“The age of tolerance”
As history shows, Christians, whom the Good Shepherd taught to love their neighbor and forgive his sins “up to seventy times seven,” have been fighting among themselves for a considerable part of their 2000-year history. Reciprocal anathemas, aggressive dogmatic disputes, contempt for other people’s views and customs, and even religious wars have become almost the norm of “Christian” life, which is still being guided not by the Testaments of Christ or at least medieval dogmas but by traditional church rites that can never be the same among, say, Eastern and Western Christians and thus always serve as a pretext for criticism and accusations of deviations from the faith.
Over the past century, some churches, but not all, unfortunately, have managed to adopt a civilized pattern of behavior and no longer treat the clergy of other Christian denominations as an evil force. Yet even they do not seem to understand that they belong to the same Christian community, and that contemporary differences between confessions are unimportant, compared to the New Testament’s commandments. Each church considers only itself to be truly Christian: this is why there is no genuine mutual respect or cooperation for the benefit of God’s people between our Roman Catholics and Greek Catholics, Greek Catholics and Orthodox, and other faiths.
Right-Bank Ukraine, from the Dnipro to the farthest point west, has in fact never practiced only one faith. Situated between two worlds, East and West, Ukrainians were always in contact with adherents of other religions, such as Tatars, Jews, and Western followers of almost all Christian denominations. So when part of the Ukrainian population opted for the Union in the late 16th century, i.e., came under the jurisdiction of the Roman See while preserving its Eastern Byzantine rites, there was nothing very unusual about this, especially if one takes into account the social, political, and religious situation in the region at this time.
Describing the course of events in Right-Bank Ukraine in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Russian and later Soviet historians usually emphasized the bitter enmity and mutual hatred that allegedly raged among Ukrainians of different confessions, such as Catholics, Orthodox, Greek Catholics, and Protestants. Naturally, there was conflict, and later, not without the efforts of both the Orthodox and Catholic hierarchy, it turned into implacable hostility that unfortunately has not subsided even today (the causes are universally known). Scholars have proven, however, that a totally different phenomenon existed for a long time in western Ukraine: normal coexistence of people of different Christian denominations at the level of society and family.
The Ukrainian historian, Professor Natalia Yakovenko, convincingly proves in her fundamental book Paralelnyi svit [A Parallel World] by quoting authentic documents of the time, that people who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries did not care much about interdenominational differences and that these problems did not always affect such vital questions as marriage, weddings of one’s children, burial of family members, patronage, etc. “Sources (documents) consistently record examples of quite peaceful coexistence, both in the family circle and the public sphere, and even in the religious practices of different confessions,” Yakovenko writes.
A shining example of normal interdenominational relations at the time is Catholic-Protestant or Catholic-Orthodox mixed marriages, when children were often baptized “by turns”: one child in a Catholic church, the next in an Orthodox one, and so on, or sons who were baptized according to their father’s faith and daughters according to their mother’s. For instance, in the family of the Orthodox Prince Vasyl-Kostiantyn Ostrozky and the Catholic Sophia Tarnovska all three sons and one daughter were baptized in the Orthodox rite, and the other daughter in the Latin rite. Interestingly, as contemporary documents testify, mixed marriages were blessed by clergymen of different Christian denominations. The same applies to burials. For example, Prince Jurij Czartoryski, a Uniate, was buried according to his last will and testament in Klevan at the Catholic cathedral that he built.
It is also known that many people would do acts of charity outside their denomination. For example, Prince Stefan Zbarazky, who first converted from Orthodoxy to Calvinism (Protestantism) and then, at the end of his lifetime, to Catholicism, gave financial assistance to three Orthodox churches for many decades until his death. The Catholic Princess Halshka Ostrozka bequeathed 6,000 Lithuanian groszes in 1579 to the Orthodox Ostroh Academy and the Ostroh Holy Savior Monastery. Quite telling is the will drawn up by the Calvinist Prince Janusz Radziwill (1620), grandson of Vasyl-Kostiantyn Ostrozky, which states: “Monasteries and churches of the old Ruthenian faith (Orthodox) under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch, located on my estate, are always to preserve their ancient status, which my descendants must closely observe.”
In general, a strange and attractive mosaic was forming in those times: Orthodox and Calvinists supported Jesuit colleges, those who had opted for the Union exercised patronage over both Roman Catholic churches and Orthodox fraternities, and rich Uniates published books on debates between Protestant and Catholic monks, etc. The Orthodox Adam Kysil, a protector of the Orthodox Church, founded a Roman Catholic church on his Volyn estate, explaining his action thus: “All of us, Orthodox, recognize the single, holy Ecumenical Apostolic Church and the blessed martyrs, Greek and Latin alike. We glorify one God, one faith, and one baptism; and it is not faith that is dual, what is dual is the liturgy, which the Greek and Latin rites, brought in unfavorable times, practice.”
In conclusion, let us recall Prince Jeremi Wisniowiecki, an Orthodox who converted to Catholicism and is considered a fanatic Catholic and implacable enemy of the Eastern Christian faith. In his last will and testament, however, the prince orders the Orthodox church in his family castle to be kept intact, “where my kith and kin rest in peace and to maintain the church in perfect order.”
Will the lessons of history never teach anybody anything?
