The annual meeting of Eastern Rite Catholic bishops in Europe this
year brought together in Zagreb - Križevci (Croatia) about 60
participants, bishops and experts, at the invitation of the Bishop of
Križevci, Mgr Nikola Kekić, and under the patronage of the Council of
European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE). At the heart of their work the bishops examined the specific contribution of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches to the common and universal mission of the Church in the light of the Second Vatican Council, the New Evangelisation, and the Year of Faith.
In the course of the meeting, the bishops wanted to thank the Holy Father for his continued support so that the liturgical, theological and cultural tradition of the Eastern Catholic Churches might be known and valued as a spiritual richness for the whole of the Church.
The annual meeting of Easterbn Rite Catholic Bishops opened in the Croatian capital with the celebration of a Latin Rite Mass presided over by Cardinal Josip Bozanic, Archbishop of Zagreb, and with the participation of the Apostolic Nuncio to Croatia, Mgr Alessandro Vito D‘Errico.
“In this way”, said Mgr Nikola Kekić, Bishop of Križevci, who hosted the meeting, “we want to testify to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, with the Pope of Rome at its head”.
To underline the bond which unites Croatia with the other Eastern traditions of Europe, ancient Croatian-Glagolithic, a form of old Croatian akin to the oldest Slav Croatian alphabet of the missionary brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius, who had an important role in the work of evangelisation of the Slav peoples in the course of the 9th century, was used in the central part of the Mass.
The Greek-Catholic Church of Križevci
This year’s meeting took place in Croatia on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the renewed union of the Croatian Greek-Catholic Church with the Apostolic See of Rome sanctioned and known as the Union of Marča.
The eparchy of Križevci is a suffragan see of the Archdiocese of Zagreb. The eparchial see is the city of Križevci (about 40 km from Zagreb), where there is the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity. Currently the territory is divided into 44 parishes.
At one time the jurisdiction extended over the territories of Yugoslavia (Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia Herzegovina). After the formation of the independent republics from what was Yugoslavia, in 2001 a separate Apostolic Exarchate was established for the Greek-Catholics in Macedonia; in 2002 another exarchate was established with jurisdiction over Serbia and Montenegro.
Today, the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Križevci extends over the Greek-Catholics of Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Slovenia. It is three nations with three peoples (Croatians, Ukrainians, and Rusyns) corresponding to three traditions: Croatian, Galician (Ukraine) and that of Mukachevo. There are about 22,000 faithful in the eparchy.
Opening the meeting, with a message addressed to the participants, Cardinal Péter Erdő, President of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE), the continental episcopal body which has sponsored the meeting for a number of years, reaffirmed the importance of similar meetings “so that these meetings may continue to take place as an opportunity for communion and witness to the faith” and emphasised the joint commitment so that the traditions of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches “might be more known and loved by the faithful and clergy of the whole world”.
The contribution of the Eastern Council Fathers to the Second Vatican Council
In the year in which the Church is recalling the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the participants were given a reflection on the contribution of the Eastern Council Fathers to the Second Vatican Council by Mgr Dimitrios Salachas, Apostolic Exarch (bishop) for Byzantine Rite Catholics in Greece.
Out of 2,200 Council Fathers, more than 200 were Eastern Catholic bishops. Their contribution was significant, both in the preparatory phase and in the discussion and drafting of numerous conciliar documents, but particularly in the two decrees Orientalium Ecclesiarum, on the nature and mission of the Eastern Churches, and Unitatis Redintegratio, the document on dialogue with other Christian Churches: both inspired by the dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium (one of the four fundamental documents in the renewal of the Catholic Church of the 20th century which is also at the basis of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches).
In Zagreb, the Eastern Catholic bishops reflected on the application of the conciliar guidelines in the respective Churches and on the directives which regulate the relationship between the Latin Rite Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches.
In the Catholic Church today where is the application of the reflection on the apostolic origin of the Eastern Churches and the patriarchal Churches in particular (cf. Lumen Gentium, 23)? What is the role of the Eastern Churches in ecumenical dialogue, especially with the Orthodox Churches (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio)?
And how is the pastoral care of the Latin Rite bishops who welcome into their dioceses ever increasing numbers of communities of Eastern Rite faithful explained in Europe today? What is the role of the Eastern Churches in the diaspora?
In short, the bishops present in the Croatian capital asked themselves about the role of the Eastern Churches in the “Catholicity” (universality) of the Church fifty years after the Council and how best to highlight this contribution, aware that there is still a certain ignorance in the Catholic Church itself about the liturgical, theological and cultural traditions of the Eastern Churches.
The legislation of the Eastern Churches after the Second Vatican Council
The contribution of Mgr Cyril Vasil’, Secretary of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, who covered the major outline of the process which led to the realisation of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, published in 1990, and the attention given to the Eastern Churches in subsequent documents, was particularly appreciated.
The Code constitutes an unicum in the history of the Church. It is the first time that the Eastern Churches have had body of norms based on ancient canons and promulgated by the Sovereign Pontiff.
The Code was the fruit of intensive work collecting sources, that is the particular legislation of the individual Eastern Churches, and of a long period of reflection which had already led to a first form of the Code which was never published, because the preference was to wait for the results reflection on the imminent Second Vatican Council was to bring.
In 1972, the idea of a specific Code for the Eastern Churches was taken up again and a special commission was established with the task of drawing up some Guidelines for the realisation of a future Code. These guidelines themselves, along with the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches, have also become reference points for some post-conciliar documents especially connected to the ecumenical dimension or the pastoral care of migrants.
In the course of the meeting, the assembly wanted to express its own gratitude to Mgr Vasil’ and to the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, for the delicate task of mediation in watching how the Church can best express its “Catholicity” in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel even in the face of the complications which can emerge where various ecclesial and ritual traditions live side-by-side in the same territory.
The Synod on the New Evangelisation and the Eastern Catholic Churches
The Bishop of Oradea-Mare (Romania), Mgr Virgil Bercea, who took part in the last Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelisation, shared with participants his personal experience of the Synod, highlighting the contributions of the Eastern Synod Fathers in the discussions.
The Synod last October was a moment of community discernment aimed at identifying the appropriate stimuli to respond to the challenge of the proclamation of Christ in the current socio-cultural context.
The specific contribution to the new evangelisation of the Eastern Churches comes above all through faithfulness to the “Cyril-Methodius model of evangelisation” characterised by a proclamation of the Gospel imbued and nourished by a strong spirituality, liturgy in the vernacular and faithfulness to the Supreme Pontiff.
To that is added the testimony, the martyrdom, of many bishops, priests and lay faithful, which today appears as a gift in the face of the anthropological crisis which often renders the modern person incapable of justifying him or herself and the direction of their own existence.
In addition, the Eastern Catholic Churches feel themselves faced with these global phenomena especially because they impact on many of their emigrated faithful, thus posing for their respective Churches uncommon pastoral issues which require appropriate and original solutions.
The Catechism of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church
During the meeting His Beatitude Svjatislav Ševčuk, Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, presented the Catechism “Christ our Pasch”, the “book” through which the Church presents its teachings on faith and morals. It is the first time in the history of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church that is has its own catechism, the fruit of ten years’ work involving the whole of the Greek-Catholic Church.
It is a response to the very call of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in this the 20th anniversary of its publication, and which envisaged the possibility, for the local churches, of equipping themselves with a catechism suitable to the local needs and reality.
For His Beatitude, the task of the catechism just published is that of helping the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic faithful to have a better knowledge of faith in Christ and to incarnate it more profoundly in their own lives; to protect and develop the Christian tradition of Saint Vladimir; to witness to the link between the Christian tradition of Kiev and universal (Catholic) Christianity; and finally to renew and strengthen the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic faithful in the faith, in the Eastern Catholic tradition and in unity.
The catechism has been translated into Italian and English, with Portuguese and Spanish versions in preparation.
On Saturday 24 November, the participants had a private audience with the President of the Croatian Republic, His Excellency Mr Ivo Josipović, who highlighted the contribution of the Croatian Greek-Catholic Church to the life of the present Croatian society. In the afternoon, they went on pilgrimage to the national shrine of the “Mother of God” at Marija Bistrica.
The meeting ended on Sunday 25 November, with the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in the Greek-Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Križevci, broadcast live on Croatian national television.
The meeting took place in a cordial and friendly atmosphere, enriched by moments of prayer and the daily celebration of Mass with the local Greek-Catholic and Latin Rite communities. The liturgy, always very proper and with good participation, meant that the words spoken during the meeting were also an expression of a lived experience. Much-appreciated was the welcome from Mgr Nikola Kekić, Bishop of Križevci, and from Cardinal Josip Bozanić, Archbishop of Zagreb.
The 2013 meeting will take place in Slovakia in Košice, which next year is the European Capital of Culture, from 17-20 October on the occasion of the 1150th anniversary of the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius in the country and at the invitation of Mgr Milan Chautur, Bishop of Košice.