HIS-Press-Service, 1981 (6. évfolyam, 19-21. szám)
1981-10-01 / 21. szám
HIS Press Service No.21, October 1981 Page 4 their way of life - to the "Eastern forms" practiced by the Orthodox Churches. At the same time this development was occurring, the legal aspect of the problem involved in caring for Greek Catholic faithful living in the diaspora was resolved. This problem had arisen through the fact that Greek Catholics who had left their diocesan territory were pastorally cared for in their new surrounding only by Roman Catholic priests, and were in this way wrested from their original church community. In the fall of 1968, the Holy See extended the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Hajdúdorog to all Greek Catholic faithful, "wherever they might be living within the country." To pastorally care for the faithful living outside of the diocese itself, the Hajdúdorog Diocese then organized diaspora parishes with centers in Buda, Pécs, Pest-North, Pest-East, Pest-South, Szeged, and Makó. Each center is responsible for a given area, which is again divided into three subareas: the parish area, the more distant affiliate area and, farthest away of all, the diaspora area. The Modernization of the Seminary and the Diocesan Central Office The expansion and renovation of the seminary and the diocesan central office in Nyíregyháza constitute a new milestone in implementing the possibilities created by the Council decisions. The theology professors, who up to now had been living in the seminary itself, have been given a three-story residence. This change goes beyond a simple improvement in the professors' living quarters. The vacated space in the seminary made possible an expansion of that institution's facilities. (It is quite significantthat Hungary's Greek Catholic Church has no problem with priestly vocations - as the Latin Dioceses have.) Because of the lack of space which had plagued the seminary up to now, many Greek Catholic seminarians were sent to the Central Seminary in Budapest where they were also able to acquire an academic degree at the Theological Academy. As a result, the Hajdúdorog Diocese had proportionally double the number of priests with academic degrees than did the Roman rite diocese in the same territory. In the future, only those Greek Catholic seminarians who will later be involved in scholarly work are to be sent to the Budapest Central Seminary. From now on, greater emphasis will be placed in the training of the seminarians on the unique aspects and characteristics of the Eastern rite. This was taken into consideration in the construction on the seminary grounds of the Eastern-style chapel with its onion-shaped dome; the chapel will also serve as a liturgical practice room for the seminarians. The construction costs amounted to 21 million forints (almost one million US dollars), 10 million of which were contributed by the diocese itself. This sum stemmed
