Croatian Catholic Church
The Eparchy of Križevci is the eparchy comprising the Croatian Byzantine Catholic Church, a Catholic Church sui iuris of the Byzantine Eastern Rite. It spans the former Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia; it gathers Serb faithful in Croatia (mostly Žumberak) and Macedonian Slavs in FYR Macedonia as well as some Ukrainians in Northern Bosnia. The liturgy in the Slavonic Rite uses the Old Church Slavonic language and the Cyrillic alphabet.
Formation of the Eparchy of Križevci
In 641, on a search for the remains of Christian martyrs, a papal envoy made contact with the Croats, and their baptism followed over the next two centuries. Around the time of the East-West Schism, Zvonimir, the king of the Croats, professed his loyalty to the Holy See. The Franciscans and Dominicans were active in Eastern Europe in the 12th century, and had much influence on Catholicism in what is today Croatia, an influence still seen in diasporic portions of the Croatian Catholic Church.
The region of Croatia saw much turmoil from 1414 to 1838 owing to wars with Venice and against the invading Turks. As the Ottoman Empire expanded, some of the Croatian population became Muslim or Orthodox, as encouraged by the Turkish state. The arrival of Christian refugees from the Turkish invasions of the 16th and 17th centuries is related to the establishment of the Križevci eparchy, erected in 1777.
In 1646 some Byzantine priests from the Mukacevo eparchy and several other locations came back into full communion with the Bishop of Rome, after the East-West Schism centuries before. The Union of Uzhorod, as it is called, has its origins in the Council of Florence (1439) plan to encourage full communion with the Holy See, and eventually led to the foundation of the eparchies of Križevci (Pope Pius VI on June 17, 1777), Presov (1818), and Hajdudorog (1920). Orthodox Serbs resisted, particularly in the metropolitan of Karlovci, Arsenije III Čarnojević, but a regiment of Serbs of the Žumberak regiment of the Military Frontier accepted. Križevci, the location of the see, is a town northeast of Zagreb. The new bishop was initially suffragan to the Primate of Hungary, and later (1853) to the Latin Archbishop of Zagreb.
Expansion
Križevci was expanded after World War I to include all Byzantine Catholics in the former Yugoslavia. Owing to this expansion and to population movements over time, Križevci includes Catholics of varied national heritage including ethnic Serbs from Žumberak, Croatia, Rusyns in Slavonia and Serbia who had emigrated from Carpatho-Ukraine and Slovakia around 1750, Ukrainians who emigrated from Galicia (now the Ukraine) around 1900, Macedonian Slav converts from missionary activity in the 19th century as well as a few Romanians in the Serbian part of the Banat (Vojvodina). Today the eparchy includes between 50,000 and 77,000 Byzantine Catholics.
Diaspora
The first Croatian Byzantine Catholic priest came to the United States of America in 1902, whose work in Cleveland was encouraged by the bishop of Križevci. Another Croatian priest came to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1894. Križevci is one of the four Eastern European eparchies that are the roots of the Eastern-rite Catholic Churches in the United States.
Modern persecutions
"During World War II, the Slovak State suspected the [Greek Catholic] Redemptorists of anti-State propaganda since they were helping Ruthenians in a Slovak nationalist situation." "Methodius Dominic Trcka, ... superior of the Redemptorist community in ... Eastern Slovakia, [was active] in the three Eparchies of Presov, Uzhorod and Križevci. With the arrival of the Communist regime, he was deported to a concentration camp with his Redemptorist colleagues." Difficulties for Croatian Catholics occurred at different times in the 20th century and continued during the hostilities within Yugoslavia of the 1990s.
Current hierarchy
The eparchy of Križevci is currently headed by Bishop Slavomir Miklovš, a Ruthene (born 1934, appointed 1983). Note that not all Catholic bishops in Croatia are Eastern-rite Catholics. "In 2002 a new Apostolic Exarchate was created for Greek Catholics in Serbia and Montenegro" after the formation of independent republics from what had been Yugoslavia.
Liturgical tradition
The most salient fact, apart from that of following the Byzantine liturgical tradition, is that in the 9th century Pope Innocent IV gave the Croatian Catholics the privilege of celebrating the Divine Liturgy in their own language, which Church scholars had helped to standardize. This privilege was subsequently extended to the churches in Croatia of both the Latin Rite and the Eastern Rite (while at the same time the Catholic churches in other places had to wait until the Second Vatican Council for the same right).
See also
