Template talk:Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church hierarchy history

Problems with this Template

There are a number of problems with this template. (1) "Hierarch/ordinary" simply means a bishop with ordinary jurisdiction in a territory of the Church and would include literally every single bishop of any diocese of the UGCC (as well as exarchs and possibly others), but the sense intended here is "head of the whole Church." There are other terms for that but hierarch/ordinary doesn't get there on its own. (2) The inclusion of the Belarussians and Russians is awkward, even if those circumscriptions are also descended from the Union of Brest because those Churches had their own heads precisely in the sense that they were not the UGCC or even a part of it; if they had been, they would have had just another UGCC bishop. (3) Why are some names italicized and struck through? The template gives no indication. (4) On what grounds are the Metropolitan Archbishops of Kiev after the Partition of Poland excluded, when their titles/prerogatives were ostensibly equal to those of the Metropolitan Archbishops of Lviv who are included? (5) I have corrected the inclusion of Joseph Werth (I am aware of the claim that he has been entrusted with the pastoral care of Byzantine Russian Catholics in Russia, but that does not make him Apostolic Exarch, unless he was actually appointed Apostolic Exarch). He has never, as far as I can tell, been appointed Apostolic Exarch of Russia; that office has remained vacant since 1951. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, I would be very much interested to see it, but the rest of Wikipedia articles on this topic are in agreement with each other and their outside sources that the Apostolic Exarchate remains vacant. I am concerned, however, that the sloppy inclusion of Werth may suggest other subtle issues with the template that I do not recognize. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 02:05, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Re my own point (4), I have figured out that the italicized, struck-through names are the Moscow-appointed post-Partition Metropolitan Archbishops of Kiev, so those bishops are included, but I think that only serves to highlight how difficult this template is to read and understand. And I'm still bewildered by the italicized names at the beginning of the list of Belarussians, neither of whom seems to have ever actually held an appointment that involved ministering to Belarussians as such. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 02:26, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

If we ignore the last two sections (Belarussian and Russian), which I really think need to be removed from this template, the rest of the template seems to be basically "Byzantine Rite Metropolitan Archbishops in communion with Rome of Kiev at any time in history and also of Lviv from 1808 to 2005." That's a fairly bizarre and arbitrary-sounding collection, which I'm not sure why Wikipedia needs and which I am quite certain is not accurately described as "Hierarchs (ordinaries) of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church." LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 02:34, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Removing the Belarussians

I am removing the entire Belarussian section of this template. Explanations: (1) Leonid Feodorov was the Apostolic Exarch of Russia for Russian Greek Catholics, nothing to do with Belarussian Greek Catholics. (2) Nicholas Charnetsky was locum tenans of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Belarus, but he was not the ordinary and the position was subordinate to the UGCC anyway, not part of a separate Belarussian Greek Catholic Church. (3) Antoniy Nemantsevich was the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Apostolic Exarch of Belarus, which means he was subordinate to the UGCC Metropolitan Archbishop and not head of a separate Belarussian Greek Catholic Church. (4) Sipovich, Tarasevich, and Gajek are apostolic visitors which is practically the definition of a position that does not have ordinary jurisdiction; they're not ordinaries/hierarchs. Gajek isn't even a bishop. And the omission of Alexander Nadson is bizarre and inexplicable since he held the same title as Sipovich and Tarasevich. Besides, none of these men have even been entrusted with the visitation of the entire Belarussian Greek Catholic community: Gajek only with those within Belarus, and the others only with those outside. So as far as I can tell with what this template is supposed to be accomplishing, none of the men listed in the Belarussian section qualify (and that's even assuming that it makes sense to include them at all in a template which is supposedly about the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a point which I set aside for the moment). LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 03:20, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Removing the Russians

The Russian Greek Catholic Church, since 1928, has consisted of two apostolic exarchates—one for Russia (only founded 11 years earlier) and one based in Harbin, China—and neither of them ever held any particular authority over the other or over the Russian Greek Catholic Church as a whole as such (by the nature of apostolic exarchates, this would be nonsensical, actually). Therefore, since the apostolic exarchs of Harbin were essentially equal in rank/dignity/authority/whatever to the apostolic exarchs of Russia but in different and non-overlapping territory, I think it is most correct to say that none of them qualify to be presented in this template of "Hierarchs of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church" (even if we set aside the very contestable issue of whether any bishops of the Russian Greek Catholic Church could merit inclusion in such a template). There is also, separately the issue of the fact that these exarchs may have been appointed by the Metropolitan Archbishops of the UGCC at the time, which, if true, would clearly indicate their inferiority to those Metropolitan Archbishops vis-a-vis the UGCC and hence disqualify them in yet another way from inclusion in this template. Finally, there is the fact that none of the apostolic exarchs (of either exarchate) seem ever to have been made bishops, which adds to the strangeness of including them here. For these reasons, I am deleting the section on the Russians. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 19:42, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Name

@LacrimosaDiesIlla: True that it's not a history of the (present) hierarchs, but indeed a history of the hierarchy. Per WP:Consistency with Hierarchy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Chicbyaccident (talk) 17:58, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

But it's not a history of the whole hierarchy! Only of the head of the Church at any given time (or for a while the two heads of two parallel churches). So it needs a title that reflects that aspect. The vast majority of Ukrainian bishops, past or present, don't come anywhere near this infobox. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 18:12, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

@Chicbyaccident: On this point, please see my point (1) in the "Problems with this template" section above. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 18:15, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

I see. So what is your idea of a name? Chicbyaccident (talk) 18:48, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure. The situation is awkward because the "church" in question has not had a consistent name or identity over its history, and its head has not had a consistent title. "Heads" would work, but I think it sounds poor. I would probably prefer "Primates" but I'm not sure if it's technically correct over the whole time period being covered. "Metropolitan and Major Archiepiscopal Primates of Ukrainian Uniate Catholicism" seems like a fairly accurate rendering of what the template includes, but it's a bit of a mouthful. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 13:48, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I will say that I think we can do without any form of the word "history" or "historic" in the name/title. Cf. Template:Popes which is a historical listing much like this one but doesn't use the word "history". LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 13:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

@Chicbyaccident: Just realized that you may never have seen this because I didn't ping you on it. Sorry about that. I'm still interested in changing the name of this template to something else. What do you think? LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 12:50, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

OK. No opinion. I'm leaving this to you. Chicbyaccident (talk) 16:36, 23 October 2017 (UTC)