Eparchy of Chernivtsi
About
The eparchy of Chernivtsi belongs to the Ivano-Frankivsk Metropolis of the UGCC and covers the territory of the Chernivtsi region. According to statistical data from 2015, the total area is 8 099 km2, and a number of population is 909 893 people. The number of settlements reaches 417 administrative units. The seat of the eparchial bishop is Chernivtsi city.
Coat of arms of the eparchy of Chernivtsi
The eparchy of Chernivtsi consists of two deaneries:
- Chernivtsi (9 parish communities),
- Vyzhnytsia (8 parish communities).
In the eparchy, 13 priests carry out their pastoral ministry.
Charity organization Caritas operates in Chernivtsi.
Location
Bishop
Since September 12, 2017, the Reverend Bishop Yosafat Moschych has been the ruling eparch of the eparchy of Chernivtsi.
The Cathedral of the eparchy of Chernivtsi is the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary (28 Ruska Str., Chernivtsi).
History
Since Kyivan Rus, the territory of Bukovina had belonged to the eparchy of Halych (and from 1303 to Halych Metropolis) and had been actively Christianized according to the Slavic-Byzantine rite.
The first organized communities of faithful Greek Catholics in Bukovina appeared at the end of the XVIII century. It happened in 1774 after the territory had entered the Habsburg Empire and a significant number of refugees from Halychyna and Semyhorod had risen. Back in 1780 the Austrian government permitted Christians of the Eastern Rite to create individual parishes and construct their churches. However, only in 1812, the first official Greek Catholic parish was established in Chernivtsi. In 1814, Bukovina gets named dean of Chernivtsi Fr. Theodor Lavretsky. In the beginning, services were held in the local Latin church but in 1821, thanks to the ktetor Thaddeus Turkula (a local Greek Catholic), a parish church of Saints Peter and Paul the Apostles (in 1937 it was given the title of the Dormition of the Mother of God) was blessed. According to the data of Schematism of the Lviv Greek Catholic Eparchy of 1832, 9 thousand 955 Catholics of the Eastern Rite lived on the territory of Bukovina at that time. From the middle of the XIX century till the beginning of World War I, the number of faithful people tripled from more than 9 thousand to above 26 thousand.
For the organizational unification of the Greek Catholic communities and the provision of pastoral care over them, in the middle of the XIX century, the deaneries of Chernivtsi (16 parishes) and later (1894) of Suceava (8 parishes) were established. The deaneries were part of the Eparchy of Lviv and from 1855 belonged to the Eparchy of Stanyslaviv of the Halych Greek Catholic Metropolis.
In 1880, Galician Metropolitan Joseph Sembratovych made a canonic visitation to the united parishes of Bukovina that strengthened the spiritual and institutional connection of local Greek Catholics with the cathedral center in Lviv. One of the next pastoral visitations to Bukovina was made by the Bishop of Stanyslaviv Andrey Sheptytsky who also did a pilgrimage to Rome together with Bukovina believers.
In 1900, during the meeting with Orthodox Metropolitan Arkady Chuperkovych in Chernivtsi, Bishop Sheptytsky called for interfaith dialogue in the region and interethnic harmony between Ukrainians, Romanians, and other peoples.
At the time of the entry of Bukovina into the Soviet Union in 1940, the population of Greek Catholics in the region was 30 thousand people. In 1946, the communist government prohibited Greek Catholic services on the territory of the Chernivtsi region, and all churches were closed or passed to the Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate.
With the fall of the totalitarian regime and the proclamation of independence of Ukraine, the activity of the Greek Catholic Church in Bukovina was renewed. At the beginning of the 1990s, a former prisoner of conscience, Bishop Pavlo Vasylyk, after the Lviv Pseudo-Council, celebrated the first public Greek Catholic Liturgy in Chernivtsi. In October of the following year the Head of the Church, Cardinal Myroslav Ivan Lyubachivsky made a pastoral visit to the city.
Greek Catholic communities of the Chernivtsi region became part of the eparchy of Ivano-Frankivsk in 1990, and later in 1993, entered the eparchy of the UGCC Kolomyia — Chernivtsi. Bishop Pavlo Vasylyk was nominated as the first eparch of the Eparchy of Kolomyia-Chernivtsi.
Dynamic development of the structures of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the region, which was also occurring thanks to the tireless pastoral work of the eternal memory of Bishop Mykola Simkail, made it possible to create the vicariate of Bukovina of the eparchy of Kolomiya — Chernivtsi as a part of Vyzhnytsia and Chernivtsi deaneries. Church of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Chernivtsi became a Cathedral of the eparchy.
On December 13, 2011, on Saint Andrew the First-Called Day, it was announced the establishment of the Ivano-Frankivsk Metropolis in the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Ivano-Frankivsk city. The eparchy of Ivano-Frankivsk was nominated as an archeparchy and the eparchy of Kolomiya-Chernivtsi became part of the Ivano-Frankivsk metropolis.
Because of the new circumstances and as the experience of pastoral ministry in the Chernivtsi region showed, it was necessary to create a new eparchy to carry out better spiritual care for the faithful and improve stable basics for the renewed lives of believers. Taking into consideration the advice of Metropolitan of Ivano-Frankivsk Metropolis Volodymyr Viytyshyn and eparchial Bishop of the eparchy of Kolomiya-Chernivtsi Vasyl Ivasyuk, and especially looking at the needs of people, Head of the UGCC His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk got consent from the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC that was held in Lviv- Briukhovychi on September 4–11, 2016 to create a new eparchy of Chernivtsi. On September 12, 2017, Holy Father Pope Francis blessed this decision. The Reverend Bishop Yosafat Moschych was nominated as the first ruling eparch of the eparchy of Chernivtsi. The enthronement of the ruling Archbishop Kyr Yosafat took place on November 18, 2017.
Shrines
Among the shrines of the eparchy of Chernivtsi, there is a Miraculous Icon of the Mother of God of Chernivtsi Hope for the Hopeless that is placed in the first Greek Catholic church on Bukovina which is called today Cathedral of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Chernivtsi.
A patron of the eparchy of Chernivtsi is Saint Judas Thaddaeus the Apostle.
Contacts
Address: St. Jacob von Petrovych, 20/3, Chernivtsi 58000, Ukraine
Телефон: +380 (37) 251-13-35; +380 (37) 252-27-53
Ел. пошта: [email protected]
Сайт: ugcc.cv.ua