukrainian priests will talk about how disaffected Romans make up a good part of their congregations, and they're familiar with and sympathetic to the Traditional Roman movement. Several people from a Traditional Latin chapel in Akron often go to the Ukrainian, including parts of one family who have a number of girls as sisters at the SSPX convent. One visiting Ukrainian priest told me that he's trying to bring people back into the Church who left after Vatican II because of the changes ... since the Ukrainain doesn't have many of the problems that induced them to leave in the first place ... and that he has Traditional Catholics attending his church. He's sympathetic to the reasons why they left (and recognizes that the Novus Ordo Liturgy is Protestant garbage).
This is their Major Archbishop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sviatoslav_ShevchukHis brother, Father Vsevolod Shevchuk, is the pastor at Holy Ghost Ukrainian in Akron. He's married and has a couple children. My oldest daughter has babysat his children on a few occasions. Marriage disqualifies him from ever being a bishop. Ukrainian priests have always been able to marry (actually, the other way around, since they have to be married before ordination) ... but only in the last couple decades in the U.S. Unfortunately, Father uses altar girls there. Now they have a different role in the Eastern Liturgy (just stand around holding candles like decorative flower pots), but this is unfortunate. It's due to the fact that the girl who serves is the daughter of a wealthy parishioner who contributes most of the Sunday collection every week. Nowhere else to my knowledge do the Ukrainians have altar girls. I have not known any Ruthenian-Byzantine chapels to have them (to my knowledge they're banned). They too have married priests in the U.S. now ... most imported from overseas. Father Vsevolod clearly has the faith even if he's a bit liberal in that particular area. When I criticized him (politely) for this practice, he rolled his eyes and nodded as if to imply that he was sympathetic to my criticism ... but he was took weak to stand up to this wealthy parishioner's family. Now the Ukrainians have always been critical of the Vatican's attempts to mix with the Ukrainian Orthodox, but in practice they're very friendly with them ... at least here in the U.S.
Oh, and their food is EXCELLENT! They have lots of ethnic food sales which bring in most of the revenue that keeps the church afloat. I would say that they have MAYBE 75-100 parishioners.
Topic: Sedevacantism in an Eastern church (Read 2462 times)