Religion in Ukraine

Byzantine Rite Catholic is Orthodox, isn't it?

I have had to answer this question more times than I can count. Now, living in a very Roman Catholic country, I find it's even more curious that very few people have even heard of Byzantine Catholic. I mean Catholic is Catholic, isn't it. Not quite.


Whether you call it Byzantine Catholic or Ukrainian Catholic or Eastern Catholic or Greek Catholic, it is still Catholic. No, Byzantine is not Orthodox. It is also not Roman Catholic. Roman Catholic is Latin Rite. We are Byzantine Rite.  Byzantine has to do with Byzantium or Constantinople, where the schism took place forming the Byzantine Catholic and Orthodox Christian Churches. No, Catholic and Orthodox are not the same.  Got it?

This distinction in Catholic tradition dates back to 1054, a time when cultural differences between the Greek-speaking East and the Latin-speaking West led to rivalry between the Churches in Rome and in Constantinople. The former claimed a primacy of honour and authority while the later claimed equality with Rome. When the congregations divided, the Catholic Church made provisions to keep as many of the eastern Catholic churches in its fold by allowing them to maintain their rituals and languages.  So also the Church Slavonic language was born, intended to unify the Eastern Rite churches in a single recognizable ritual and language. Together, the Eastern Rite and Roman Rite churches make up the whole of the Catholic Church.

But the Eastern Rite churches are independently operated  following different Eastern Rite liturgical traditions: Alexandrian, Antiochian, Armenian, Chaldean and Byzantine.  Ritualistically, the Byzantine Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches have similar appearance. After all they started out as one church. They have one major difference. The Catholic Church recognizes that the Pope is God's representative on Earth while the Orthodox Church does not recognize the Pope. The Orthodox Church has Patriarchs who preside over the church but they are considered Man's representatives, not God's.  Their Ecumenical Patriarch has been historically known as the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople. Here is a much simplified look at it, but there are many omissions in this table. Forgive me if I've left your faction out.

                                Catholic Pope                                      Orthodox Christian Patriarch

Roman Rite                           Eastern Rite Byzantine                                   
Italian Catholic                         Ukrainian Catholic                   Greek Orthodox
Polish Catholic                         Romanian Catholic                  Ukrainian Orthodox
French Catholic                       Slovakian Catholic                   Russian Orthodox
Hispanic Catholic                     Armenian  Catholic                  Albanian Orthodox
American Catholic                    Hungarian Catholic                  Turkish Orthodox


Growing up Ukrainian Catholic in America was an isolating experience.  I knew no one who wasn't Catholic, other than Orthodox Christians.  I went to a Ukrainian Catholic primary school. We didn't learn anything about other religions. I went to a friend's Orthodox Church once and could not believe their service was three hours long!  Ours was only one hour. I remember feeling fortunate for that.

We did on occasion go to the Roman Catholic Church in the neighborhood when we couldn't get to the Ukrainian Cathedral for some reason.  But that was so different I hardly recognized it was related much less the same faith. Our church had golden onion domes, and beautiful icons, golden gates and stained glass windows. The "kostel", the Polish word for church, was much plainer, darker and more solemn.  The service was sing song and they even played instruments in church, which would have bordered on sacrilege in our church. And they had a candidate for sainthood. I was fascinated. How does someone suddenly get voted into sainthood. There was a neighborhood campaign to induct him. I always thought you had to be a martyr to be a saint. What did I know?

They had confession and the same penance though -- three Hail Marys and one Our Father -- regardless of the gravity of the sins committed. Of course, I said them in Church Slavonic first, then begrudgingly in Ukrainian when they changed to make the church more relevant to the people.  They said them in English, not even Latin. And their priest faced the people. Our priest faced God during the service.

I could make out the cadence. The Nicene Creed came at the right time.  But the Communion was really different.  Our host was a dense flavourful bread dunked in sweet red wine, and delivered to our tongues gracefully with an ornate golden spoon. Theirs was a wafer that stuck to the roof of your mouth and you had to drink the wine separately out a chalice that everyone drank out of. How unhygienic! I kept wondering whether it was a sin to have the body of Christ stuck to the roof of my mouth and how on earth I should peel him off.

Fast forward to today and you'll see that the largest segment of the Eastern Rite Church is Ukrainian Catholic. There are fewer Russian Catholics. But there are a fair number of Orthodox among both Russian and Ukrainian people despite the attempt made by the Soviets to eliminate religious expression altogether. The Poles, Ukraine's neighbors on the Western front, are also Catholic but Roman Rite.  And the tatars are Muslim having converted centuries ago.

So layered into the differences among Russian and Ukrainian citizens (not speakers of language) are also religious differences that are more convoluted than simply Catholic and Protestant. Yet they would all unite against the socialist ideal of no religion at all.

Happy St. Daria's Day - whether it is celebrated April 1 in Byzantium or October 25 in Rome.