Can you understand me?

31.05.2013, 10:28
This feeling is a reaction to an article titled “More to It than That, Liturgy” I recently read by the Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine, the Most Reverend Thomas Gullickson, regarding issues I thought the Church had already mostly overcome, and only prevailed in a handful of parishes around the world; the issues being international identity and use of vernacular language in the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.

I am writing this article somewhat overwhelmed at what I could write and at the same time at a loss for words. This feeling is a reaction to an article titled “More to It than That, Liturgy” I recently read by the Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine, the Most Reverend Thomas Gullickson, regarding issues I thought the Church had already mostly overcome, and only prevailed in a handful of parishes around the world; the issues being international identity and use of vernacular language in the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.

The Nuncio’s article was written in response to a wonderful blog posting by Father James Siemens of the Eparchy of London, wherein Fr. Siemens eloquently restates the historical and ecclesiological rights of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church’s evangelization to dozens of ethnic groups, not only Ukrainian, and especially makes the case for using vernacular language.

Though it may seem that this topic is a well-beaten horse, Fr. Siemens argues that the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church needs to reassert its transnational and international identity especially at this point in its history. The Very Rev. Gullickson in his article proceeds to argue the invalidity of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church’s identity as such, commenting as the official representative of the Roman See that, “we don't usually think of the Byzantine tradition as missionary, as evangelizing beyond its borders.”

That very comment of the Nuncio’s opens a Pandora’s box of arguments better answered in the countless treatises, articles, and dissertations which have already been written on this subject and evidently ignored by much of the Roman hierarchy; and I, as a lowly university student and concerned member of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in America neither have the time nor resources to address fully. Rather, I reply to the Nuncio’s article point-by-point.

The Very Rev. Gullickson discredits Fr. Siemens in his article first, by commenting that his name is not, “typically Ukrainian,” instantly making an issue of Christian inclusion into the very exclusive ethnic division between Ukrainian Catholics which Fr. Siemens set off to eradicate in his original article. I would also like to point out the absurdity of the Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine, a purely territorial appointment, criticizing the rapport of a priest in the United Kingdom, but I digress.

The Nuncio continues to argue that the mission of the Western “lung” of the Catholic Church does not bear the same mission of the [according to John Paul II’s metaphor] equally important Eastern “lung” in issues of evangelization, and effectively reduces the Ukrainian Catholic Church to a Church in Ukraine, as opposed to a Church of Ukraine.

The article dismisses peaceful geographical cohabitation of Greek and Roman Christians as historically the two, according to the Nuncio, don’t have the most ‘romantic’ track record; as though evangelization is built on a first-come-first-serve model. The late Melkite Greek-Catholic Eparch of the United States, Archishop Joseph Tawil, once wrote of the absurdity of this archaic custom prevailing into the modern era:

The idea of territorial limits arose within the Roman Empire when the patriarchs, as bishops of the largest cities of the empire, had jurisdiction over the areas nearest them. Obviously, no patriarch, Eastern or Western, was assigned territory in the Americas or Australia, since nobody in the empire knew such lands existed. …The Eastern Churches have as much right as the West to establish hierarchies in these previously unknown areas. To conclude from the silence of the texts that everything outside the recognized boundaries of the Eastern patriarchates is not within their competence and must be adjudicated by the Roman patriarchate is excessive.

This kind of territorialism has manifest itself from the Crusades, through the schism between Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholic Churches in the United States over married priesthood, and, as is evident in the Nuncio’s article, still to this day. Rehashing issues of language and territory further divide a Church only just getting back on its feet after nearly a hundred years of fragmentation and expansion.

Much of the Nuncio’s article lies in the argument that there is more to Liturgy than the language in which it is celebrated and the text found inside of a book. This point of the Nuncio’s is undeniable. The iconography, ceremonial objects, gestures and posture, physical acts of receiving the Holy Mysteries, smells, let’s call them ‘physical modes of communication’ are all integral to orthodox worship. However, the words being chanted, the ‘verbal modes of communication’ must have a relevant meaning to all the faithful, not only the ones proficient in that specific language.

My late father, Fr. Pavlo Hayda, a well-respected Ukrainian Greek-Catholic pastor in the United States, was quoted in 1999 at a conference saying, “the sacredness of language is correlated to the message it conveys, not the other way around. …It is like the Pharisees confusing the letter of the law with its meaning.” Language, the Word, verbal communication of God’s revelation, is the most important aspect of our Christian faith, as highlighted in the first chapter of the Book of John; and there is no reason for the faithful not being allowed to understand it, or making them bend over backwards to understand it.

Liturgy, the work of the people, is meant to be expressed by everybody present; and expressing it in an unfamiliar language makes it awfully difficult for people to participate, albeit admittedly not impossible.

The Roman Church faced unintended and retrospectively overlooked changes in its theology as a result of the use of Latin in its liturgy. Private devotion and lack of interaction among the community assembled in a Church led to a collapse of the Early Christian intent of liturgy. According to another article by my late father, this type of worship:

began in the Latin Church when the Mass was often recited quietly between the priest and the altar boy. It was being recited quietly because almost no one understood the words of the Latin Mass. When we remember this, it is easy to understand why many pious individuals, instead of sitting quietly waiting for the bell to announce the time of the consecration or for the reception of the Eucharist, to use this time to privately pray. This was the only way they could participate, at least in some way.

Interestingly, I would like to add, the Church of Moscow is facing similar issues with their insistence on the use of Church Slavonic as it is grows farther and farther linguistically from the modern language of its faithful.

The Nuncio concludes his article by appealing to the readers’ sense of beauty in Liturgy. This argument, in my opinion, cannot be applied to liturgy or any aspect of our Tradition for two reasons.

Firstly, being attracted solely to a church or liturgy’s beauty disassociates it from its spirituality and theology; it makes Christianity a commodity, much like people are attracted to Megachurches because of their rock bands and charismatic preachers. I personally find beauty in the architecture of the United States Capitol building or in the eyes of the Mona Lisa, much like I find beauty in our church architecture and iconography; even so, beauty without a corresponding and comprehensible theology is meaningless and is meant for museums, not living institutions, namely Christ’s Church.

Secondly, it is often said that beauty is only in the eye of the beholder, and senses of aesthetic change with time and between cultures. The beauty of language and the sounds of its delivery is purely opinion based. Again, I may find immense beauty in the sound of Italian sung during an opera, or feel an emotional connection to a spicy flamenco song sung in Spanish, but the music takes precedence in that beauty, not its content.

I am not writing this article in opposition to the use of the Ukrainian language in the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. I was, after all, raised speaking Ukrainian, going to Ukrainian Heritage Schools, and belonging to Ukrainian ethnic organizations. I very much identify with my Ukrainian ancestry, yet that has little to do with the language I understand best. When I hear the Ukrainian liturgy, yes, I am spiritually uplifted, and I revel at the multiple meanings of the words reaching my ears; but when I listen to the liturgy in English, I truly apprehend the phrases and the substance of our communal worship.

I am also not writing to suggest that the rejection of a Ukrainian liturgy will somehow magically and alone attract new members to our Church, as has been attempted by some other jurisdictions. Language is an important part, though, in getting people to appreciate the intricate meanings of our Tradition without too much misunderstanding of its message.

Not to get too entirely off topic, I would like to finish my comments here with another quote from His Grace Archbishop Tawil, so that we continue to better understand the issue at hand:

Unity must not destroy diversity, nor must diversity harm unity. Understanding and harmony in the Church depend on this double condition. History shows a very clear fact: every time that unity did not reckon with diversity, there were schisms or separations, and every time that diversity was affirmed to the detriment of unity, there were disorders of every kind.

Julian Hayda