Open Air Divine Liturgy in Liverpool, 1937

The Pathe news film archive carries a remarkable short video of the celebration of the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy outside the Lutyens crypt of Liverpool Catholic Cathedral in 1937. Here is the link.

The Bishop is the Servant of God Mykolai Carneckyj (or Charnetsky) CSsR (1884-1959), a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Redemptorist. He was associated with the work of Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky to protect and strengthen the Ukrainian Catholic Church, but at the end of the Second World War, when Ukraine inevitably fell into the hands of Russia and incorporated into the Soviet Union, Kyr Mykolai was arrested by the NKVD and sentenced to 6 years' hard labour in Siberia. He died in Lviv in 1959.

The Pathe reportage is excellent. It describes the "Byzantine Slavonic" rite to be celebrated by the Eastern bishop as Orthodox, but goes on to explain that while many Orthodox did not agree with the papacy or accept its authority, these were Orthodox who did. Evidently Pathe had been well briefed by a member of the Society of St John Chrysostom.

The Chairman, Fr John Salter, offers the picture below of another celebration of the Byzantine rite celebrated in a very western setting: "a Greek Catholic Bishop correctly vested, but celebrating the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom at a Latinized altar attended by Latinized acolytes."