Highlights from the UNA's 110-year history (04/18/04)

Highlights from the UNA's 110-year history

A special yearlong feature focusing on the history of the Ukrainian National Association.

At the 11th convention of the UNA in 1910, then still called the Ruskyi Narodnyi Soyuz, (Ruthenian National Association), the national character of the fraternal organization became even more evident. The RNS at the time was seen as the undisputed leader of all Ukrainian groups in America.

Although the word "Rusyn" or "Ruthenian" was retained in the organization's name, this was seen as merely a traditional form. By now the organization's course had been set as it was marked by an awakened Ukrainian spirit. To be sure, there still was a struggle against Russophilism, but as longtime Svoboda Editor-in-Chief Anthony Dragan noted, "it was no longer an internal conflict."

Now it was "an outright struggle against an aggressively imperialistic Russian front, strongly organized and heavily subsidized, yet shrewdly trying to hide its face under the guise of Orthodoxy."

At the 11th convention, there was one bitter struggle that had a profound effect on the organization and its future development. A resolution was passed at the convention to change the name of the organization from Ruthenian National Association to Greek-Catholic Ruthenian Association. The decision was made under pressure from Bishop Soter Ortynsky, who chaired the convention's By-Laws Committee, and who insisted that the organization be subordinated to the Catholic bishop. Another resolution stipulated that only Greek-Catholics could serve as delegates to UNA conventions and that all members must go to confession during Eastertime.

In the wake of the convention came a struggle between Church and secular elements over control of the Ukrainian American community. Svoboda attempted to serve as a mediator, while trying to save the RNS from a break-up. It argued that it is the members who determine what course the organization will take, not the priests.

Nonetheless, after the convention some branches and members left the RNS and formed a new association, which later became known as the Ukrainian Workingmen's Association (today's Ukrainian Fraternal Association). In 1911, another new fraternal emerged: the Association of Ruthenian Greek-Catholic Church Brotherhoods "Christian Love" in America (later known as the Providence Association of Ukrainian Catholics in America). The latter group was founded by Bishop Ortynsky on the advice of the same persons who had sought to change the name of the RNS to the Greek-Catholic Association; it was founded after it was established by legal counsel that the name change adopted at the 11th convention violated the constitution of the RNS. Bishop Ortynsky then decided to leave the RNS.

Source: "Ukrainian National Association: Its Past and Present, (1894-1964)," by Anthony Dragan (translated from the original Ukrainian by Zenon Snylyk). Jersey City, N.J.: Svoboda Press, 1964. The border featured in this special feature is reproduced from a UNA membership certificate dating to 1919.

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