Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak has led a long, distinguished career across many prestigious universities. Ukrainian Bishop, American Church: Constantine Bohachevsky and the Ukrainian Catholic Church is her fifth book, and she has edited three more. But this latest volume is unique, and for at least two reasons. The first is that she initially refused to write the biography until then-Patriarch Lubomyr Husar pleaded with her to do so. The second reason is that the book takes as its subject the author’s own uncle, Constantine Bohachevsky (1884-1961), bishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the United States from 1924 through 1956 and the first metropolitan of Philadelphia from 1958 to 1961.
Bohachevsky was born to a clerical family in the village of Manaiiv, in the northwest corner of Ternopil oblast. After his early education in Stryj, he entered seminary in Lviv and, upon completing his education, was sent by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky—with whom Bohachevsky would remain close—in 1905 to the University of Innsbruck for further study. He was ordained to the priesthood on January 31, 1909, at St George Cathedral in Lviv. He took a position as an assistant pastor at a village parish while completing his doctoral dissertation. After defending his dissertation in 1910 at Innsbruck, Bohachevsky began doctoral studies on the theology of Clement of Alexandria at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. His studies would be short-lived, as Metropolitan Andrei would soon recall him to Lviv to serve as dean of the seminary in 1913.
During his tenure as seminary dean, Bohachevsky was given two primary tasks: rooting out corruption within the seminary and joining a liturgical commission charged with de-latinizing Ukrainian Catholic practices. After being named bishop of the United States—to the great surprise of all—Bohachevsky would draw on these experiences to address exactly these issues stateside. Among the first of Bohachevsky’s tasks as bishop was to sort the financial mess his predecessor, Soter Ortynsky, had left him. But Bohachevsky’s initiative to bring more order, professionalism, and fiscal responsibility to the chancery office was not appreciated. Fortunately, angry letters petitioning Rome for Bohachevsky’s removal—often under the ridiculous charge that Bohachevsky was a Polish operative—went unanswered. As to de-latinization, Bohachevsky’s interventions were moderate. On the one hand, he was alive to the possibility that too much latinization would (and did) drive many of his faithful, and indeed clergy, into the arms of the newly established Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America. On the other, too strong a re-hellenizing program would ostracize parishes. Thus, even though Bohachevsky personally preferred the Julian calendar, he allowed individual parishes to decide whether to adopt the Gregorian calendar. On other aspects, however, the author argues that Bohachevsky was insistent: Church Slavonic, icon-screens, Byzantine style-vestments, and even Eastern clerical headwear were important and distinctive Byzantine rites to be protected or, in many cases, recovered.
Bohachevsky-Chomiak’s book is especially attentive to the bishop’s principal legacy: institution-building. Though he can be credited with many more, Bohachevsky initiated two institutional developments that forever shaped the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the United States. The first of these developments was the establishment of educational institutions. Already in 1924, Bohachevsky surrendered his residence so it could serve as a dormitory for a minor seminary. He worked with Basilian sisters to establish St Basil’s Academy and Manor College. In 1933, Bohachevsky purchased the land that would eventually house St Basil’s Seminary and the Ukrainian Museum and Library in Stamford, Connecticut. By 1941, Bohachevsky began teaching courses in Washington, DC out of a rented apartment that would eventually become St Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Seminary. Upon Bohachevky’s death by cardiac arrest in 1961, an editorial could boast that the Ukrainian Catholic Church under his direction now knew 293 priests in 222 parishes, 29 parochial schools, four high schools, four seminaries, and two colleges (511).
The second of Bohachevsky’s institutional developments concern the internal ecclesiastical structure of the Church in America. He presided over its slow transition from the temporary exarchate of Philadelphia into an eparchy proper and, in time, into the archbishopric-metropolitanate that the Church in the United States enjoys today. Bohachevsky lived only to see Stamford become a distinct eparchy in 1956. But his tireless work ensured that Chicago and Parma would at length constitute eparchies all their own.
Bohachevsky-Chomiak’s Ukrainian Bishop, American Church weaves a fascinating narrative from what could otherwise be mistaken for an uneventful episcopacy—at least relative to the rather dramatic episcopacies of more well-known and recent Ukrainian hierarchs. The author’s personal interest in the subject matter, her careful curation and analysis of archival materials, and her inclusion of photos enliven the story.
A minor quibble: in her introduction, Bohachevsky-Chomiak writes that Ukrainian Catholics “adhere to Catholic doctrinal stipulations and accept the primacy of the Roman papacy, differing from Western Catholicism only in what are known as incidentals -- liturgical practice, vestments, and . . . the right of married men to enter the priesthood” (2). It is true that the Ukrainian Catholic Church, like other Eastern Catholic Churches, accept the primacy of the Roman papacy. It is also true that the Ukrainian Catholic Church, like the other Eastern Catholic Churches, differs from Western Catholicism in “incidentals.” But these truths require more theological precision, and on each point.
First, nearly all Eastern Orthodox representatives present at the 2007 Ravenna meeting of the Joint International Commission accepted the primacy of Rome. The question between Orthodoxy and Catholicism therefore is not whether the Pope enjoys primacy, but what exactly that primacy entails. Second, and granting a difference in “incidentals,” these are not the “only” items which render Eastern Catholicism distinctive. Canon law teaches a fourfold patrimony proper to each Church sui iuris: liturgical and canonical, yes, but also spiritual and theological. As a student of Greek theology himself, Bohachevsky must have known that Eastern distinctives are certainly not only liturgical and canonical. But so go the standard gripes of a theologian to a historian, none of which denigrate the remarkable achievement the author has here accomplished.
The history of the Catholic Church in America is not a well-known story. Still more unknown are the narratives of the Eastern Catholics and the Orthodox on these shores. Few books could and should be read by those interested in any single one of these histories. Happily, Bohachevsky-Chomiak’s proves an exception – and an excellent one at that.
Justin Shaun Coyle is associate professor of theology, church history, and philosophy and associate academic dean at Mount Angel Seminary in St. Benedict, Oregon.
Justin Shaun Coyle
Date Of Review:
July 17, 2023