Opportunity Realized: The Greek Catholic Union's First One Hundred Years, 1892-1992 by Cheryl Weller Beck, Michael I. Roman, Frederick M. Petro, and Basil Wahal

Abstract

316 BOOK REVIEWS throughout. Also, the reader unfamiliar with the practice of taking a new name upon entering religious life might find the going a little difficult;Volume II presents both names in introducing significant characters—even this leads to some confusion. In view of changes associated with the era of the Second Vatican Council, this difficulty might have been unavoidable. Joseph G. Hubbert, CM. Niagara University Opportunity Realized: The Greek Catholic Union's First One Hundred Years, 1892-1992. By Cheryl Weiler Beck, Michael I. Roman, Frederick M. Petro, and Basil Wahal. (Beaver, Pennsylvania: Greek Catholic Union of the U.S.A. 1994. Pp. xi, 286. $28.50.) This volume is not just another jubilee album or institutional history. Professedly a "historical narrative, a history told through the achievements of its people and the principal events that molded the organization into what it is today" (p. 1), the text contains much newly-translated archival material (mostly from internal documents and the organization's newspaper Amerikansky Russkij ViestniK) and is symbolic of the "arrival" of a new generation of Rusin historical scholars. Every photograph and every illustration in this well-crafted volume provides a clue to the way of life of each generation. As the primary fraternal organization of this important Catholic immigrant group, the Greek Catholic Union served the needs of its members in a pattern that is consistent with other Catholic and Slavic immigrant groups. The G.C.U. was instrumental in the evolution of a national self-awareness that took its strongest form in the context of American pluralism beyond the restraints of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and later the nascent Czechoslovakia. Its evening schools taught English and civics as well as religion and ethnic traditions. Its insurance program provided some economic relief in time of need for the exhausting and dangerous life of miners. Its support of orphanages and gymnastics and sports showed its members' concern for the health and well-being of its young people. The group's fate was inextricably woven into the life of the Greek Catholic Church in America and provides the model for what used to be called "lay trusteeism." The amazing growth of the Greek Catholic church in the United States from 1884 to 1917 cannot be attributed simply to the large number of immigrants . Once a small community had settled, a committee of successful merchants or leaders in the community would take up a collection for the establishment of a church and then proceed to buy the land, build the church with their own labor, and pay to bring a priest from the homeland. This sort of lay initiative is typical of the foundation of almost every parish in this period. Most of those early parish committees were the foundations of local brotherhoods which had established mortuary funds and trust funds for widows and BOOK REVIEWS 317 children. In a period of great centralization and federation of religious organizations , it was not unusual that in 1892 a committee of several prominent lay leaders along with the clergy decided to unite the brotherhoods in their common interests under the name "Union of Greek Catholic Rusin Brotherhoods ." The book pushes into the background many of the issues that the noninstitutional historian would like to see treated: the complexity of the interaction of the religion, politics, and culture of the Old World as it was brought as baggage to the New World; the exportation of democracy and nation-building to a newly-emerging Czechoslovakia; the role of religion, liturgy, and doctrine on the sensibility of the ordinary worker and member and parishioner. This work is a valuable resource, nonetheless, for immigration and ethnic historians. Thomas F. Sable, SJ. University ofScranton The World's Parliament ofReligions: The East/WestEncounter, Chicago, 1893By Richard Hughes Seager. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1995. Pp. xxxi, 208. $35.00.) The World's Parliament of Religions is well known to historians. Held in Chicago during the 1893 World's Fair in a hall that was later to become the Art Institute, it brought together representatives from religious traditions throughout the world. Its goal was "to unite all religion against irreligion."As the author put it,"the Parliament was a...