198 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



Eperies, as Apostolic visitor to the Ruthenians in America, 

 who examined the conditions of the CathoHcs of the Greek 

 Rite in all parts of the United States and returned to Europe 

 in 1906 with his report. The choice of a bishop for the 

 Ruthenian Greek Catholics fell upon Right Rev. Stephen 

 Soter Ortynski, a Basilian monk, hegumenos of the monastery 

 of St. Paul, Michaelovka, Galicia. On May 12, 1907, he was 

 consecrated titular Bishop of Daulia by the Most Rev. Andrew 

 Roman Ivanovitch Scheptitzky, Greek ]vIetropolitan of Lem- 

 berg, and the other Greek bishops of Galicia, and he arrived in 

 America on August 2y, 1907. Shortly after his arrival (Sep- 

 tember, 1907) the Apostolic Letter "Ea semper," concerning 

 the new bishop for the Ruthenian Greek Catholics in the 

 United States, his powers and duties, and the general consti- 

 tution of the Greek Rite in America was published. It created 

 considerable dissatisfaction among the Greek clergy and laity 

 inasmuch as it did not provide for any diocesan power or 

 authority for the new bishop, but placed him as an auxiliary 

 to the Latin bishops, and as it modified several of their im- 

 memorial privileges in various ways. The Sacrament of Con- 

 firmation was thereafter to be withheld from infants at bap- 

 tism, and was not to be conferred by priests, but was reserved 

 for the bishop only (as in the Latin Rite and among the Greeks 

 in Italy), and married priests were not thereafter to be or- 

 dained in America or to be sent thither from abroad, while 

 the regulations as to the marriage of persons of the two rites 

 were also modified. The Greek Ruthenian laity saw in it an 

 attack upon their Slavic nationality and Eastern Rite, an idea 

 which the Russian Orthodox Church eagerly fostered and 

 magnified. They were told by the Orthodox that the whole 

 letter was a latinization of their Greek Rite in regard to Con- 

 firmation and Holy Orders, and was a nullification in America 

 of the Decrees of the Popes that their rite should be kept in- 

 tact. This resulted in some losses (about 10,000) from the 

 Ruthenians to the Russian Church, but already many of them 

 are coming back. Matters, however, adjusted themselves, and 

 the work of the new bishop is having good results. The whole 

 matter of a Greek bishop in America is so far in an experi- 

 mental stage, and it rests upon the extent of the current and 

 future immigration, the stability and solidarity of the Ru- 

 thenians in their adherence to their faith and rite, as to what 



