Christianity and Modernity in Eastern Europe

Competing Concepts of “Reunification” behind the Liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Competing Concepts of “reunification” behind the Liquidation of the ukrainian Greek Catholic Church nataLia sHLiKHta introduction the L’viv Council of the ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, convoked by order of the soviet regime on March 8, 1946, declared the “unanimous willingness” of the faithful of the Church in eastern Galicia to “liquidate the union, break all ties with the Vatican, and return to the holy orthodox faith of our ancestors and the russian orthodox Church.”1 the Council’s decision, considered uncanonical by the majority of observers at the time and scholars in the decades to come, put an end to the legal functioning of the Catholic Church of the eastern rite in Western ukraine, which had come into existence as a result of the 1596 union of Brest. Just over three years later the union with rome was also liquidated in transcarpathian ukraine. this act of liquidation , accomplished without any formal council, was announced on august 28, 1949, during the celebration of the feast of the assumption in the st. nicolas Convent in Mukachevo. archbishop Makarii (oksiiuk ) of the L’viv-ternopil and Mukachevo-uzhhorod dioceses assessed the historical significance of this event: “a blessed time has finally come when the union with rome is liquidated on the whole territory of our rus-ukraine, which is orthodox since time immemorial.”2 as a result of these events, the ecclesiastical situation in Western ukraine changed quite visibly. neither soviet state archives nor church archives provide figures for the religious adherence of the West ukrainian population after the official liquidation of the ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. however, available data on church networks in Western and transcarpathian ukraine—approached with all the necessary reservations with regards to soviet statistics—point convincingly to i4 Berglund_book.indb 159 2010.03.29. 19:30 160 nataLia shLiKhta the fact that the vast majority of Greek Catholic Christians did “return the holy orthodox faith of [their] ancestors and the russian orthodox Church.” the official data for 1959 state that 3,289 out of 3,431 Greek Catholic parishes were registered as orthodox, while 1,296 out of 1,643 Greek Catholic priests pledged their allegiance to the patriarch of Moscow and all russia.3 in the same year soviet officials recorded only eighteen unofficially functioning Greek Catholic churches. these records mention 347 non-registered priests, only ninety-seven of whom are designated as “active catacomb priests.”4 as if disregarding these visible achievements of reunification, Metropolitan Filaret (denysenko), exarch of ukraine, offered a considerably different assessment of the liquidation of the ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in 1971, the year of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the L’viv Council. in a speech to the Local Council of the russian orthodox Church, he stated: over the last twenty-five years, our episcopate and clergy have accomplished a lot in order to overcome the consequences of the union and strengthen the orthodox consciousness [of the former Greek Catholics]. however, we cannot ignore that the union, which existed for 350 years, undoubtedly influenced both church consciousness and rituals… [therefore] the episcopate and clergy must continue to undertake every thoughtful effort to overcome the consequences of the union, while simultaneously taking a careful approach [to the process of orthodoxization] and preserving those local church customs and rituals that do not contradict orthodox teaching.5 instead of treating the liquidation of the union as an accomplished event (as, for example, archbishop Makarii did in 1949), Metropolitan Filaret described it as a process that was still underway in 1971. Moreover , he warned against the artificial acceleration of this process. despite obvious parallels, the anti-uniate action in Western ukraine differed considerably from the contemporaneous anti-uniate action in romania, examined in other papers presented at our conference in Warsaw. the state was neither “the artisan” of the reunification , as anca Şincan argued in the case of romania, nor did it aim to “reward” the orthodox Church for its collaboration, as Lucian Leusi4 Berglund_book.indb 160 2010.03.29. 19:30 161 Competing Concepts of “Reunification” behind the Liquidation ! ! Ukrainian S.S.R. Poland Romania Hungary Czechoslovakia Moldovian S.S.R. Kiev L'viv L'viv Ternopil Zakarpattia Ivano-Frankivsk Drohobych L ' v i v s ' k a 6 0 0 5 0 0 4 0 0 3 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 D r o h o b y t s ' k a 6 0 0...