204 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



some outlying districts. The Canadian Ruthenians publish a 

 small paper ("Canadian Farmer") and have several societies 

 on the pattern of those in the United States. 



II. — Rumanian Greek Catholics 



These people come from the eastern provinces of Hungary 

 known as Transylvania. They are of a nationality which 

 claims to come down from the Roman colonists who were set- 

 tled there by the Emperor Trajan, and hence they still call 

 themselves Romani. These Transylvanians are really of an 

 older political order and settlement than the independent coun- 

 try known as Rumania, which bounds Transylvania on the 

 east. The inhabitants of both lands are of the same stock, but 

 those in Hungary were organized and in possession of a fair 

 amount of education and political rights under Hungarian rule 

 whilst the present Kingdom of Rumania was still oppressed 

 under Turkish rule. The latter only obtained its independence 

 after the Russo-Turkish war of 1878, and in turn began the 

 education and enlightenment of its people. 



The Rumanian language is a Latin tongue, somewhat simi- 

 lar to Italian, but with a considerable mixture of Slavic, Greek, 

 and Turkish words in it. It is also the language of the Mass 

 and liturgical offices according to the Greek Rite among the 

 Rumanians, and is an instance where the Church has made 

 a modern tongue the liturgical language. Owing to Slavonic 

 influences, the Rumanian language was formerly written in 

 Slavonic or Russian characters, and this continued until about 

 1825, when the Roman alphabet was adopted, first by the Cath- 

 olic Rumanians and then by the Orthodox, and it has been 

 used for the Rumanian language ever since. Even for church 

 books the Slavonic letters (the Cyrillic alphabet) had to give 

 way to the Latin letters, just as the Slavonic Liturgy in the 

 church services had given away to the Rumanian, and now 

 both the Catholic and the Orthodox Mass-books and Office- 

 books are printed beautifully in Latin letters and modern Ru- 

 manian, whether for use in the churches of Transylvania or 

 Rumania. The Rumanian Church, although Greek in rite, 

 was originally under the jurisdiction of Rome up to the ninth 

 century, when Constantinople assumed jurisdiction over it. 



