THE DUBNO SEMINARY OF THE EASTERN RITE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEO-UNION PROCESS IN VOLYN

Abstract

А Union of the Eastern Rite, also called neo-Union, appeared in Volyn in 1925. Its widening took place under the control of Lutsk Catholic Bishop Adolf Shelonzhek, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic clergy was not allowed to participate in this process. In the absence of a separate neo-Union clergy, the bishop relied on apostates from Orthodoxy, known as "defections" by the people, who underwent short-term retraining at the Lutsk Catholic Seminary and also temporarily transferred certain Latin priests to the Eastern Rite. Since this staff policy did not justify itself, in the autumn of 1928, Shelonzhek opened a Seminary of the Eastern Rite in Dubno. Due to unresolved financial problems, it stopped functioning in a year and resumed work only in 1931, when it was taken over by the Vatican, where the curriculum was drawn up. Reverend Anthony Dabrovskyi was appointed to be the rector of the Seminary. Although the main burden of financing the educational institution continued to be borne by the Lutsk Diocese, most of its students came from outside Volyn and were appointed to the Uniate parishes of other voivodeships after graduation. The teachers of the Dubno Seminary changed often, and the number of simultaneous students rarely exceeded forty people for five courses, tending to decrease in the second half of the 1930s. The spiritual care of the seminarians was carried out by the apostolic visitor, Bishop Mykola Charnetskyi, who ordained the graduates to holy orders but had no influence on their parish appointments. By 1939, only 23 graduates of the Dubno Seminary became priests, of which only six received parishes in the Lutsk Diocese. After the establishment of Soviet power in Volyn, the educational institution ceased its work, and its property was nationalized.