ENTIRE FLOCK BACK TO UNITY

New Zealand Tablet, 23 August 1917, Page 11

ENTIRE FLOCK BACK TO UNITY

Two hundred and fifty Greek Orthodox Church members, the entire congregation of the church at Willimantic, Conn., have been received into the Catholic Church (states the Brooklyn Tablet). The abandonment of their schism took place on a recent Sunday at their parish church, their pastor, the Rev. Joseph Kurylo, having made his public profession of faith the Sunday previous in the Ruthenian Catholic church of St. John the Baptist, Newark, N.J. At the ceremony in Newark Father Kurylo was received by the Very Rev. Peter Poniatishin, administrator of the Ruthenian diocese of the United States. Father Kurylo was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Evdockim, of the Russian Greek “Orthodox” Church, New York, and his priestly orders are therefore considered valid in the Catholic Church, as are the orders of all the clergy in the Russian schism. He has been pastor of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Willimantic, Conn., and had been preparing to take this step for some little while past. His entire congregation was received into the Catholic Church by the Ruthenian Catholic priest of the Bridgeport (Conn.) parish, the Rev. Orestes Cherniak. Father Cherniak gave general absolution to the congregation of the Church of the Holy Trinity at Willimantic and relieved them from all canonical and ecclesiastical censures. The congregation consists of upwards of 250 souls. They also made a public profession of Catholic faith and declaration of loyalty and obedience to the Pope of Rome. Solemn Profession of Faith. It was after the Gospel had been chanted in the Whit Sunday Mass at St. John’s that Rev. Joseph Kurylo was permitted to enter the church. Attired in his priestly cassock he was compelled to remain outside the church door from the beginning of the service until the Very Rev. Administrator, after the Gospel of the Mass, proceeded to the door of the church and there publicly absolved him from all excommunication and censure, leading him to the altar, while Father Kurylo recited the Fiftieth Psalm, “Miserere mei, Deus.” Then at the altar, with his hand resting on the book of the Gospels, he made his solemn public profession of faith, declaring explicitly his belief in the “filioque” clause of the creed according to the Catholic sense, as well as in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and in the Infallibility of the Pope. Father Poniatishin in his sermon informed the congregation concerning Father Kurylo’s return to the unity of the faith, and Father Kurylo afterwards addressed his congregation himself, at the request of the administrator, expressing his deep gratitude to God for bringing him into the unity of the Catholic Church. In the evening, at the Vesper service in the Ruthenian Catholic church of St. Nicholas of Myra, Van Buren street, Passaic, where there is a large Ruthenian and Slavonic population, Father Kurylo was present and participated in the service. He was accompanied by Very Rev. Father Poniatishin, who had

* . .. " • : received him into the Catholic Church at Newark in the - morning. - ‘ An immense congregation packed the edifice. In the sanctuary were present a numbr of priests of the Latin rite. The 'Rev. Eustachij Syderiak, the pastor of St. Nicholas Ruthenian Catholic Church, preached the sermon and introduced Father Kurylo, who also addressed the congregation. The regular choir of the church was augmented at these services by the choir of St. John the Baptist Church, Newark, under the leadership of Prof. Theodore Kaskiw. The Church of the Holy Trinity, Willimantic, Conn., has now become incorporated as a Catholic church under diocesan authority, and the title to the property has been transferred to the new Catholic corporation thus effected, acknowledging the Pope of Rome as the supreme head of the Church. Very Rev. Peter Poniatishin, as diocesan administrator and acting bishop is president of its board of trustees.