Eparchy of Križevci
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The Eparchy of Križevci is the eparchy comprising the Croatian Greek Catholic Church, a Catholic Church sui iuris [1] of the Byzantine Rite. It spans the former Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia; it mostly gathers its faithful among the Croats in central and eastern Croatia, Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia, and among the Rusyns and/or Ukrainians in eastern Croatia, northern Bosnia and northern Serbia. The liturgy in the Slavonic Rite uses the Old Church Slavonic language and the Cyrillic alphabet.
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[edit] Formation of the Eparchy of Križevci
The Ottoman wars in Europe caused a number of Christian refugees, mostly Serbs and Vlachs, to migrate to the Military Frontier of the Habsburg Monarchy (in south-central Croatia and in most of Slavonia) during the 16th and 17th centuries. The population was by and large faithful to the Serbian Orthodox Church, but the Roman Catholic Church accorded them a Byzantine vicar of the Latin Bishop of Zagreb in 1611. The Byzantine vicar was based in the monastery of Marča (located near Ivanić Grad, southeast of Zagreb) which would later become a center of controversy between the Uniates (who preferred Roman jurisdiction) and the Orthodox (who preferred jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Serbia). It is recorded that in 1735, the believers protested the Uniates in the monastery and it passed to the Orthodox; but in 1753 it was restored to the Uniates. The Križevci eparchy was finally erected in 1777 after a long bout with the Serb Orthodox clergy.
In 1646 some Byzantine priests from the Eparchy of Mukačevo in Carpathian Ruthenia and several other locations returned to full communion with the Bishop of Rome. The Union of Uzhorod, as it is called, has its origins in the Council of Florence (1439) plan to bridge the Schism and encourage full communion of Eastern Orthodoxy with the Holy See, and eventually led to the foundation of the eparchies of Križevci (Pope Pius VI on June 17, 1777), Presov (1818), and Hajdudorog (1920). [2] The Orthodox Serbs resisted, particularly in the metropolitan of Karlovci, Arsenije III Čarnojević. However a regiment of Orthodox of the Žumberak regiment of the Military Frontier accepted.
Križevci, the location of the see, is a town northeast of Zagreb. The new bishop was initially suffragan to the Primate of Hungary, and later (1853) to the Latin Archbishop of Zagreb.
[edit] Expansion
The Eparchy of Križevci was expanded after World War I to include all Byzantine Catholics in the former Yugoslavia. Owing to this expansion and to population movements over time, Križevci includes Catholics of varied national heritage [3] including:
- Croats from Žumberak
- Rusyns in Slavonia (Croatia), Vojvodina (Serbia) and northern Bosnia who had emigrated from Carpatho-Ukraine and Slovakia
- Ukrainians who emigrated from Galicia (now in Ukraine) around 1900
- Macedonian Slav converts from missionary activity in the 19th century
- a few Romanians in the Serbian Banat
Today the eparchy includes between 50,000 [4] and 77,000 [5] Byzantine Catholics. However the last census in the Republic of Croatia, in 2001, listed only 6219 Greek-Catholics. This represents a sharp decline in numbers, particularly in the general vicinity of Zumberak. Such decline is explained by a number of factors including: 1) emigration, particularly to the United States (including Cleveland, Chicago and Pittsburgh) from the 1880s to the 1920s, and 2) rural depopulation and in particular, the exodus to Zagreb particularly in the period following the second world war. Living outside the native area has resulted in the creation of small, fragile and often isolated communities of Greek Catholics. Under such conditions, most Zumbercani of the Greek Rite are now Latin Rite Catholics.
[edit] Diaspora
The first Byzantine Catholic priest from Croatia came to the United States of America in 1902, whose work among Byzantine rite Croatians in Cleveland was encouraged by the bishop of Križevci. [6] Another Croatian priest came to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1894. [7] Križevci is one of the four Eastern European eparchies that are the roots of the Eastern-rite Catholic Churches in the United States. [8]
[edit] Modern persecutions
"During World War II, the Slovak State suspected the Greek Catholic Redemptorist of anti-State propaganda since they were helping Ruthenians in a Slovak nationalist situation." [9] "Methodius Dominic Trcka, ... superior of the Redemptorist community in ... Eastern Slovakia, [was active] in the three Eparchies of Presov, Uzhorod and Križevci. With the arrival of the Communist regime, he was deported to a concentration camp with his Redemptorist colleagues." [10]
[edit] Current hierarchy
The eparchy of Križevci is currently headed by Bishop Slavomir Miklovš, a Ruthene (born 1934, appointed 1983). Note that not all Catholic bishops in Croatia are Eastern-rite Catholics.
In 2002 a separate Apostolic Exarchate was created for Greek Catholics in Serbia and Montenegro [11] after the formation of independent republics from what had been Yugoslavia. Almost all of the Greek Catholics in Serbia are some 18,000 Rusyns and Ukrainians (in Bačka), 4,000 Slovaks also in Bačka and 2,000 Romanians in the Serbian Banat.
