Basil Kovpak

Basil Kovpak (Ukrainian: Васил Ковпак, Vasyl Kovpak), a priest formerly of the Archeparchy of Lviv of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, is the founder and current head of the putatively Traditionalist Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat, which rejects some of the decisions of the Second Vatican Council and some of the current forms of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue practised by the Holy See.

The Society also opposes the substitution of the traditional Church Slavonic language by the vernacular Ukrainian language in the liturgy, and the liturgical de-latinisation (removal of Latin Rite practices), such as Eucharistic adoration, the Rosary, the Stations of the Cross, that have been adopted and have displaced traditional, authentic Eastern devotions within this Eastern Catholic Church.

The Society is a dependent of the Society of Saint Pius X, which provides much of its funding from SSPX chapels in the West.

On 10 February 2004, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the bishop on whom Kovpak depended, declared that Kovpak, through his close links to the SSPX, had incurred excommunication by "recogniz(ing) the uncanonical foreign Bishop Bernard Fellay, who does not recognize the authority of the Pope of Rome and is not united with the Catholic Church." [ [http://www.risu.org.ua/eng/news/article%3b2559/ Lefebvrite Priest Excommunicated from Greek Catholic Church] ] Kovpak denied that he recognized Bishop Fellay, and declared his intention to appeal to the Vatican. [ [http://www.risu.org.ua/eng/news/article;2573/ Excommunicated Greek Catholic Priest Denies Accusations, Disagrees with Decision] ] The Holy See declared the excommunication null for lack of canonical form, [ [http://www.laportelatine.org/accueil/entret/2006/jenkins/versionanglaise/anglais2006.php An Interview with the SSPX Prior of Warsaw] ] but he was definitively excommunicated in November 2007 [ [http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=54919 Ukrainian priest excommunicated] ] after having the Latin-Rite SSPX bishop Richard Williamson ordain two priests and seven deacons for his society in violation of [http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0017/_P3N.HTM canons 1015 §1 and 1017] of the Code of Canon Law.

Kovpak holds possession of the parish church in the village of Ivano-Frankove (Yaniv), where the parishioners have repeatedly excluded priests assigned to replace him by the Archbishop of Lviv. [ [http://www.risu.org.ua/eng/news/article;8237/ Ukrainian Greek Catholics Process "For Church Unity"] ]

To justify his actions and respond to the accusations leveled against him by the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and other officials of the Church, Kovpak has written a book entitled "Persecuted Tradition". In it, he charges that bishops have harassed Traditionalist priests and have refused laity Communion for kneeling, while they have publicly posed for photographs and conducted interreligious payer meetings with Buddhists and Hare Krishnas. He further cites virulently Anti-Catholic remarks by the very Orthodox prelates with whom Lubomyr is pursuing ecumenism. The SSPX is preparing an English translation of the book, the original of which is in Ukrainian. [ [http://papastronsay.com/Ukraine.htm Page containing "Tradition Persecuted in Western Ukraine", a review of Kovpak's book] ]

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