Defending Holy Tradition in Western Ukraine

On 14 January 2004, an article by Fr Michael Dymyd, Chancellor of the Lviv Archdiocese, appeared in the Western Ukrainian newspaper Arguments entitled ‘U.G.C.C. (Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church) will become an Orthodox Church’. Amongst other things, this doctor of theology and former head of the Lviv Theological Academy had the following to say: “Until 1722, we Greek Catholics could celebrate Divine Liturgy in the same way as the Orthodox. Between us there was no difference even ritually. Then in 1722, we were put into a separate faith - we stopped being ‘Orthodox in intercommunion with the Church of Rome’ [...] they are saying that to be Greek Catholic is different from being Orthodox. It is not like that [...] The group of people under leadership of priest Basil Kovpak has practically left the U.G.C.C. and de facto they are no longer Greek Catholics. They went into communion with a bishop who is not even a Catholic and does not have intercommunion with the U.G.C.C. His name is Bernard Fellay. In practice they submit to him and not to His Beatitude Lubomyr (Husar)[...] Submission is obedience and fulfillment of the decisions of the highest ecclesiastical authority. Traditionalists do not listen to the head of our Church while at the same time they tell their parishioners that they are Greek Catholics [...] We are all one Kievian Church, which is divided into different jurisdictions - Moscow, Rome and Constantinople [...] If you ask the Kovpakites [sic] if the Orthodox will be saved I think you will hear ‘no’. Here is hatred, and I cannot agree with this as these ideas were changed by the Second Vatican Council [...] The Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches are sisters and in both is salvation. We want to return to our old traditions so that the Greek Catholic Rite may unite us with Orthodoxy.”

When asked if the Greek Catholic Church would change its name, Fr Dymyd gave this proposterous reply ; “I read in an old Orthodox work that the term ‘Greek Catholic Church’ is analogous with the term ‘Greek Orthodox’. The meaning of the term Greek Catholic is the same as Greek Orthodox [...] Now we are searching for different names ie. ‘Greek Orthodox’, ‘Orthodox Catholic’, ‘Kievian Catholic’ etc. We are on the way to these changes. When we will fulfil the words of Christ ‘that all may be one’, then there will be no sense in the existence of a separate ‘Greek Catholic’ group. We want to become one Kievian Orthodox Catholic Church [...] He (Fr Kovpak) must accept that grace in the Church comes through the college of bishops [!]. They (traditionalists) have organised a seminary and monastery. A priest does not have the right to do this. It is the same as if you, for example, would organise an illegal military camp. Then you would be sent to prison or to a mental hospital.”

Unwittingly Fr Dymyd, whose interview ran parallel with Fr Basil Kovpak’s, is so intent on sowing the cockle of his perverse ideas that he does not realise that what he is saying creates not only a precedent but an urgent necessity for any Catholic wishing to keep his Faith to disobey such bad shepherds as the chancellor and his Metropolitan, who preach such heresies.

Acts such as Cardinal Husar’s invitation, in December 2002, of Alexis II, Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow to Lviv have been criticised by most Greek Catholics as well as by faithful and clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, and prove yet again that it is the double standard of the hypocrite that is used to weigh the scales where Catholic Tradition is involved. Unfaithful to the precepts and teaching of both Catholic and schismatic Orthodox churches alike, the curia of the Greek Catholic Church is hell-bent on creating a Ukrainian National superchurch whose tenants seem to be known by them alone, grace coming, as we have heard, through the college of bishops.

Set against this background we are happy to report that the book that was described in the November 2003 Catholic, Persecuted Tradition, by Fr Kovpak, has sold 10 000 copies in one month! On 8 February 2004 the Metropolitanate sent two modern curates to set themselves up in the parish of Sts Peter and Paul, in Riasne, (the beautiful interior of the parish church was featured in the same issue of Catholic). Fr Michael had arrived at Riasne to visit Fr Basil the evening before, and was urged to come and support the defence of the church.

After the five Sunday Masses a crowd of around 3000 faithful surrounded the church and locked its doors

The two curates and the protosyncellus of the Archdiocese arrived, and tried to make their way through the crowd	Fr Basil going to meet them...	escorted them to the steps of the church...

where they proceded to tell the crowd how they were not free to choose their pastors		Amidst a hearty uproar the head of the parish council, which effectively owns the church, read out a statement that they did not want modernism in their church

The three modernists had nothing to do but retreat but not before blowing a rasberry to Fr Michael on the church balcony...

displaying that attitude of seriousness one has come to expect from modernists everywhere! So the church is safe again for the moment. Rumours circulated that the auxiliary bishop would try to take the church the next Sunday but this did not materialise. The latest news tells of up to 6000 people guarding the church in the last weeks . Remember these good souls in your prayers.

The church and seminary continue and the Mass is being said as it always was but at the price of a great deal of anguish and uncertainty.

Remember to pray for Fr Basil Kovpak, pictured with Fr Michael in February, he has a lot to suffer at present and the battle is just beginning! †

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