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, a rebellion of Cossacks and Ruthenian peasants against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the lands of in present-day Ukraine, which, with the assistance of Crimean Tatar forces, curtailed the eastern scope of the Commonwealth and effectively established the possibility of a southern East Slavic state

St. George's Cathedral (Собор святого Юра, translit. Sobor sviatoho Yura) is a baroque-rococo cathedral located in the city of Lviv, the historic capital of western Ukraine. It was constructed between 1744-1760 on a hill overlooking the city, a prominent site repeatedly targeted by invaders and vandals, upon which a church has stood since the 13th century. Situated prominently within the city, the cathedral also holds a predominant position in religious and cultural terms. During 19th and 20th centuries, it served as the mother church of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC).

History
A church has stood on St. George Hill (святоюрська гора, translit. sviatoyurs'ka hora) since around 1280, dating back to a time when the area was still part of the Halych-Volhynia Principality. After the original wooden church and the fortress it was situated in were destroyed by King Casimir III of Poland in 1340, a four-column Byzantine basilica was constructed for the local Eastern Orthodox Church.

In July 1700, the Act of Unification of Lviv archdiocese with the Holy see was proclaimed in an older incarnation of St. George's cathedral when Bishop Joseph Shumlanskyi openly embraced the cause of the union with Rome.

In 1945, Josyf Cardinal Slipyj, leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) was imprisoned by the NKVD. Consequently in 1946, as a result of the Soviet organized Synod of Lvіv, the Cathedral was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church's Ukrainian Exarchate. The Cathedral was reconsecrated as Saint Yury's, and became the mother church of the Lvіv-Ternopіl diocese.

On 12 August, 1990 members of the Rukh movement forced their way into the Cathedral of Saint Yury, and two days later, the provincial Council of Lviv Oblast recognised it as part of the UGCC.

Restoration of the Cathedral took place in 1996 to commemorate the 400th anniversary since the Union of Brest. However, restoration at the Cathedral's grounds is ongoing.

Architectural features
A pearl of European art designed by architect - Bernard Meretin, and sculptor - Johann Georg Pinsel, St. George's Cathedral reflects merged Western influences and traditions of a Ukrainian church building. The Cathedral was erected under the guidance of metropolitan Athanasiy Sheptytsky.

Rusyns (also referred to as Ruthenians, Ruthenes, Rusins, Carpatho-Rusyns, and Rusniaks or Rusnaks) are a modern ethnic group that speaks the Rusyn language and are descended from the minority of Ruthenians who did not adopt a Ukrainian national identity and become Ukrainians in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Location
Main article: Places inhabited by Rusyns They have traditionally inhabited the areas of the Eastern Carpathian Mountains and still inhabit those areas, as well as some others in the Pannonian plain. Their homeland is often referred to as Carpathian Ruthenia, although that area no longer exactly corresponds with the places inhabited by Rusyns.

History
Rusyns are an ethnic group that has never attained the status of independent statehood. As such, their fortunes have rested in the hands of larger powers, such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union, Ukraine, and Russia. In contrast to the modern Ukrainian national movement that united Western Ukrainians with those from the rest of Ukraine, the Rusyn national movement takes two forms: one considers Rusyns as a seperate East Slavic nation, while the other is based on the concept of fraternal unity with Russians.

While most if not all of the Eastern Slavic inhabitants of present-day Western Ukraine referred to themselves as Rusyns (Русини, tr. Rusyny) prior to the nineteenth century, the majority of these people became active participants in the creation of the Ukrainian nation and came to call themselves Ukrainians (Ukrainian: Українці, tr. Ukrayintsi). There were, however, ethnic Rusyn enclaves who were not a part of this movement, those living on the border of the same territory or in more isolated regions, such as the people from Carpathian Ruthenia, Poleshuks, or the Rusyns of Podlachia. With no reason to change their self-identifying monikers, these groups continued to refer to themselves as Rusyns. In this sense, Rusyns are similar to other borderland ethnicities, and their national awakening can be viewed by some as a negation of Ukrainian nationalism.

Tribe of Rusyns sometimes named: Lemkos (Lemoks, Lemkians), Boykos (Boyks), Hutsuls (Gutsuls, Hutzuls, or Huculs), Verkhovinetses (Verkhovynetses, Highlanders), Dolinyanins (Haynals).

Some scholars claim that these ethnic groups is a part of Rusyns. Indeed, in the 19th cetury and in the first part of the 20th century Boykos, Lemkos and Hutsuls as well as most of the population of the present day's Western Ukraine referred to themselves as Ruthenians (Русини, tr. Rusyny). Then the term "Ukrainian", that replaced the term "Ruthenians" in Eastern Ukraine a century earlier, has became more common among Western Ruthenians/Ukrainians. According to the recent census practically all Boykos, Lemkos, Hutsuls, Verkhovinetses and Dolinyanins in Ukraine (not however in  Slovakia) declared their ethnicity as Ukrainian. Only about 10,100 people of Zakarpattya oblast (0.8%) identify themselves as Rusyns acoording to the last census.

The Rusyn national movement is especially strong amongst those Rusyn groups that became geographically separated from present-day Ukrainian territories, for example the Rusyn emigrants in the United States and Canada, as well as the Pannonian Rusyns in Serbia, who migrated there during the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some Rusyns resettled in Vojvodina (in present day Serbia and Montenegro), as well as in Slavonia (in present-day Croatia). Still other Rusyns migrated to the northern regions of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, although many of these Bosnian Rusyns refer to themselves as Ukrainians. Until the 1971 Yugoslav census, both Ukrainians (Serbian: Украјинци, tr. Ukrajinci) and Rusyns (Serbian: Русини, tr.  Rusini) in these areas were recorded collectively as "Ruthenes".

Historically, the Polish and Hungarian states are considered to have helped in the development of a Rusyn identity seperate from that of Ukrainians. Rusyns were even recorded as a separate nationality by the censuses taken in pre-WWII Poland (see Cezary Chlebowski's Wachlarz).

Tribe of Rusyns sometimes named: Lemkos (Lemoks, Lemkians), Boykos (Boyks), Hutsuls (Gutsuls, Hutzuls, or Huculs), Verkhovinetses (Verkhovynetses, Highlanders), Dolinyanins (Haynals).

With the advent of the Internet, some Ruthenian emigrés to the west acquired a vehicle to voice their concerns and try to preserve their separate ethnic and cultural identity.

Religion
When the Ruthenes accepted Christianity (and who or what they worshiped before) is a source of some debate, but it clearly occurred prior to the break between Orthodox (Eastern) and Catholic (Western) churches in 1054. Saint Cyril (for whom Russia's Cyrillic alphabet is named) and Methodius are referred to as the "Apostles to the Slavs" and many Ruthenian churches are built in their honor.

Author Paul Robert Magocsi provides one of the most detailed and balanced accounts of Ruthene history in "Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America" published in 1984. At the time, he recorded that there were approximately 690,000 Carpatho-Rusyn church members in the United States (320,000 in the largest Catholic affiliations, 270,000 in the largest Orthodox affiliations, with a remaining 100,000 in various other Protestant and smaller organizations).

Eastern Rite Catholics
Many Ruthenians belong to the Uniate Church, acknowledging the Pope, since the meetings at Uzhhorod in 1646 and Lithuanian Brest in 1596, but retaining their Old Slavonic liturgy and most of the outward forms of the Greek or Eastern Orthodox Church.

The Ruthenes in the former Yugoslavia are organized in the Eparchy of Krizevci.

Eastern Orthodox Church
Although originally associated with the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, the affiliation of Ruthenian Orthodox has been adversely affected by the Communist revolution in Russia and the resulting Orthodox diaspora. A number of emigre communities have laid claim to continuing the Orthodox tradition of the pre-revolution church while either negating or minimizing the validity of the church organization operating under Communist authority. For example, the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) was granted auto-cephalous (self-governing) status by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1970. Although approximately 25% of the OCA was Ruthenian in the early 1980s, an influx of Orthodox emigres from other nations and new converts wanting to connect with the "early" church have lessened the impact of a particular Ruthenian emphasis in favor of a new American Orthodoxy.

Language
Rusyn, less accurately referred to as the Ruthenian language, is in substance like Ukrainian -- enough so that the Ukrainian government considers it merely a dialect of Ukrainian, to the resentment of some Rusyns. In the extreme west of Carpathian Ruthenia, the language approaches Slovak.

Rusyn has been granted official status and codified in Vojvodina (Serbia). Since 1995 it has been recognized and codified as a minority language in Slovakia (in cases where there are at least 20% Rusyns). The Rusyn language in Vojvodina, however, sharing many similarities with Slovak, is sometimes considered a separate (micro)language, and sometimes a dialect of Slovak; see Pannonian Rusyn language for details.

Famous Ruthenians

 * Andy Warhol (birth name Warhola) - son of two Rusyns from Slovakia, Eastern Rite Catholic, artist.
 * Michael J. Varhola, American author and publisher, whose family hails from the same Slovakian villages as distant cousin Andy Warhol.
 * Michael Strank (birth name Mykhal Strenk) - born in Jarabina, Czechoslovakia, U.S. Marine, flag-raiser on Iwo Jima.
 * Tom Ridge - son of an evidently mixed-blood Irish and Cherokee father and Rusyn mother whose family comes from Slovakia, politician.
 * Sandra Dee (birth name Alexandra Zuck) - granddaughter of Rusyn immigrants, actress.
 * Tony Blackplait - musician, film director, anarchist.
 * Robert Urich, Hollywood actor. His paternal grandparents, Peter Juric and Theresa Pillar, were born in the Carpatho-Rusyn villages of Venecia and Lukov (Sarys County) in the pre-World War I Hungarian kingdom.
 * Nestor Kukolnik - Russian poet, playwright and statesman.
 * Nikifor - famous self-taught painter who was of Lemko background.
 * Tom Selleck, famous American actor.
 * Mark Singel, former Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor (of Magyar origin.)