St. Sophia’s Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Kiev, Ukraine

Because our entire liturgical life is based on the ritual of the Byzantine Church, our theology, which flows from our liturgical practices, is Eastern. It truly differs from Western Roman Catholicism. We are Catholic because we are in union with Rome. This does not mean that we have the same theology, spirituality or understanding of the Good News that Western Catholics do. Our Western brothers, unfortunately, endured the Reformation, that is the establishment of Protestantism. We in the East, never experienced the same thing. We are as Catholic as the Roman Catholics yet we are different. But we have a different perspective on the Good News. I know that this, at times, is difficult for us and for Roman Catholics to understand. What does it mean to be Catholic? It doesn’t mean to think like Western Catholics whose Church endured things which we, as Eastern Catholics, did not endure. To be Catholic only means that we are in union with the Bishop of Rome. It does not mean that we embrace the theology of the Western Church. Our experience of the Church must be different. Our liturgical theology, from which our understanding of the Good News emerges, is much different from that of the Roman Church.

In the past our Church has tried to worship with in the Eastern tradition but embrace Western theology. It just doesn’t work. Our worship is based on a particular approach to an understanding of what God revealed through His Son Jesus. Just as the Scriptures are not the same and report the events in the life of Jesus in very different ways, so we must be open to the possibility that there are a number of different approaches to the Gospel message and that all are equally legitimate.

Most Roman Catholics believe that if you are Catholic you have to think like the Western Church, believe like the Western Church, and be like the Western Church. The fact of the matter is that when we became of part of the Catholic Communion of Churches in 1596, the Union of Brest-Litovsk, we agreed that we would be in union with the Roman Church BUT retain our own liturgical practices and theology. People seem to confuse this. To be CATHOLIC does not meant that we have to embrace the Western Catholic way of thinking about and accepting the Good News. We have a different approach which is equally and truly legitimate.

The Western Catholic world, however, doesn’t see it in this manner because of its experience with the REFORMATION. We are truly Catholic but we are different.