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The Ruthenian Catholic Church is a Sui Iuris (i.e., self-governing) Catholic Church (see Particular Church ), which uses the Divine Liturgy of the Constantinopolitan Byzantine Eastern Rite . Its roots are among the Rusyns who lived in the region called Carpathian Ruthenia , in and around the Carpathian Mountains . This is the area where the borders of present-day Hungary , Slovakia and Ukraine meet. HISTORY Ruthenian Catholics are descended from those to whom Saints Cyril and Methodius brought Christianity and the Byzantine Rite in their missionary outreach to the Slavic Peoples in the ninth century. {Link without Title} The inhabitants of the region, whom the invasion of the Magyars in the 10th Century forced to take refuge in the mountains. With the 1646 A.D. Union Of Uzhhorod , whose Ruthenian Church reunited with the rest of the Catholic Church but was to retain its Byzantine rite and liturgical traditions, its bishops would be elected by a council composed of Basilian monks and eparchial clergy. {Link without Title} The region became, in part, incorporated in the Ruthenian Catholic Church in Eastern Europe has seen a resurgence in numbers of faithful and Priest s. Encyclopedia of Ukraine RELATIONS WITH LATIN-RITE CATHOLICS IN THE UNITED STATES In the applied on 1 May 1897 to the United States ''Collectanea'' No. 1966 rules already set out in a letter of 2 May 1890 to the Archbishop of Paris,''Acta Sanctae Sedis'', vol. 1891/92, p.390. These rules stated that only celibates or widowed priests coming without their children should be permitted in the United States. This rule was restated with special reference to Catholics of Ruthenian Rite by the 1 March 1929 decree ''Cum data fuerit'', which was renewed for a further ten years in 1939. Dissatisfaction by many Ruthenian Catholics in the United States gave rise to the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese . (See also Archbishop John Ireland ). Relations with Latin-Rite Catholics have improved, especially since the Church, the Ruthenian Church always celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Church Slavonic Language , an ancient Slavic language.) The Council also reiterated: "The Catholic Church holds in high esteem the institutions, liturgical rites, ecclesiastical traditions and the established standards of the Christian life of the Eastern Churches, for in them, distinguished as they are for their venerable antiquity, there remains conspicuous the tradition that has been handed down from the Apostles through the Fathers and that forms part of the divinely revealed and undivided heritage of the universal Church." Decree on the Catholic Eastern Churches, 1 THE RUTHENIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH TODAY The Ruthenian Church now consists of the ) and Van Nuys ( 1981 ) — the Eparchy of Mukacheve in Ukraine (dating from 1771 and immediately subject to the Holy See), and the Apostolic Exarchate of the Czech Republic (founded in 1996 ). One problem preventing organization of the Ruthenian Catholic Church under a single synod is the desire of some of the priests and faithful of the Eparchy of Mukacheve that it should be part of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church . Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo Ruthenian directed this Church to remove much of the "Latinization" in an attempt to return to its Eastern Christian identity. This has been met with some success. In June 1999 the Council of Hierarchs of the Byzantine Metropolitan Church Sui Iuris of Pittsburgh U.S.A. promulgated the norms of particular law to govern itself. In January 2007 the Council of Hierarchs promulgated a greatly revised version of the Divine Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great that removes some older Latinizations. Members of the Byzantine (Ruthenian) Catholic Church of the United States of America are not limited to immigrants from Eastern Europe or their descendants. SEE ALSO
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