Basil Kovpak (; born 11 December 1967) is a Ukrainian excommunicated traditionalist Catholic priest and the founder and current head of the Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat. Formerly a priest of the Archeparchy of Lviv of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Kovpak was excommunicated by the UGCC in 2007.
Early life Kovpak was born on 11 December 1967. in Birky, Ukraine and grew up when the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was the world's largest illegal religious organization. According to Vlad Naumescu, Kovpak studied theology in a clandestine seminary run by Basilian monks. He headed the Basilian Third Order, which Naumescu has described as, "an uncompromisingly radical group of Greek Catholics, which did not accept any relation to Orthodoxy, 'reunited' priests, or the Soviet State."In December 1989, he was ordained to the priesthood by Sofron Dmyterko, Bishop-Ordinary of the Stanislaviv Eparchy. That same month, his parish was among the first in Lviv to return to the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
Kovpak left the Basilian Order soon after his ordination in 1990, having observed that the community was, in his view, altering the tradition it had sought to preserve during the underground period and adapting to broader post-Soviet trends of church renewal, "having observed that the community was altering the tradition it had fought so hard to preserve during the underground era, now adapting to the general tendency of church renewal."Stéphanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu (2008), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Page 162.
Fr. Kovpak was first assigned to St. Peter and Paul's Church in the Lviv suburb of Riasne in 1991.Stéphanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu (2008), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Page 162. While stationed at Riasne, he began a, "move to reclaim the spirit the UGCC had under socialism."Stéphanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu (2008), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Page 163. According to Naumescu, "Underground Greek-Catholics believed that suffering was a unique marker of faith under the old regime and that an appreciation of this suffering is indispensable to the proper understanding of the local tradition."Stéphanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu (2008), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Page 161.
In Riasne, Fr. Kovpak, preached regularly of the importance of keeping, "the old traditions of the Greek Catholic Church and staying away from Orthodoxy." Fr. Kovpak also, "surrounded himself with a small group of priests and supporters who cherished the religious experience of the underground". Over time, Fr. Kovpak's assistant priests and parishioners either embraced his traditionalist agenda or, "switched to other parishes in the city." While at first many of Fr. Kovpak's supporters were elderly Greek Catholics who recalled, "how things were done before" the banning of the UGGC in 1946, over time, Fr. Kovpak's base supporters came increasingly from Greek Catholics who had participated in the Soviet era underground.Stéphanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu (2008), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Page 163.
According to Vlad Naumescu, "These were entire families spanning several generations, and people who kept close contact with each other over their common involvement in illegal religious services, domestic devotions, and clandestine informal networks. For former participants in such surreptitious activities, memories of those times evoke a strong sense of nostalgia whenever they were recounted."Stéphanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu (2008), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Page 163.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Fr. Kovpak began preparing multiple young men at his parish for the entrance exams to the newly opened UGCC seminary in the Lviv suburb of Rudno. At first, many of them successfully gained entry, but, by 1998–1999, potential seminarians from St. Peter and Paul's Church in Riasne ceased to be admitted, as they were considered to be Kovpakyvtsyi ("Kovpak's students").Stéphanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu (2008), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Page 163.
Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat
According to Vlad Naumescu, during the early 1990s, priests of the Society of Saint Pius X began visiting Western Ukraine and made contact with, "a group of Greek Catholic priests and lay members that favored religious practices derived from the Latin Rite (an important component of their underground practices) and helped them organize into an active society."Stéphanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu (2008), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Page 162.
In 1999, Fr. Kovpak and two other UGCC priests asked SSPX Superior General Bishop Bernard Fellay to become their spiritual leader. The reasons for this move were that the three priests hoped to obtain both approval and support from fellow Traditionalist Catholics in the West. In September 2000, Bishop Fellay agreed and the Priestly Society of St. Josaphat was founded.Stéphanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu (2008), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Page 165.
The Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat extends the SSPX's criticism of indifferentism and Modernism in the Catholic Church to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. They oppose certain decisions of the Second Vatican Council and aspects of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue practised by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Hierarchy and the Holy See.
In addition to opposing the banning of Latin Rite practices and devotions, the Society rejects the drastically shortened Divine Liturgy introduced from the Ukrainian diaspora and the replacement of the traditional Church Slavonic liturgical language with the vernacular Ukrainian language. As an alternative, Fr. Kovpak and his fellow Greek Catholic traditionalists say what they consider the Pravdyvyi ("True") Rite,Stéphanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu (2008), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Page 162-163. which often lasts two and a half to three hours.Stéphanie Mahieu and Vlad Naumescu (2008), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia. Page 164.
According to Vlad Naumescu, "Religious life in a traditionalist parish followed the model of the 'underground church.' Devotions were more intense, with each priest promoting his parish as a 'place of pilgrimage' for the neighboring areas, thus drawing larger crowds on Sunday than his local parish could provide. On Sundays and feast days, religious services took place three times a day (in Riasne), and the Sunday liturgy lasted for two and a half to three hours. The main religious celebrations took place outside the church in the middle of the neighborhood, and on every occasion traditionalists organized long processions through the entire locality. The community was strongly united by its common opponent, re-enacting the model of the 'defender of faith' common to times of repression. This model, which presupposes clear-cut attitudes and a firm moral stance, mobilized the community and reproduced the former determination of the 'underground' believers."Stephanie Mahieu, Vlad Naumescu (editors), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe (LIT Verlag Münster 2008), page 164.
Dispute with Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church authorities In the February 2003 issue of Patriayarkhat, the official journal of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, an article appeared, written by a student of the Ukrainian Catholic University, which, since its founding, has been the strongest Modernist voice within the Church. The article named priests and parishes in every eparchy in Ukraine who described themselves as "traditionalists" and who formed a well organized movement which the student called both a continuation of the underground church and a serious danger to the UGCC. According to the article, Traditionalists constituted "a parallel structure" with Vasyl Kovpak as their undisputed and charismatic leader and had connections with the Society of St. Pius X.Vlad Naumescu, "Continuities and Ruptures of a Religious Tradition: Making ‘Orthodoxy’ in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church" in Stephanie Mahieu, Vlad Naumescu (editors), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe (LIT Verlag Münster 2008), pp. 161–162,
In response to an investigation of him ordered by Cardinal Husar in September 2003,Vlad Naumescu, "Continuities and Ruptures of a Religious Tradition: Making ‘Orthodoxy’ in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church" in Stephanie Mahieu, Vlad Naumescu (editors), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe (LIT Verlag Münster 2008), page 166, Fr. Kovpak wrote and published the book, Persecuted Tradition. In it, he accused the UGCC bishops with subjecting traditional Greek Catholic priests to severe mental and emotional abuse. He also pointed out cases in which Ukrainian laity were refused Holy Communion because they insisting on kneeling for it.
Fr. Kovpak also accused the hierarchy of the UGCC of embracing an extreme form of Ukrainian nationalism and cites many examples of the UGCC turning away Orthodox clergy and laity who wish to convert to Eastern Catholicism. In these cases, he alleges, this is because the would be converts are ethnic Russians. Fr. Kovpak called this a betrayal of the efforts by Pope Pius X, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, and Exarch Leonid Feodorov to create the Russian Greek Catholic Church and to convert the Russian people to Eastern Catholicism.
He also accused the UGCC leaders of indifferentism, of tolerating and encouraging liturgical abuses such as "monks with guitars", and of having publicly posed for photographs and conducted interreligious prayer meetings with Buddhists and Hare Krishnas. Fr. Kovpak further cited virulently Anti-Catholic remarks by the very Orthodox prelates with whom Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Archeparch of Lviv and Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, was pursuing ecumenism and "seeking a false unity".Book prelude. Kovpak, B. Persecuted Tradition. As an alternative, Kovpak argues in favor of the doctrine Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.
The SSPX is preparing an English translation of the book, the original of which is in Ukrainian.Page containing "Tradition Persecuted in Western Ukraine", a review of Kovpak's book
On 10 February 2004, Cardinal Husar announced that Fr. Kovpak, through his links to the SSPX, had brought upon himself excommunication by "recognis(ing) the uncanonical foreign Bishop Bernard Fellay, who does not recognise the authority of the Pope of Rome and is not united with the Catholic Church." Husar also announced his decision to replace Fr. Kovpak as pastor of St. Peter and Paul's Church and suspend his status as a Greek Catholic priest.Vlad Naumescu, "Continuities and Ruptures of a Religious Tradition: Making ‘Orthodoxy’ in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church" in Stephanie Mahieu, Vlad Naumescu (editors), Churches In-between: Greek Catholic Churches in Postsocialist Europe (LIT Verlag Münster 2008), page 166,