A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 45. (2006)

Pilipkó Erzsébet: Magyar görög katolikusok Kárpátalján • A munkácsi egyházmegye ugocsai területének nyelvi változásai a történeti források alapján

The language conditions of the Greek Catholic communities were first described in the 1806 register of the Munkács Greek Catholic bishopric. The language of the sermons was recorded according to communities and totalled according to deaneries for each county, offering a good picture of the ethnic conditions and religious affiliations. The data indicate that the population living in the Munkács bishopric cannot be correlated with the number of Ruthernians. The first schematism from 1814 does not record the languages spoken in a particular parish; the one published in 1812 alsó lists these data. The entries for lingua have ruthenica and hungarica alternating with each other, reflecting the dominance of one or the other language. One shortcoming of this document is that it does not differentiate between language changes according to parishes, but offers a sum totál, blurring the ethnic differences. From this time on until 1915, the schematisms were published every two to four years. The written sources indicate that the changes in the liturgical language in the Hungárián parishes of the Munkács diocese rarely corresponded to the demographic changes because the former were often subordinated to the Church's policies. Romé applied the decree issued by the Council of Trent (1545-1563) that the introduction of a new language for the sermons would be the Church's prerogative in the case of the parishes following the Byzantine rite too and forbade the use of Hungárián as a language of liturgy (while accepting Old Slavic and Románián in the interest of the unión). The memorandum issued by the Bishop of Munkács on the order of the Archbishop of Eger in 1863 is a reflection of this attitűdé: "the holy liturgy ... can be exclusively recited in the ecclesiastic Slav language." As a result, the liturgy was recited in Slavic evén in the Hungárián parishes of County Ugocsa between 1864 and 1876. A comparison of the ecclesiastic schematisms and the demographic record reveals that the changes in the ecclesiastic language were a reflection, rather than a stimulus of ethnic changes. At first, Hungárián Greek Catholics alsó insisted on the use of Old Slavic as the language of the liturgy, a language they regarded sacred and had become accustomed to, and it was evén suggested that their own "vernacular" was unsuitable for piety. A change in this attitűdé can be linked to the ideals of national renascence from the mid-18th century and, as Gyula Grigássy has aptly noted, the impact of the Reformed Church must alsó be considered in view of the geographic proximity of its distribution, evén if the dogmas of these two religions had little in common. A liturgy recited in Hungárián was first demanded as the spiritual need of the congregations in the later 18th century; first to be translated were the hymns and the prayers, followed by the entire liturgy. After learning of the spread of Hungárián as the language of liturgy, the Holy See ordered the bishop of the Munkács diocese to prevent the use of Hungárián and to restore Old Slavic as the liturgical language. The bishop issued a memorandum to the parish priests and evén inserted the prohibition intő the diocese's rules, but this decree could never be implemented in practice. Countless historical records, petitions, and memoirs testify to the long struggle, which the Hungárián Greek Catholics fought for the acceptance of Hungárián as the language of their liturgy. The Holy See claimed that the Church could hardly be divided intő national bishoprics and that vernacular languages were unsuitable for liturgical use. Greek was specified as the language of the liturgy for the Hajdúdorog bishopric created in 1912, and the use of Hungárián was only allowed to the extent permissible in addition to Latin in the western Church. However, the ecclesiastic records indicate that the use of Hungárián as the language of the liturgy continued in the Hungárián parishes in spite of the papai prohibition. The 1915 schematism was the last one and it thus represents a break in the historical data. The next one was to appear in 1938, but only three sections were printed, detailing the communities of the Beregszász district as regards the Hungárián Greek Catholic parishes in the Carpatho-Ukraine. The planned schematism of the Munkács diocese, whose data was collected in 1941, remained unpublished. The manuscript recorded linguistic data, drawing a distinction between the vernacular language and the language of the church hymns and sermons. As regards the ensuing decades, the language changes in the Hungárián Greek Catholic parishes of the Munkács diocese can only be reconstructed from individual life-stories, personal memoirs and recollections. Erzsébet Pilipkó 443