The constitution under review announces the erection of a Ruthenian Byzantine-rite exarchate in Germany, directly subject to the Roman See, with its seat in Munich, formed for those Eastern faithful displaced by war, and entrusted to an exarch bound to preserve rites and discipline according to Eastern usage while sending candidates for the priesthood to Rome.
This seemingly administrative act already manifests the program of John XXIII: consolidation of the conciliar revolution under a pious veneer, instrumentalization of the Eastern rites, and transformation of the Roman Primacy into an ecumenical management office serving the emerging neo-church.
Oriental Ornamentation in the Service of the Conciliar Revolution
From Petrine Guardianship to Bureaucratic Patronage
On the surface, the text claims pastoral solicitude:
“With very many of the Byzantine rite having fled from Galicia and the Carpathians… this Apostolic See… sent Peter Werhun as Visitor… Wishing to provide more fittingly for these faithful… Pius XII judged it useful… that an Exarchate be erected in that nation.”
Translated sense: the displaced Ruthenian faithful, suffering from war and persecution, are reorganized under a special structure in Germany to preserve their faith and rites and to strengthen bonds with Rome.
At the factual level:
– Yes, displaced Byzantine Catholics in Germany needed hierarchical structures.
– Yes, exarchates are a legitimate canonical tool in the traditional order when erected by a true Pope in fidelity to *Traditio*.
– Yes, care for Eastern rites, as taught by Pius XI and Pius XII, is in itself Catholic when it protects their legitimate traditions and faith.
However, this document, dated April 17, 1959, is signed by Angelo Roncalli (John XXIII), that is, by the man who only months later convoked the catastrophe of Vatican II and inaugurated the entire conciliar pseudo-magisterium condemned in its principles by the pre-1958 Magisterium. The same signature that here claims to guarantee fidelity to *fides et ritus integri* becomes within a few years the seal of aggiornamento, religious liberty, and ecumenism.
This is not an accidental coincidence. It is a program.
Linguistic Masks: Piety without Supernatural Clarity
The language of the constitution is externally traditional, yet revealingly bureaucratic and horizontal:
– Continuous emphasis on “providing” institutional structures and “ordering affairs.”
– Appeals to war and displacement primarily as sociological factors.
– Silence on the state of grace, on the danger of schism or heresy, on the unique salvific necessity of the Catholic Church.
Even where it speaks of Werhun’s fidelity:
“Qui ob integrain atque incontaminatam fidem erga Romanam Ecclesiam est exsilio multatus…”
it treats his fate as an edifying credential for administrative reorganization, without drawing the integral doctrinal conclusion: that communion with the true Roman Church demands repudiation of every compromise with error, Communism, Modernism, and national churches. The whole tone is that of a centralized ecclesiastical administration rearranging jurisdictions, not of the supernatural authority of Christ the King reasserting His rights over souls and nations.
In light of Pius XI’s *Quas primas*, this silence is striking. That encyclical demands public recognition of Christ’s Kingship by individuals, families, and states; here, in post-war Germany—where secularism, Masonic democracy, and laicism flourish—there is not a single word about the duty of the German state to recognize Christ’s reign, nor any demand that Eastern Catholics be a leaven for the social Kingship of Christ. Instead, there is a neatly circumscribed ethno-liturgical enclave, perfectly compatible with the liberal, pluralist order anathematized by Pius IX in the *Syllabus* (notably propositions 55, 77–80).
This is not accidental omission; it is symptomatic.
Theological Displacement: Eastern Rites as Decorative Pluralism
Ecclesia una, sancta, catholica et apostolica (the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church) is not a federation of rites or a laboratory of pluralism. The pre-1958 doctrine is crystalline:
– The Roman Pontiff possesses full, supreme, and immediate jurisdiction over all the faithful (Vatican I, *Pastor aeternus*).
– Eastern rites are to be preserved in their legitimate traditions, but always as integral parts of the one Church, professing identically the same dogma, the same moral doctrine, the same rejection of liberalism, indifferentism, modernism.
This text repeats the formula of preserving “approved usages and legitimate customs of the Eastern Church”:
“In this ordering of affairs, the approved usages and legitimate customs of the Eastern Church are entirely to be observed.”
But the context—a Roncallian act on the threshold of Vatican II—reveals a radically different intention:
– Rites are uncoupled from dogmatic militancy and turned into ethnic-cultural markers.
– The Eastern liturgical heritage becomes a prestigious ornament for a developing ecumenical project: multiplicity of “traditions” coexisting under a super-structure that no longer demands integral submission to pre-modernist doctrine.
This instrumentalization is directly contrary to the anti-modernist prescriptions of St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi*, which condemn the reduction of doctrine and sacraments to historical expressions, evolving forms, and cultural vehicles. The emerging conciliar pattern—already implicit here—is exactly what Pius X denounced: *dogma, cult, and discipline treated as adjustable elements in service of historical and sociological circumstances* rather than immutable expressions of revealed truth.
The Munich Seat: Symbolic Entry into the Liberal Order
The choice of Munich as the seat is revealing:
– Munich is a center of post-war German liberal democracy, a ground of theological experimentation that would soon give us leading architects of conciliar theology.
– Establishing a directly Roman-dependent exarchate there under Roncalli’s authority securely anchors a community of Eastern Catholics within the matrix of the forming conciliar sect.
Instead of being a bastion of resistance to Communism, liberalism, and modernism, the exarchate is designed as a manageable satellite of the new orientation. Note:
– No warning against Orthodoxy’s schism and doctrinal errors.
– No prohibition against confusing union with Rome with a mere “communion of sister Churches.”
– No reminder that participation in Masonic, socialist, or secularist ideologies is incompatible with the faith.
According to Pius IX, the denial of the Church’s unique claims and the embrace of religious liberty and separation of Church and State are condemned errors (Syllabus 15–18, 55, 77–80). This constitution’s silence in the concrete German context functions as tacit acceptance of those condemned principles. *Silentium de supremis* is here an accusatory silence.
Centralization without Orthodoxy: The Abuse of Roman Primacy
The constitution heavily underlines direct subjection to the Apostolic See:
“The new circumscription will be directly subject to the Apostolic See…”
Subjection to a true Pope would be Catholic. But after 1958, this “direct dependence” becomes dependence upon a usurped authority that will shortly:
– Call a council to introduce religious liberty (condemned by Pius IX and Leo XIII).
– Promote false ecumenism with schismatics and heretics.
– Conceive the Church as an open structure aligned with “modern civilization.”
Thus, what is structurally sound in appearance serves to bind Eastern faithful to a center already in the process of doctrinal deviation. The perfection of jurisdictional centralization under a counterfeit magisterium is not a remedy; it is an instrument of perdition.
Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia (“Where Peter is, there is the Church”) is converted, in this new order, into a juridical snare: “Where Roncalli is, there be all rites harnessed to aggiornamento.”
Sending Seminarians to Rome: Formation in the New Religion
Particularly revealing—and gravely harmful—is the directive concerning priestly formation:
“As for the youths to be educated who desire to be initiated into the priesthood, let them be sent to Rome.”
In traditional ecclesiology, sending candidates to Rome was a guarantee of sound doctrine and Roman spirit. Under Roncalli and his successors, it becomes the exact opposite:
– It ensures that Ruthenian candidates will be immersed in the very currents condemned by Pius X: historicism, doctrinal evolution, scriptural relativism, liturgical experimentation.
– It rips vocations from organic roots in suffering, confessing communities and subjects them to the laboratories that will soon manufacture the conciliar clergy of the neo-church.
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this clause is catastrophic:
– It weaponizes central formation against the integrity of an Eastern Church that had already paid for its fidelity with prisons and blood.
– It changes Rome from the guardian of tradition into the seminary of aggiornamento.
This fulfills in practice what *Lamentabili* condemned in principle: subjection of the deposit of faith to the categories of contemporary thought and historical relativism. The exarchate thus becomes not a fortress of unchanging faith, but an intake valve into a paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican.
Ecclesiastical Penalties as Empty Threats of a Counterfeit Authority
The conclusion of the constitution piles up solemn forms:
“We desire and decree that these Our Letters be firm and effective now and in the future… If anyone… acts against what We have laid down, We command that it be held absolutely null and void… Whoever despises or in any way rejects Our decrees, let him know that he will incur the penalties established by law against those who do not obey the commands of Supreme Pontiffs.”
The rhetorical strategy is transparent:
– Maximal canonical seriousness.
– Threats of penalties for non-compliance.
– Claim to perpetuity and universal obligation.
Yet the content to which these sanctions are attached is precisely the integration of Eastern faithful under an authority that will soon:
– Betray the anti-liberal doctrine of Pius IX and Leo XIII.
– Undermine the social Kingship of Christ proclaimed in *Quas primas*.
– Introduce a theology of religious liberty and ecumenism incompatible with Catholic exclusivity.
The conciliar sect thereby uses the language of papal authority to secure obedience to its revolution. The juridical form is exploited to grant pseudo-legitimacy to an ecclesiological mutation condemned in its principles by all pre-1958 doctrine.
Lex suprema salus animarum (“The supreme law is the salvation of souls”) is perverted: the law is invoked to bind souls to structures that will corrupt their faith.
Systemic Patterns: From Exarchates to Ecumenical Confederation
When seen in isolation, “Exarchia in Germania” might appear as a minor administrative act. Viewed in the trajectory from 1959 onward, it becomes a revealing piece of a larger design:
1. Eastern Catholics, especially those persecuted by Communism, had a strong instinct for doctrinal clarity and sacrificial fidelity.
2. The neo-church requires such communities to be neutralized or reoriented so they do not expose conciliatory compromises with Communism, Orthodoxy, and liberal regimes.
3. Direct dependence on Roncalli’s “Holy See” and formation in Rome are the ideal mechanisms.
The fruits confirm the pattern (where verifiable):
– Eastern-rite communities progressively drawn into ecumenical gestures with schismatics.
– Dilution of confessional clarity regarding Orthodoxy’s errors on primacy, Filioque, and ecclesiology.
– Use of Eastern rites as showcase diversity for “dialogue” rather than as witnesses of Rome’s immutable faith.
Such use of venerable rites is a form of spiritual exploitation. It contradicts the mind of the true Magisterium, which:
– Defended the East’s heritage as a treasure inseparable from Roman orthodoxy.
– Condemned indifferentism and “latitudinarianism” that treat all confessions as equivalent paths (Syllabus 15–18).
– Rejected the modernist dissolution of dogma into historical forms.
Here, however, the exarchate is silently embedded in the architecture that will soon proclaim exactly these condemned tendencies, under the guise of “renewal.”
The Omission that Condemns: No Call to Public Kingship of Christ
One omission overshadows all others: the total absence of any call to restore the public reign of Christ the King in Germany.
Pius XI taught in *Quas primas* that:
– True peace and order come only from recognizing Christ’s social Kingship.
– States and laws must be conformed to the law of Christ; religious indifferentism and secularization are grave disorders.
– The Church must denounce secularism and laicism as rebellion against God.
In this constitution:
– No admonition to German authorities to recognize Christ’s rights.
– No exhortation to the Ruthenian faithful to be confessors of Christ’s Kingship in an apostate society.
– No warning against taking refuge in ethnic ritual as a substitute for integral Catholic militancy.
The Eastern exarchate is framed so that it can fit seamlessly into a religiously pluralist, secular democratic state, precisely the model condemned by Pius IX and Pius XI. This silence is not benign; it is a practical denial of the doctrine previously proclaimed.
Qui tacet consentire videtur (“He who is silent is seen to consent”). The constitution’s “neutrality” in the concrete situation amounts to acquiescence in the liberal order and prepares the way for the later conciliar teaching on religious liberty.
Conclusion: A Technical Decree as Prelude to Apostasy
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic theology prior to 1958, the flaws of this constitution are not in the notion of an exarchate as such, but in:
– Its being promulgated by one who would become the architect of Vatican II and its errors.
– Its integration of heroic Eastern Catholics into the bureaucratic framework of a nascent neo-church, without any strengthening of their doctrinal defenses against liberalism, Communism, and ecumenism.
– Its calculated silences on the social Kingship of Christ, the dangers of indifferentism, and the exclusive salvific necessity of the Catholic Church.
– Its exploitation of papal juridical language to secure obedience to structures that would soon be turned against integral Catholic faith.
Thus this document, beneath a traditional Latin surface, participates in the same logic that Pius IX in the *Syllabus* and Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu* condemned: the adaptation of the Church’s visible structures and language to the principles of modern naturalism, historicism, and liberalism.
The Ruthenian exarchate in Germany, as outlined here, is made not a rampart of orthodoxy against the errors of the age, but a manageable, picturesque district inside the conciliar labyrinth—governed from the very center that was preparing the most devastating revolution in Church history.
Source:
Exarchia in Germania (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025