The Rusyn Clergymen of The Habsburg Empire in The Age of The National Awakening

Sándor Földvári (Debrecen University.Hungary)

Email: armastus@freemail.hu

 

ABSTRACT:

The roots of the present-day cultural and language situation of the Rusyn have their origin in the great changes in ethnic and church life of The Habsburg Empire in the eighteenth century when the Rusyn intelligence were shaped, mainly thanks to the erection of the Mukachevo Greek Catholic eparchy in 1772.

The picture of the role played by Rusyn, Greek Catholic clergymen in the late 18th – early 19th centuries, were common in the literature on the field, is to be modified by studies made by the author of the paper in the church archives in Hungary, Slovakia and Austria. Those who belonged to the very establishment of the Rusyn were educated together with the sons of another Slavic peoples of the Carpathian Basin and the Hungarian as well in the theological seminaries in Eger, Trnava, Oradea and principally Vienna. Empress Maria Theresa founded a theological seminary named Barbareum in 1774 with purposes to encourage the national awakening of various Slavic peoples were living in her empire. These alumni had opportunity to get acquaintance with the fathers of Slavic Linguistics in The Habsburg Empire namely Bartolomeus Kopitar and Josef Dobrovský. Analyse of the influence made by the great Czech linguist J. Dobrovský on his Rusyn followers, Ioann Fogorosshy and Michael Luchkay is to be completed by some newly found sources related to establishing a chapel of the Byzantine rite in Lucca, Italy, where M. Luchkay served, too.

At the same time, contacts of Cis-Carpathian Rusyn parishes (from another point of view they would be called Carpatho-Ukrainian) with Ukrainian and Polish territories can be revalued by studies made on marginal notes written in liturgical books were printed in Ukrainian typographies and imported into Hungarian Kingdom in a greater ratio than it was maintained earlier. These data are to be completed with the lists of liturgical books in various church institutions especially those ones were recorded on request of bishop Andreas Bachinsky who ordered to collect and record data of books were held in all the parishes were belonged to his eparchy. Such lists were found and studied mainly in The “Niederösterreichesches Landesarchiv” (The Lower-Austrian Land Archiv), The Greek Catholic Eparchial Archiv in Preshov (East Slovakia), The Archiv of The Roman Catholic Archieparchy in Eger (North Hungary), and matters on Bachinsky’s orders in The Hajdúdorog Greek Catholic Eparchial Archiv in Nyíregyháza (East Hungary). Having opportunities to study the private archiv of the Bendas in Beregovo, the author can complete his findings with the data of former matters were held in Mukachevo Eparchial Archiv and were destroyed in great part during the Communist era, too.

Keywords: Rusyn, Greek Catholic, history of Slavic linguistics, liturgical books.