Some historians believe that the origins of the eparchy are to be found in the missionary work of
Saints Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century. The 14th century saw the founding of the
Saint Nicholas Monastery on Chernecha Hora (Hill of Monks) located in the city of
Mukachevo. Many believe that from that point, the Eparchy of Mukachevo evolved into the entity as we know it today. The bishops resided at the Monastery and administered ecclesiastical affairs from there until 1766. After the union with Rome and until 1946, the Monastery of St Nicholas was also the principal religious house of the monks of the
Order of Saint Basil the Great (OSBM), also called
Basilian monks. The bishops, clergy and faithful of this eparchy were originally Orthodox Christians who at some point were reconstituted under an eparchy suffragan to the original
Metropolitan of Kiev (
Russian Orthodox Church) that was under the jurisdiction of the
Patriarch of Constantinople (see
Eparchy of Mukačevo and Prešov). In 1646, following the example of their compatriots across the
Carpathian Mountains in
Galicia (current day Western Ukraine), who in 1596 established the
Union of Brest, the people of the Mukachevo eparchy united with the papal
Holy See (recognizing the primacy of Catholic Rome, not Byzantine, Orthodox 'New Rome' Constantinople) under what is known as the
Union of Uzhhorod. Other Eastern Orthodox Christians who belonged to the original Eastern Orthodox eparchy of Mukachevo and refused to convert joined the
eparchy of Buda that is suffragan to the
Serbian Patriarchate of Peć (and later
Patriarchate of Karlovci). In the political and spiritual climate of the day, union with Rome was considered by many to be a productive solution to promoting both the welfare of the people and the church. Following a model similar to that proposed at the
Council of Florence, the people were allowed to maintain their Byzantine Rite spiritual, liturgical and canonical traditions, while recognizing the
Roman Pontiff as the head of the universal church. From 1646 to 1771 the eparchy was
suffragan to the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Eger. On September 19, 1771, after decades of efforts on the part of the bishops of Mukachevo for recognition as a fully self-governing ecclesiastical entity, free from the control of the Latin Catholic bishops of
Eger (today in
Hungary), the Habsburg Holy Roman Empress
Maria Theresa issued a decree, subsequently approved by Rome, that created a jurisdictionally independent Mukachevo Eparchy no longer subordinate to the
Latin Church ordinary. It was also at this time that the faithful of the eparchy formally became known as
Greek Catholics. During the episcopate of Bishop Andrii Bachynskyij (1772-1809), the eparchy retained its historic name but its seat was moved to
Uzhhorod (1780), where it remains to this day. Following the
Second World War and the occupation of
Carpatho-Ukraine by the Soviet regime, the Greek Catholic Church was liquidated in 1949. All properties were allocated to the
Russian Orthodox Church and the clergy and many faithful exiled to concentration camps. The bishop of Mukachevo during this time was
Theodore Romzha. In 1947, Bishop Romzha was poisoned by
NKVD (predecessor of the
KGB) authorities. During the Soviet years, the Greek Catholic Church in Galicia,
Transcarpathia and Slovakia continued to operate secretly in the underground. ==Structure==