Mukachevo Greek Catholic Diocese

Locals converted to the Byzantine rite Christianity even before the separation of churches in 1054 . For many centuries, the center of the Mukachevo Orthodox Diocese, which was subordinate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople , was the Mukachevo Monastery on Chernechey Gora, which was founded by Podolsky Prince Fedor Koryatovich . Information about the first bishops who lived in this monastery dates from the 15th century.

The first written source mentioning the Mukachevo Orthodox Diocese was a letter from the Hungarian King Matthias Hunyadi , dated 1491 .

April 24, 1646 in the chapel of Uzhgorod castle at the initiative of the Orthodox Bishop Vasily Tarasovich 63 priests concluded the Union of Uzhgorod . In 1663, the conditions were determined under which the Mukachevo diocese was included in the Kiev metropolis. However, due to the resistance of Ferenc Rakoczi II, the Mukachevo diocese became subordinate to the Hungarian Eger bishop .

In 1689, the Holy See established the Apostolic Vicariate of Mukachev with submission to the Bishop of Eger. In 1690, Pope Alexander VIII and the Austrian Emperor appointed Joseph de Kamelis , Bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate, who distributed the union among the residents of Mukachev.

On April 7, 1707, Pope Clement XI appointed the Przemysl bishop Yuri Vinnitsa as the apostolic administrator of the Mukachevo Vicariate. On March 7, 1715, the diocesan synod protested against the appointment by the vicar general of the Mukachevo diocese of a Latin priest and refused to obey the Eger Latin bishop.

On December 9, 1716, Kiev Metropolitan Leo Koshka ordained Bishops Yuri Byzantium , whom Pope Clement XII called the “ Apostolic Vicar of the Mukachevo diocese and other territories received by Hungary ”.

In 1744, thanks to the efforts of Bishop M. Olshavsky, a theological school was opened in Mukachevo. The training was conducted in Russian language . In 1764, the Diocesan Synod in Mukachevo decided to "once and for all break its dependence on the Eger bishop." On September 19, 1771, Pope Clement XIV by the bull " Eximie Regalium Principium" formed the Mukachevo diocese and removed it from submission to the Latin bishop in Eger. Later, the Lviv bishop Leo Sheptytsky proposed to unite all the Rusyn Greek Catholic dioceses of the Habsburg empire. The bishop of the Mukachevo diocese, Andrei Bachinsky, became a candidate for the rank of metropolitan. However, the Hungarian church and state circles did not allow the creation of a single Ruthenian metropolis.

In 1780, Bishop Andrei Bachinsky moved his residence from Mukachev to Uzhgorod. The theological school, reorganized into a theological seminary , moved there.

Throughout the XVII-XVIII centuries, the Mukachevo diocese fought for independence from the Hungarian Latin episcopate. This struggle ended in 1771, when Pope Clement XIV finally proclaimed the independence of the Mukachevo diocese from the Latin Eger bishop. The diocese included 711 parishes and 560 thousand believers living in the territory of today's Transcarpathia , Pryashevschina, Marmaroshchini and Hungary.

From the Mukachevo diocese, new Greek Catholic dioceses were allocated:

• Krizhevitsky diocese (1777),
• Prešov Diocese (1818), which became the basis for the creation of the Slovak Greek Catholic Church . On September 22, 1818 , the Presov diocese was allocated as part of 194 parishes with about 150,000 believers, who from 1787 formed the so-called Kosice Roman Catholic Vicariate (with its center in Kosice, from 1792 - in Presevo). The diocese was officially proclaimed only in 1818, when decisions of the Roman throne were published on September 22. The Prešov Diocese was subordinate to the Latin Metropolitan Esztergom . In 1937, Pope Pius XI with his bull “Ad ecclesiastici” subordinated the Presov throne directly to the Apostolic Capital.
• The Haydudorog Diocese (1912), which, in turn, became the basis for the creation of the Hungarian Greek Catholic Church . On June 8, 1912, Pope Pius X founded the Haidudorgh diocese, which included 68 parishes of Mukachevo and eight parishes of the Presov diocese. Today, the structure of the Haydudorgh diocese consists mainly of parishes that were once part of the Mukachevo diocese.
• At the end of the 19th century, the Rusyns who emigrated to Pennsylvania (USA) founded Greek Catholic parishes there. In 1913, a separate Ruthenian exarchate was formed on the basis of these parishes, later transformed into the Pittsburgh Archdiocese .

In 1888, Pope Leo XIII unveiled a plan for the unification of the Mukachevo and Presov dioceses with the Galicia Metropolitanate . Hungarian primacy Cardinal Janos примimor announced that the implementation of such a plan would be a great insult to the national feelings of the Hungarians. In 1898, the Budapest Regional Committee of Greek Catholics-Magyars was founded, which set the task of translating the services into Hungarian, deleting the names of saints from the church calendar. Paraskevi, St. Boris , St. Gleb , St. Vladimir , St. Theodosius and Anthony of the Caves. On September 2, 1937, the Vatican finally freed the Prešov and Mukachevo dioceses from submission to the Hungarian Archangel of Esztergom, granting them sui iuris status. On November 15, 1938, the Vatican appointed the Krizhevets bishop (Yugoslavia) Dionysius Nyaradi as the Apostolic Visitor of the Carpathian Ukraine .

After the occupation of Carpathian Ukraine by the troops of the Khortian Hungary, the diocese lost the status of “sui juris” and it was returned to the control of the Esztergom archbishop.

The arrival of Soviet power in Transcarpathia in the autumn of 1944 coincided with the appointment of a new bishop Theodore Romgi . The main “scene” for the drama of the local Greek Catholic Church was the monastery of St. Nicholas , located on Chernechey Mountain near Mukachev. In the spring of 1947, Soviet authorities captured the monastery of St. Nicholas. It was here that it was planned to proclaim the act of joining the Russian Orthodox Church. To this end, invited Orthodox bishops and former Greek Catholic priests from Galicia.

On October 27, 1947, an attempt was made on Bishop Theodore Romgeo. The death of the bishop did not force the Greek Catholic clergy to convert to Orthodoxy. The two most active priests, Alexander Hiru and Nikolai Muraniyu, were sentenced to 25 years, while 93 priests of the region died in prisons and concentration camps.

The union was eliminated by signing an act on the conversion of Greek Catholics to Orthodoxy. This process was led by Father Kondratovic, who was a member of the Communist Party of Hungary. Formally, the act was read to the Assumption of the Virgin on August 28, 1949 in the monastery of St. Nicholas. Less than half of the Transcarpathian clergy signed the act. Most of them subsequently repented and returned to the underground Greek Catholic Church.

Since 1987, a movement has begun to rebuild the Greek Catholic Church. On November 30, 1988, the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR issued a statement on the registration of religious communities of Greek Catholics.

• Bishop John Bradach (09/23/1771 - 07/04/1772);
• Bishop Andrei Bachinsky (March 8, 1773 - November 19, 1809);
• Bishop Aleksey Povchiy (07.28.1817 - 07.11.1831);
• Bishop Vasily Popovich (2.10.1837 - 10.19.1864);
• Bishop Stefan Pankovic (02.22.1867 - 08.29.1874);
• Bishop John Pastel (03.15.1875 - 03.24.1891);
• Bishop Julius Firtsak (12/17/1891 - 01/06/1912);
• Bishop Antal Papp (1.06.1912 - 07.14.1924);
• Bishop Peter Gebei (07/16/1924 - 04/26/1931);
• Bishop Alexander Stoyka (05/03/1932 - 05/31/1943);
  • Sede Vacante (1947-1983);
    • Nikolay Murani (1947-1977) - vicar general;
    • Konstantin Szabo (07/16/1977 - 11/18/1982) - general administrator;
• Bishop John of Semedia (01/16/1991 - 12/12/2002);
• Bishop Milan Shashik CM (03.17.2010 - present).
  • Bishop Neil Lushchak - auxiliary bishop since November 19, 2012

• Uzhgorod Archdeaconate, which includes Uzhgorod-city, Uzhgorod-district, Beregovsky, dean of Beregovo-district, Velikobereznyansky, Perechinsky and Serednyansky deans;
• Mukachevo archdeaconate, which includes Mukachevo-city, Mukachevo-district, Irshavsky, Beletsky, Vinogradovsky, Volovetsky, Svalyavsky and Chinadievsky deans;
• Khust Episcopal Vicariate, which includes Khust, Velikobychkovsky, Mezhgorsky, Rakhovsky, Solotvinsky and Tyachiv deans.

• Magazine "Evangelist."

• Uzhgorod Academy named after Theodore Romgi ;
• Theological Collegium of Saints Cyril and Methodius, city of Khust;
• Diocesan Lyceum named after Alexander Stoyka, p. Karachin, Vinogradovsky district;
• Diocesan Spiritual Center named after John Paul II, p. Antalovtsy, Uzhgorod district.

• Mukachevo Greek Catholic Diocese. Official website (in Ukrainian)
• The Hierarchy of the Catholic Church
• Icon of the Mukachevo Blessed Virgin Mary (Ukrainian)
• Ivan Churgovich and Ivan Pastel (Ukrainian)
• Vladyka Milan: “The Mukachevo diocese is one of the largest in Ukraine” (Ukrainian)
• In the Mukachevo Greek Catholic Diocese, three archdeaconates are established (Ukrainian)
• The division of the Mukachevo Greek Catholic Diocese into archdeaconates has been restored (Ukrainian)