Like most events of this kind, the inauguration of Metropolitan-Archbishop Borys Gudziak of Philadelphia was programmatic as well as ceremonial: it sent a message about the future course of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. It was a “Heart to Heart” meeting not only among hierarchs, monastics, and pastors, but first of all between clergy and laity. This was evident, for example, when after the liturgy in Philadelphia on Saturday, June 8, priests and faithful joined in a barbecue, and the newly installed metropolitan and a leading scholar-cleric from Canada reportedly joined with children in a game of soccer.
Lay-clerical relations were not the only topic discussed at the conference on June 6 at the Catholic University of America in Washington. The Rev. Prof. Mark Morozowich posed the fundamental question, “Who are we?” Today, one can identify several constituent elements of the UCC. The First and Second Waves of emigration have assimilated into American society, while due to its political nature the Third Wave (those who arrived in the U.S. between 1946 and 1952, and their descendants) initially resisted. Most prominent in some parishes is the Fourth Wave, who emigrated from Ukraine after 1987, and their children. Then there are the converts, with their various ethnic, linguistic, religious and racial origins. Serving such a diverse flock is a major challenge for the Church.
Metropolitan-Archbishop Borys’s June 4 installation ceremony was pointedly focused on a young woman with special needs who sat in a wheelchair at the center of the cathedral. This was not simply a message about the Church’s compassion for the disabled. For nothing could have contrasted more with the values of a post-Christian society obsessed with power, competition, wealth and success. It was a message about how we should we live – recognizing our weakness, our brokenness, our need for love and salvation.
Are we, then, a Church of the marginalized? Certainly we are called to serve the neglected, the poor and the downtrodden. But the Church serves all of society – the professionals and entrepreneurs and the IT techies too, who could become its most effective apostles. In fact, it is the Church itself that is being marginalized, in a culture that, as George Weigel remarked in his opening address at the conference in Washington, is hostile to the Christian way.
Several speakers echoed this sentiment. The divergence between the Christian way of life on the one hand and the habits and customs of society, as reflected in the law of the land on the other, is growing. We may have to choose between the Christian way and a socially acceptable lifestyle.
One audience member spoke of converting North America. The idea may not be so far-fetched. Dissatisfaction with the current state of society is rife. As Notre Dame political scientist Patrick J. Deneen observes, American hyper-individualism has resulted in widespread loneliness and isolation. Hence, people seek community – not just on Facebook, but in book clubs, sports, gyms, community gardens, language classes and such. Will they find it in the parish? Many people also seek the transcendent. They may find it in yoga, meditation or exotic religions. Will they find it in the Church?
What the Church offers is not mere therapy or get-togethers, but personal as well as cultural transformation. Today’s secularized culture, however, has deep roots. Dr. Deneen points to a centuries-old striving for freedom from custom and tradition. That means religion too. Some have argued, moreover, that a full-fledged Christianity is incompatible with the founding principles of American democracy, which treat religion as an essentially private matter.
Can the Eastern Christian message compete in the modern marketplace of ideas? If the UCC is to propose an alternative – a course correction for a society gone astray – it must enter public life. Only then can it contribute its unique Kyivan-Byzantine perspective.
Fundamentally, that vision should be the same for Ukraine and America. It would include such well-known Catholic principles as the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, freedom and responsibility, community and cooperation, and a well-grounded philosophy of the state. Drawing on its Eastern heritage, the Church would also tackle two issues that – for good reason – the June 6 conference did not attempt to cover.
First, many Roman Catholics and Evangelicals focus on individual “life” and “family” issues such as abortion, contraception, marriage and assisted suicide. Those who oppose the corresponding Christian teachings usually do so not out of malice, but with the best – albeit misguided and misinformed – intentions. The only effective approach is persuasion through reasoned dialogue. In the long run, these issues could be more effectively addressed through a consistent and comprehensive “whole life” ethic also including such principles as environmental stewardship and social justice. Theologians at the newly inaugurated Ukrainian studies program at the Catholic University of America, the Sheptytsky Institute in Toronto or the Ukrainian Catholic University could develop such an ethic in a unique Kyivan Byzantine key.
Second, should the UCC discourage emigration from Ukraine as an inevitable loss to Church and nation, or should it encourage immigration to America to replenish its diminishing flock? If all ethnic groups must eventually disappear in the melting pot, what will become of a Church that is coupled with ethnicity? Will tomorrow’s “American of Ukrainian background” be attracted to an “American Church of the Ukrainian tradition”?
To answer such questions, we must reconsider what it means to be a “Ukrainian” Church. A linguistically Ukrainian Church will last one or two generations, unless new tides of immigration fill its pews. Absent such an inflow, an ethnically Ukrainian Church will last three, maybe four generations. But a theologically Ukrainian Church – one that cultivates the Greek-Byzantine tradition as developed in the Kyivan lands – could last indefinitely.
Perhaps the greatest challenge, however – in America as well as Ukraine – is rousing the complacent: us “bourgeois Christians,” who acknowledge that God exists, but conduct our lives as if He didn’t. Whatever the solution is, it will have to be radical.
Andrew Sorokowski can be reached at [email protected].