{"product_id":"the-ruthenian-cathloic-church-a-servant-of-god-9798189558436","title":"The Ruthenian Cathloic Church: The Complete History","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe definitive history of a Catholic Church most American readers have never heard of - and the astonishing story of how it survived.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Ruthenian Catholic Church is one of the oldest Eastern Catholic Churches in the world, and one of the least known. Rooted in the Byzantine Rite and centered on the Eparchy of Mukachevo in the Carpathian Mountains, this is the Church of the Carpatho-Rusyn people - a married priesthood, an ancient chant tradition, and a five-century fight simply to be allowed to exist.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is the first complete, single-volume history ever written of that fight.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInside, you'll find: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA martyred bishop. Theodore Romzha, poisoned by Soviet secret police in 1947 for refusing to surrender his Church to the state - one of two modern Ruthenian martyrs now beatified by Rome.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA church driven underground for forty years. Told through the fully documented lives of eighteen priests and religious who were arrested, tortured, exiled to the Gulag, and in several cases murdered by the KGB using the same staged \"accident\" used against their own bishop - for the simple crime of refusing to convert to state-controlled Orthodoxy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA church divided by Rome's own broken promises. The 1929 celibacy decree that split the American church in two, and the saint - canonized not by Rome but by another church entirely - whose story proves exactly what that decree cost.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn immigrant story that shaped America. From coal-town Pennsylvania parishes to Andy Warhol's own childhood Byzantine Catholic parish in Pittsburgh, to the first Slavic-American Cabinet secretary baptized in its cathedral - the Carpatho-Rusyn story is quietly woven into American history far more than most readers realize.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA church still being written. From Soviet liquidation in 1949 to legalization in 1989 to ministering through the war in Ukraine today, this history carries all the way to the present.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on eparchial archives, Vatican documents, declassified Soviet-era records, and primary martyrology sources never before assembled into a single English-language history, The Ruthenian Catholic Church: The Complete History traces this Church from its ninth-century Byzantine-Slavic roots through the 1646 Union of Uzhhorod, the Habsburg era, the Holocaust in Carpathian Ruthenia, Soviet persecution, and its restoration and American growth into the twenty-first century.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eComplete with a full register of bishops and eparchies, a five-century timeline, a glossary, and excerpts from the Divine Liturgy itself, this is both a serious work of history and an act of memory - for a people who were told, more than once, that their Church no longer existed, and who proved, every time, that it still did.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA Church that would not break. A history that had never been fully told - until now.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e A. Servant Of God\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798189558436\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/28\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 360\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.96lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.90d","brand":"A. Servant Of God","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":49148658680063,"sku":"9798189558436","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-ruthenian-cathloic-church-a-servant-of-god-9798189558436","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}