Basil Kovpak
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Father Basil Kovpak (or Vasyl Kovpak), a priest of the Archeparchy of Lviv of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, is the founder and current head of the Byzantine Rite traditionalist Catholic Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat, which rejects some of the decisions of the Second Vatican Council and some of the current forms of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue practised by the Holy See.
The Society also opposes the substitution of the traditional Church Slavonic language by the vernacular Ukrainian language in the liturgy, and the removal of Latin Rite practices, such as Eucharistic adoration, the Rosary, the Stations of the Cross, that have been adopted within this Eastern Catholic Church.
The Society is an autonomous affiliate of the Society of Saint Pius X, which provides much of its funding from SSPX chapels in the West.
On 10 February 2004, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, who was then the bishop on which Father Kovpak depended, declared that, through his close links to the SSPX, had incurred excommunication by "recogniz(ing) the uncanonical foreign Bishop Bernard Fellay, who does not recognize the authority of the Pope of Rome and is not united with the Catholic Church."[1] Father Kovpak denied that he recognized Bishop Fellay, and declared his intention to appeal to the Vatican.[2] The Holy See declared the excommunication null for lack of canonical form.[3] The process was restarted, and officials of the Archdiocese of Lviv, which is now under Archbishop Ihor Vozniak, declared in late November 2006 that Father Kovpak could be excommunicated for having two priests and seven deacons of his society ordained by a Latin-Rite SSPX bishop on 22 November 2006.[4]
Father Kovpak holds possession of the parish church in the village of Ivano-Frankove (Yaniv) and repeatedly excluded officials who want to return it to the immediate juridical control of the Archbishop of Lviv.[5]
To justify his actions and respond to the accusations leveled against him by the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and other officials of the Church, Father Kovpak has written a book entitled Persecuted Tradition. In it, he charges that bishops have harassed Traditionalist priests and have refused laity Communion for kneeling, while they have publicly pursued friendly relations with Buddhists and Hare Krishnas. The SSPX is preparing and English translation of the book, the original of which is in Ukrainian.[6]
[edit] References
- ^ Lefebvrite Priest Excommunicated from Greek Catholic Church
- ^ Excommunicated Greek Catholic Priest Denies Accusations, Disagrees with Decision
- ^ An Interview with the SSPX Prior of Warsaw
- ^ Catholic World News: Byzantine Catholics decry Lefebvrite inroads into Ukraine
- ^ Ukrainian Greek Catholics Process For Church Unity
- ^ Page containing "Tradition Persecuted in Western Ukraine", a review of Kovpak's book
