IQO ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



to have been originally Ruthenian, but became gradually- 

 changed and moulded by the Bohemians and their language 

 and for a long time wrote their language in the same manner 

 as the Bohemian. The Bohemians, however, are in the Aus- 

 trian part of the empire, while the Slovaks are in Hungary. 

 They have emigrated to the United States in large numbers, 

 and are about equally divided between the Greek and Roman 

 Rites. This again necessitates the pubHcation of church mat- 

 ters, prayer-books, journals, etc., in the Slovak language. It 

 illustrates the difficulties of the Greek Catholic priests in the 

 United States, since they are likely to have in their parishes 

 Ruthenians (of the old and new orthographies), Slovaks, and 

 even those who speak only Hungarian, having lost their Slavic 

 tongue. It is no uncommon thing to find a Greece Catholic 

 priest capable of speaking five languages : Ruthenian, Slo- 

 vak, Hungarian, German and English. It is these people as a 

 whole who are comprehended under the term Ruthenian, al- 

 though that term applies strictly to those speaking Russian and 

 using the Russian alphabet. After the eleventh century the 

 larger portion of Russians fell away from the unity of 

 the Church in the schism of Constantinople, while a minority 

 continued faithful to the Catholic Church, and later many more 

 returned to unity. The Holy See, therefore, made use of the 

 ancient word Ruthenian to designate those Russians who fol- 

 lowed the Greek Rite in unity with the Holy See, in order to 

 distinguish them from the Northern Russians who adhered to 

 the schism. Later on, those Russians who joined the union 

 under the Polish kings received the same name, and the word 

 Ruthenian is to-day used exclusively to designate the Russians 

 of Austria-Hungary, who are Greek Catholics, in contradistinc- 

 tion to the Russians of the Russian Empire, who are of the 

 Greek Orthodox faith. 



The language of the Mass and the other liturgical services 

 according to the Byzantine Rite is the ancient Slavonic (staros- 

 lavianski), and the Greek Liturgy was originally translated by 

 Sts. Cyril and Methodius about the year 868, and it has re- 

 mained substantially the same ever since. It is curious to no- 

 tice that the Ruthenian language is much closer, both in spelling 

 and pronunciation, to the church Slavonic than the present Rus- 

 sian language of St. Petersburg and Moscow. The letters in 

 which the church books are printed are the Cyrillic, or Kiril- 



