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The Ruthenian Uniate Church in its Historical Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Ludvik Nemec
Affiliation:
Professor of Oriental Religions, Rosemont College, Rosemont, Pennsylvania

Extract

To consider the Ruthenian Uniate Church in its historical perspective, and to encompass its complex phenomenon in a few pages is difficult for the historian who must treat this matter as an exception to the rule rather than an isolated historical event. It stands in sharp contrast to the historical precedent of the Kievan state whose inception and development, always represented politically, culturally, and ecclesiastically, the unity of all Russia. The division of Kievan Russia into principalities governed by members of the Rurik dynasty did not inhibit the cultural evolution, nor did it cut Russia off from contact with Western Europe. Rather, the cultural evolution developed in the general direction it had been given by Kiev, and contact with the West was further intensified in the principalities of Galicia-Volhynia and Novgorod. In addition to Kiev, several new centers of Russian political life developed in proportion to the number of principalities which increased as fathers divided their appanages among their children.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1968

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51. The name “Ruthenian” is a historic name, which has been replaced by the term Ukrainian. Even Vatican official terminology replaced recently the term “Ruthenian” with that of Ukrainian (cf. Annuario Pontificio 1967) while the term “Rutheninn” is still applied to the Pittsburgh and Passaic dioceses, although these have also a term “The Byzantine-Rite Dioceses of Pittsburgh and Passaic.”