Eastern Catholic clergy in Ukraine
The Eastern Catholic clergy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church were a hereditary tight-knit social caste that dominated Ukrainian society in Western Ukraine from the late eighteenth until the mid-twentieth centuries, following the reforms instituted by Emperor Joseph II, Sovereign of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.
In 988, the East Slavic state of Kyivan Rus' was converted to the Eastern form of Christianity at the behest of Volodymyr I of Kyiv.
Over the following centuries, most of the native landowning nobility adopted the dominant Polish nationality and Roman Catholic religion.
The centuries of Polish rule were characterized by a steady erosion of the economic and social status of most of the local Galician clergy.
Prior to the Habsburg reforms, a very small number of Greek Catholic clergy, often Polonized nobility, were linked to the Basilian order.
The Order was independent of the Greek Catholic hierarchy and continued to enjoy certain wealth and privileges which it did not share with the rest of the Church.
Travelling the lands newly acquired from Poland in 1772, Austrian emperor Joseph II decided that the Greek Catholic clergy would be ideal vehicles for bringing about enlightened reform among the Ukrainian population.
[9] With this in mind he undertook major reforms designed to increase the status and educational level of the Ukrainian clergy in order to enable them to play the role he assigned for them.
[11] The Austrian reforms granting education, land, and government salaries set the stage for the clergy's dominant position in western Ukrainian society for several generations.
New members of the intelligentsia arose from the peasantry, some of whom objected to what they considered to be the priestly patronizing attitudes towards peasants as childlike or drunkards needing to be taught and led.
[12] The Radicals helped to spread discontent against the status quo by criticizing sacramental fees that were considered to be too high for the poor peasants, publicizing disputes over land rights between the Church and the peasantry, and attacking priests' authority on moral matters.
[8] In the words of one church leader speaking about reading clubs, "instead of national love they have awakened in our peasant self-love and arrogance.
[17] Scholar Jean-Paul Himka has characterized the Galician clergy as having "an Orthodox face, Roman Catholic citizenship and an enlightened Austrian soul.
[18] Two thirds of the participants of a Congress of scholars called in 1848 to standardize the Ukrainian language and introduce educational reforms were members of the clergy.
[19] Priests actively supported the first Ukrainian newspaper, Zorya Halytska ("Galician Star"), either reading it aloud to illiterate peasants or having their cantors do so.
[8] Ukrainian author Ivan Belei remarked that "Galician Rus may be the only place in the whole world where neither literature nor politics is possible without priestly support.
"[20] In 1831 seminarians were required by the head of the Church to take classes in agronomy because they were expected to introduce modern farming methods to the peasants.
[8] Studying in Vienna, Ukrainian seminarians came into contact with the West at the time when Romantic nationalism and the virtues of the "People" had come to dominate modern thought in central Europe.
[22] The Ukrainian seminarians established contact with Czech students who were undertaking an extensive revival of their national culture and came to imitate their efforts.
[8] In the words of Ukrainian Catholic pilgrims visiting the tombs of the first two Austrian rulers to rule Ukraine, "lost deep in thought, we gazed at the coffins of Maria Theresa and her son Joseph, whose names are written in golden letters in our people's history."
This led to the informal requirement that their potential brides (daughters of other priests) ought to be educated and conversant in fashionable literature, to be fluent in a foreign language, and to be able to play a musical instrument.
[29] Priestly income also paid for their daughters' dowries, buying and repairing carriages, investments for the farm, and clothing for their wives to wear in society, [8] often imported from Vienna or Paris.
[24] Reflecting the clergy's role as community leaders and organizers, family life usually centred not on religion but on political and social questions.
Conversations centred on economic concerns, village affairs and politics, and in his and other priestly families, moral or religious matters were not discussed.
