Galician history of Ukraine: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church - “I serve the fascist occupiers”

Petrushko V.I. (PSTBI, Moscow)

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church: current state

The Lviv Council of 1946 decided on the self-liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC).
However, despite the presence of forces within the Uniate that had long and sincerely strived for such an outcome, the Council, unfortunately, was not held without pressure from the Soviet government. This gave the UGCC the image of a martyr, which was greatly facilitated by the generally negative attitude towards the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, the majority of yesterday's Uniates began to attend Orthodox churches. Not too many staunch adherents of Greek Catholicism in Western Ukraine carried out their activities underground for more than thirty years. However, this was known to the authorities, who preferred to turn a blind eye to the illegal existence of Uniate communities, monasteries and even seminaries. Most of the hierarchs of the UGCC were repressed in the post-war years. However, after serving their sentences (none of them were sentenced to death, unlike the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church), almost the entire Greek Catholic episcopate ended up in exile. The structure of the UGCC, which took shape in the American-Canadian diaspora after the mass emigration of Galicians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was preserved here. After World War II, new emigrant dioceses were added to it in Europe, South America and Australia. Thanks to the energetic activity of the head of the UGCC - Cardinal Joseph Slipy - and the support of the Vatican, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was able to take organizational form and actively operate in conditions of emigration. On the territory of Soviet Ukraine, underground Uniate parishes were headed by Bishop Volodymyr Sternyuk. After changes in the socio-political situation within the USSR, caused by the policy of the so-called. “perestroika”, and especially after the agreement on the Uniate issue between M.S. Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II, the UGCC came out of hiding in 1989. Having recently been persecuted, she begins a campaign of seizing Orthodox churches under the pretext of restoring the previous status quo. The UGCC finds strong support from opposition-minded political movements - “Rukh” and others. They are united with Uniatism by a common, clearly expressed nationalist ideology. This, however, is traditional: Ukrainian nationalism in Galicia was formed as a political movement in the 1920-30s with the active support of the UGCC and its then head, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. Moreover, most of the nationalist leaders of that time came from among the Uniate clergy. In a short time, in 1990-1991, with the support of the nationalists who came to power in the West of Ukraine, the Uniates managed to take a leading position in the sphere of religious life. The UGCC, which captured most of the churches in Galicia, became the dominant denomination. A real persecution begins against Orthodoxy. The process of re-establishing the UGCC ends with the seizure of the Lviv St. George Cathedral in August 1990 and the installation there in March 1991 of the head of the UGCC, Cardinal Miroslav-Ivan Lyubachivsky, who returned from Rome. In a short time, Uniatism in Galicia not only restored its pre-war positions, but also significantly strengthened them. This is, in particular, evident from the following data. The number of dioceses increased from 3 (in 1939) to 6 (in 1996). In addition, for the first time in the UGCC, the Kiev-Vyshgorod Exarchate appeared, headed by a bishop and uniting the Uniates of Central and Eastern Ukraine. Moreover, in November 1996, a Greek Catholic visitor with the rank of bishop was sent to work in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, where there are only a few Uniate communities, clearly in a proselytizing manner. The number of bishops increased from 9 (in 1939) to 15 (in 1996). The UGCC today has 41 male and 131 female monasteries, compared to 33 and 115 (respectively) before the war. There are 4 seminaries (previously there were 3) and one academy. However, the rapid growth of the UGCC led to a noticeable shortage of personnel: if before World War II there were 2887 Uniate priests, today there are only 1636 of them. However, the number of monastics practically does not differ from the pre-war level: 533 (previously - 594) in men’s and 802 (previously 855) in nunneries. There are noticeably fewer operating churches in the UGCC today - 2384 (before the war 3343), although the number of registered communities reaches 3300. The decrease in the number of Uniate churches is explained mainly by the fact that many church buildings are now occupied by adherents of schismatic communities - the “Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church” (UAOC) and “Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate” (UOC KP). A comparison of these data allows us to somewhat doubt the veracity of the official statistics of the UGCC, which reports that today the number of Uniates in Galicia and Transcarpathia reaches 5.5 million people (in total, 7.6 million inhabitants currently live in this region). The most likely figure is 4 - 4.5 million Greek Catholics. However, the statistics presented look very impressive. At the Council of the UGCC, held in Lvov in early October 1996, dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the Union of Brest, they were cited as indisputable evidence of the triumph of Uniatism in modern Ukraine. However, a closer look at the situation inside the UGCC allows us to assume that very serious contradictions are hidden behind the front façade of Uniatism. To a certain extent, today we can talk about both a crisis within the UGCC and a critical phase in relations between the Greek and Roman Catholic churches. Let's try to illustrate this idea with a number of facts. The first thing that seems rather strange is the structure of the UGCC itself. It is headed by Cardinal Lyubachivsky, titled “Supreme Archbishop of Lvov, Metropolitan of Galicia, Bishop of Kamenets-Podolsk.” There is a Permanent Synod of the UGCC, which includes Metropolitan Ivan Martyniak of Przemysl-Warsaw, Bishop Sophron Dmiterko of Ivano-Frankivsk, Exarch of France, Switzerland and the Benelux countries, Bishop Mikhailo Grinchyshyn and Bishop Lubomir Huzar, today the most energetic bishop in the series ah UGCC, who recently held the post Exarch of Kiev-Vyshgorod, now coadjutor of Lyubachivsky and his almost official heir. In addition, bishops' councils of the UGCC, called “synods,” meet periodically. However, in reality, the role of the “bishops’ synods” and the “permanent synod” is negligible. In practice, these are nothing more than advisory bodies under the head of the UGCC, which have virtually no real power. However, the Supreme Metropolitan himself is not very independent in his actions. Suffice it to recall that not a single episcopal consecration in the UGCC can be considered valid without its approval by the pope. And this is far from a formality: the same Guzar, consecrated back in the early 1970s, was considered only an archimandrite and was legitimized by papal decree only at the end of 1995. In addition, it is not entirely clear what can be included in the concept of the UGCC? In fact, under this general name there are several completely independent metropolises and dioceses of the Ukrainian Uniates, not structurally united in any way. The power of the head of the UGCC, subordinate directly to the pope, who is at the same time the ruling bishop of the Lviv archdiocese, extends exclusively to the Greek Catholic dioceses within Ukraine, and even then not all of them. Thus, independent of the Lviv archdiocese is the Mukachevo diocese, which unites the Greek Catholics of Transcarpathia. Also absolutely independent from the nominal head of the UGCC are the Przemysl-Warsaw Metropolis in Poland (it includes 2 dioceses), the Winnipeg Metropolis in Canada (including 5 dioceses), the Philadelphia Metropolis in the USA (4 dioceses), four Uniate exarchates in Great Britain, Germany, Czech Republic, as well as France, Switzerland and the Benelux countries. They are subordinate directly to the Vatican. The dioceses independent of Lvov in Croatia, Slovakia, Brazil, Argentina and Australia (also includes New Zealand and Oceania) are in the same situation. Such a situation within the Ukrainian Uniate itself is naturally regarded as an abnormal phenomenon. Repeated attempts were made to unite all Greek Catholic dioceses under the single leadership of the head of the UGCC. Probably some encouraging statements on this matter were made from Rome on the eve of the 1996 Jubilee Council. This was clear from the fact that the organizers of the cathedral were quick to call it “patriarchal.” It is possible that on the eve of the council, the Uniates hoped for the fulfillment of the long-standing idea of ​​Cardinal Joseph Slipy - the formation of the Greek Catholic Kiev-Galician Patriarchate, which would include all Ukrainian Uniates. However, this did not happen, to the disappointment of many supporters of the union, mainly from among the pro-Uniat Ukrainian politicians. After the council, a number of articles appeared in the Lvov press on this issue, expressed in a very harsh tone. Some even dared to figuratively call the Roman Pontiff not a pope, but a “stepfather.” What caused Rome's distrust of the younger Uniate brothers and their irritation in response? It would seem that today Rome is very favorable to the UGCC. All anti-Union agreements reached by the Orthodox and Catholic parties at the conference on theological dialogue in Balamanda in 1993 were practically annulled by the papal encyclical on ecumenism “Let them all be one” (“Ut unum sint”). Rome forgot about its rejection of the union as a means of uniting churches, as soon as the broad opportunities for proselytizing activity provided today by the Ukrainian Uniate became evident. The Uniate Church today is fully supported by the Vatican, it receives maximum attention and assistance. Sometimes even to the detriment of the Roman Catholics of Galicia. Thus, in Lviv, almost all Roman Catholic churches, closed under Soviet rule, were transferred to the Uniates, and some even to the autocephalists, despite the fact that, for example, the churches of St. Elizabeth, Bernardine, Sacramento and a number of others were claimed by Polish Roman Catholic communities and even monastic orders. At the same time, there are serious concerns from the Vatican that the activities of Galician Greek Catholics could get out of control. Hence, most likely, Rome’s restrained attitude towards the idea of ​​a Uniate “patriarchy”. Are there any grounds for such fears? As is known, there are a number of Eastern Uniate patriarchates within the Roman Church. At the same time, however, the decrees of the Second Vatican Council emphasize that the status of these patriarchs is no different from the position of any other primate of a particular national church within Roman jurisdiction. However, the situation with the UGCC is noticeably different. If the eastern patriarchies today are extremely small in number and look like relics, then the Ukrainian Uniate movement, on the contrary, is in the ascendant stage. Moreover, the process of revival of the UGCC turned out to be so intense that much has already begun to slip away from the orbit of the policy towards Ukraine directly developed in Rome. Of course, Rome is also frightened by the persistence in the Uniate environment of the ideas contained in the plan for the creation of a single local Ukrainian Church, which was developed in 1942 by Metropolitan Sheptytsky. According to this plan, both Uniates and Orthodox Ukrainians would have to unite into it. At the same time, Greek Catholics would completely return to the Eastern rite of the Orthodox Church, without the denominations and Latin innovations found in the Uniate Church. But at the same time, the Orthodox would be obliged to recognize the primacy of the pope and all the councils of the Western Church, revered by Catholics as ecumenical, that is, all the dogmatic innovations of Rome. However, Sheptytsky’s plan ran counter to the Vatican’s policy towards Greek Catholics, for it provided for the actual autocephaly of the Ukrainian Patriarchate, which purely nominally recognized Roman jurisdiction. Sheptytsky’s plan still has its supporters today. In particular, in the person of the monks of the Studite order, the vice-rector of the Lviv Theological Academy of the UGCC Boris Gudzyak and a number of other figures, including some nationalist-minded politicians. However, this model is also supported by many Orthodox Ukrainians, mainly from the diaspora. For example, Bishop Vsevolod (Maidansky), who is under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. At the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC in 1992, Bishop Vsevolod proposed the idea of ​​dual jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Church - Roman and Constantinople. In 1993, the so-called “Studio group”, the purpose of which was to study the possibility of implementing this model. Of course, such a plan looks very tempting for Rome. Thanks to him, the entire predominantly Orthodox Ukraine could easily be drawn into Uniatism, which is still localized in the territory of Galicia. Although there is no clear information about the Vatican's attitude to the Studio Group model, it is known that its participants met with both Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Bartholomew and had conversations on this topic. In addition, rumors leaked to the press about a meeting that took place at the end of 1996 between the false Patriarch of Kiev Filaret Denisenko and the Chairman of the Congregation of Eastern Churches, Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, at which they allegedly discussed the possibility of recognizing Filaret as Patriarch in exchange for his agreement to unite with the Uniates and enter the jurisdiction of Rome. And yet, it can be assumed that the active use of the UGCC as an instrument of Catholic proselytism is combined with a very cautious attitude towards Ukrainian Greek Catholics, no matter how tempting the prospects for imposing a union in the East may be. Granting the UGCC the status of “patriarchy”, quite acceptable in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council for the so-called. “Eastern Catholic churches” could, however, in the case of Ukraine look like a dangerous precedent for the entire traditional system of papism. The Galician Uniate is too tangible a force to risk granting it a status that in Ukraine may not be perceived in the tradition of ephemeral Catholic “patriarchies.” This is all the more likely because there is an Orthodox tradition nearby in Ukraine, in which patriarchy is identical to complete autocephaly. And even the presence of schismatic pseudo-patriarchies in Ukraine can provoke an autocephalous tendency within the UGCC, which is absolutely incompatible with the Catholic view of the Church. Another set of problems within the UGCC, which forces Rome, using Uniateism, to keep it under strict control, is associated with the newly aggravated confrontation within the Uniate Church between supporters of Latinization and strict adherents of the Eastern rite. Something similar already took place during the time of the zealous Byzantinist Sheptytsky, whose Latinizing opposition was the Stanislavsky Bishop Khomishin. Today, as before, the Latin influence is strongest among the Basilian monks. They are also joined by representatives of the largely assimilated clergy from the diaspora, who returned in large numbers to Galicia and occupied key positions in the structure of the UGCC. The guardians of Eastern ritual include mainly Studite monks and the majority of the local clergy, who almost entirely once passed through the theological schools of the Russian Orthodox Church. This problem, unlike, say, pre-war times, today goes far beyond the scope of the discussion about the ritual. The personnel issue also plays a major role here. People from the diaspora today occupy almost all episcopal sees and seats in the metropolitan curia. This is the elite among the Uniate clergy. Their return to Ukraine is not accidental. It is more convenient for the Vatican to have in all key positions in the UGCC people raised and trained in Rome, who, as a rule, are prone to Latinization and sympathize with Roman Catholicism. It is likely that Rome is still committed to the long-term strategy of gradually ousting the Eastern rite from the Uniate Church and ultimately merging it with the Western. Catholic theology is fully aware of the direct connection between doctrine and ritual. And no matter how the admissibility of the widest range of rituals in Catholicism is declared, its internal logic is such that the dominance of the Latin rite is inevitable. The dominance of the diaspora clergy at the top of the UGCC naturally gives rise to grumbling among clergy of local origin. Moreover, many of them are discriminated against for their Orthodox past. The Galicians, through whose efforts the UGCC was revived, in turn look at yesterday’s emigrants as having taken their bread. In addition, Ukrainians in the diaspora, who have already lost the specific features of the Galician nationalist mentality, are often reproached for a lack of patriotism. The problem of Ukrainian nationalism in general is reflected in a special way today in the activities of the Uniate Church. As already noted, the revival of the union became possible at the end of the twentieth century, mainly due to a close alliance with nationalist political movements. However, today nationalism, in the wake of which the UGCC returned to history, has become like a genie released from the bottle. The very internal logic of nationalism, which demands absolute independence and independence from anyone, is turning against Rome itself today. Today, those who fought for the revival of Uniagage, confessing the ideals of nationalism, are not only dissatisfied with the Zasilly in Lviv “pockets” Ukrainians from Rome, but also the dictatorship in relation to the UGCC, coming from the Vatican as a whole. It is significant that one of the former leaders of the Renaissance of the UGCC, a well-known discidential policy, the former “head of the UGCC protection committee”, Ivan Gel now declares: “We will be faithful to Holy See, but not in humility.” It is clear that for Catholicism such a formulation of the question is unacceptable and absurd in principle. However, today Rome itself reapes the fruits of using nationalism in its expansion to the east. The Catholicism of the Galician nationalists is very cosmetic. Belonging to Catholicism for them is not important in itself in a religious aspect, but exclusively in political - as an attribute of involvement in European civilization, European unity. And at the same time as the antithesis of Orthodox Moscow. The dissatisfaction of nationalist politicians who act mainly in the Union with the Uniate clergy of local origin, the policy of Rome in relation to the UGCC is very far today. So, from Rome they require the provision of more freedom in the internal government of the UGCC. Nationalists, accustomed to the norms of rally democracy, dare even dictate the leadership of the Uniate Church with the plans for reforms within the UGCC. So, for example, Ivan Gel and Mikhailo Kosiv demand the unification of all Ukrainian Uniates and subordinate them to the Lviv archbishop. Politicians also require the resignation of elderly bishops, the termination of the practice of delivering diaspora representatives to the episcopal departments. Moreover, through the press, an assessment of the activities of individual bishops and recommendations on the personal composition of candidates for the bishop. In a word, the pendulum of nationalism, which had hitherto helping to revive uniagence in Galicia, now swayed in the anti -Soviet side. The gel also acts with the plan for the transfer of the Center for Uniating from Lviv to Kyiv. By the way, in this he was supported by the bishop of Lubomir Guzar. The apogee of the shameless intervention of the laethean of the gel in the affairs of the UGCC was the call to Cardinal Lyubachivsky or, if he was elected to the post of head of the UGCC, Guzaru declare the establishment of the Uniate Patriarchate in Ukraine by an explicit order and put Rome before the faitted fact. Moreover, the first Patriarch Gel even prescribes to change the name to “Joseph II”, emphasizing the success of the self -proclaimed “patriarch” Joseph Slipo. In a word, the logic of separatism developed extremely - until the tendency of disobedience to Rome. Thus, we can see that today the Vatican is forced to maneuverly maneuver when it comes to relationships with Ukrainian uniates. On the one hand, the successful revival of the UGCC and the further advancement of the union to the east of Ukraine in the wave of nationalism exported from the Galicia, forces the Catholic Church to forget about the Balamanding agreements and actively use the UGCC in its proseral plans. For these purposes, the radical wing of uniagence, supported by nationalists, is encouraged. As a result, the opening of the exarchate in Kyiv, the direction of the visitor to Central Asia, the involvement of Bishop Guzar to the management of the UGCC. At the same time, Rome is clearly afraid of excessive strengthening of the nationalist trend in uniagence, because in this case it begins to work against the papacy. Therefore, the Vatican does not want to bring to a logical end an adventure with the Uniate Patriarchate. In addition to fears for maintaining control over Ukrainian uniates, the Vatican probably fluctuates regarding the prospects of the possible reunification of Greek Catholics with Orthodox or at least autocaphilist schismatics. This model can also ultimately work not in favor of Rome, if suddenly the hybrid Patriarchate begins to develop not by Catholic, but to the Orthodox type. Hence the tendency to preserve the fragmentation of individual Uniata dioceses and the desire to prevent their unification under one head of the UGCC. However, perhaps there is another reason for the restraint of the activity of the Uniates in Ukraine. We are talking about certain obligations of Rome to the Polish Catholic Church, which traditionally considers the East its missionary space. The Polish-sample Roman Catholics seem to the Vatican more reliable faithful than the Uniates. Therefore, apparently, in the east of Ukraine, the Polish Roman Catholic Mission is still preferred to the Ukrainian Uniate. The latter is clearly used only where it is possible to weave nationalist propaganda into the canvas, however, not too popular in the eastern regions. It is significant that in eastern Ukraine today there are 600 Roman Catholic communities with 470 churches at their disposal. At the same time, the Kiev-Syshgorod exarchate has only 82 communities with 24 churches and chapels. It seems that having generated uniagitation 400 years ago, Rome today is facing a rather sharp problem of the further image of the UGCC being in the bosom of Catholicism. Latinize the Uniates completely failed. However, the preservation of the specific originality of uniagency can lead to consequences that undermine the fundamental principles of Catholicism. There is a tragic result of the Brest Union of 1596 - the creation of a genetic chimera of Uniagage, inside which insoluble contradictions are laid, the consequences of which for the Catholic Church itself may turn out to be no less detailed than for Orthodoxy.

Unions and schisms: the history of Orthodoxy in Ukraine

“Russian Planet” tried to understand the complex history of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
The chronicler Nestor in his “Tale of Bygone Years” quotes Prince Vladimir, who baptized the inhabitants of Kiev in 988: “Great God, who created heaven and earth! Look at these new people and let them, Lord, know You, the true God, just as Christian countries have known You. Establish in them a right and unwavering faith, and help me, Lord, against the devil, so that I may overcome his snares, trusting in You and Your strength.”

As the chronicler points out, immediately after the baptism, the people of Kiev calmly went home, without organizing either celebrations or riots on the occasion of the overthrow of pagan idols and the adoption of the “Greek faith.” Such a calm change of faith, it would seem, promised the church on the Dnieper lands a peaceful existence for centuries. But things turned out differently: there will be many religious schisms here in the future - the latest of which is unfolding right now.

Moscow leaves Kyiv

At the time when the monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Nestor wrote his chronicle (XII century), the lands of Kievan Rus were the metropolis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople with its center in Kyiv. But in the middle of the 13th century, the Mongol-Tatar invasion forever destroyed the unity of the Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe.

The starting point in the long chronicle of religious schisms in Ukraine was the move of the Kyiv Metropolitan Maxim to Vladimir in 1299, due to the devastation of the Dnieper lands after the invasion of the Horde. The gradual rise of Moscow in the 14th century led to the fact that in 1325 the new metropolitan moved his residence here.

For the first time, this decision of the Kyiv metropolitans backfired at the end of the 15th century, when the Turks began to threaten Constantinople. In 1442, the Ecumenical Patriarch, seeking protection in the West, signed the Union of Florence with the Catholic Church. In Moscow, no one recognized the union with Catholics except Metropolitan Isidore, a Greek who, after the conclusion of the union, returned to Kyiv.

Then, in 1448, the first Russian Metropolitan Jonah was elected in Rus', so formally it was the Moscow Metropolis that initiated the schism. For a century and a half, the Russian Orthodox Church found itself isolated. In the context of self-awareness as a besieged fortress between Catholic, Muslim and pagan peoples, church intellectuals developed the concept of the “Third Rome” as the last true Christian empire.

Union

In the territories of modern Ukraine, which were then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, events took their course. Along with the Polish colonization of the Dnieper lands, the expansion of the Catholic Church began, the goal of which was, if not to oust local Orthodoxy, then to force it to a union (due to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, the Florentine agreements had long been of no importance).

In 1596, a new union was signed in Brest, which led to a schism already in the Kyiv Metropolis. Several bishops recognized the primacy of the Pope. This is how the Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) appeared on the modern lands of western Ukraine - Orthodox in form and Catholic in content.

Isidor Kyiv. Source: catholichurch.ru

Director of the Center for Ukrainian and Belarusian Studies at the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, Mikhail Dmitriev, believes that the Union of Brest was based on several complementary factors. “Firstly, the Catholic religious tradition, much more than the Orthodox, was guided by the ideal of Christian unity and sought to unite all churches around the Roman see. Secondly, during that period, the Polish clergy and, to a lesser extent, the government, had a desire to unify the religious life of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Thirdly, there was also a struggle against the influence of Protestantism within the framework of the Counter-Reformation,” the historian told Russian Planet.

But judging by historical documents and the testimony of contemporaries, the Union of Brest of 1596 was in reality far from the lofty goals of Christian unity. The initiators of rapprochement with the Catholic Church were the bishops of the Kyiv Metropolis. Dmitriev believes that they were prompted to do so by the crisis in the relationship between the Orthodox clergy and the laity in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

“At the heart of this conflict was the question of how to further develop the church. The choice was between two models: the Byzantine, where the laity had much greater weight in church life, or the Latin, where the church clergy completely dominated. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth there was no secular Orthodox authority, that is, lay people participating in the life of the church. Instead, Orthodox brotherhoods competed with church hierarchs,” explains the historian.

The clergy lagged behind events, so they only had to react to initiatives that came from the brotherhoods. This is one of the phenomena of Ukrainian history - voluntary associations of lay people whose goal was church education and the fight against Catholic, Protestant and Polish influence. By the end of the 16th century, their position had become so strong that some Orthodox bishops began to seek protection from the Catholic Church.

Moscow returns to Kyiv

The prospect of a general union did not cause much enthusiasm among the population of the Dnieper lands. Orthodoxy, or, as it was commonly called then, the “Russian faith,” became the ideological foundation of the struggle against Polish dominance and the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the Black Sea region. The resistance relied on the Cossacks, centered in the Zaporozhye Sich.

The high point of this protracted conflict was the uprising of Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1648. One of its most important results was the signing of an agreement in 1654 in Pereslavl between the Zaporozhye Cossacks and the Moscow Tsar. As a result, all the lands conquered by the Cossacks from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth came under the rule of Moscow, and the Cossack elite became the Tsar’s vassals.

Sermon by Skarga (Jesuit, initiator of the Union of Brest - RP), 1864, Jan Matejko

By this time, the Russian Orthodox Church had changed greatly. After the fall of Constantinople and the conquest of almost all Orthodox lands in the Balkans by the Muslim Turks, Moscow became the only large and independent one. In such a situation, the Patriarch of Constantinople was forced to seek protection in Muscovy.

In 1589, the Moscow Metropolitan received the title of Patriarch, and the Russian Orthodox Church acquired autocephaly and official recognition of the international center of Orthodoxy. After the annexation of left-bank Ukraine, the question of joining the ROC of the Kyiv Metropolis became purely technical, but due to intra-church events and procedures it was put into practice only in 1688, when the Council of Constantinople assigned to the Moscow Patriarch the rights of vicarage over the left-bank Kyiv Metropolis.

Around the same time, the Kiev Synopsis was created at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, where for the first time an anonymous author expressed the idea of ​​​​the unity of the three Slavic peoples of Great, Lesser and White Rus' on the basis of the Orthodox faith. These ideas became a kind of addition to the concept of the “Third Rome”, where the most important element of the “Rurik inheritance” was introduced - Moscow’s claims to the lands of the former Kievan Rus. In the future, the task of collecting the “Rurik inheritance” will become fundamental for the Russian Empire and, having lost its religious connotation, will be used in the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation.

The Empire unites and rules

It must be said that the spread of the ideas described above in Russia was greatly facilitated by the influence of the Little Russian priesthood. Even at the beginning of the 17th century, Ukrainian priests began to actively invite people to Rus', where the level of education among the clergy was extremely low.

Many of them received their education in Europe, and before Peter’s reforms, Ukrainian priests were one of the main sources of Westernizing influence in Rus'. Already under Peter I, Ukrainian priests Feofan Prokopovich and Stefan Yavorsky played an outstanding role both in church life and in the development of education and other reforms. During this period, 55% of major hierarchs in the Russian Orthodox Church were Ukrainians.

Mikhail Dmitriev notes that understanding the role and methods of Ukrainian influence is one of the key points in understanding the logic of Peter’s church reforms. “It is especially necessary to understand how the Ukrainian priesthood was transformed and how it managed to bring pronounced Catholic and Protestant influences to Rus',” the historian specifies.

In his opinion, this impact was very large. “In the second half of the 17th - first half of the 18th century, church education and practices of spiritual life changed under the influence of attitudes that first appeared in Ukraine. Thus, an illustrative example is how for several years at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy the Ukrainian priesthood prepared for the abolition of the patriarchate in Rus',” says Dmitriev.

The implementation of this project is associated with the activities of the Ukrainian priest Feofan Prokopovich, who was one of the main associates of Peter I. Back in 1701, the reformer Tsar, by his decision, abolished the institution of the patriarchate in the Russian Orthodox Church, simultaneously restoring the Monastic Order, abolished in the middle of the 17th century. And in 1718, Peter I expressed the idea that the church should be governed collectively. The legislative basis for this decision was created by Feofan Prokopovich, who was then the bishop of Pskov.

Reproduction of a lithograph based on an 18th-century engraving with a portrait of Feofan Prokopovich. Source: RIA Novosti

The “Spiritual Regulations” he developed implied the integration of the Orthodox Church along the Protestant model into government structures. The “Regulations” established the Holy Governing Synod in Russia, which, by the nature of its activities, turned out to be a typical Petrine Collegium - in fact, the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs. Church hierarchs, albeit reluctantly, signed this document. The Patriarch of Constantinople, who during this period did not have to wait for help from anywhere except Moscow, recognized the Synod as a “brother in Christ” with equal patriarchal dignity.

But the church was not the only institution that Peter’s reforms deprived of independence. The absolute monarchy created by the first Russian emperor no longer wanted to tolerate any forms of autonomy within its borders. Throughout the 18th century, unifying processes in all spheres of life would take place in the Russian Empire, which would reach their apogee during the reign of Catherine II.

The concentration of power in Moscow became one of the reasons for the liquidation of the Ukrainian Hetmanate and the Zaporozhye Sich. And if the deprivation of the Hetmanate's autonomy in the Russian Empire was relatively painless (the Cossack elite gladly turned into the Russian nobility), then the destruction of the Zaporozhye Sich forced many representatives of the Cossack republic to leave the Dnieper lands forever.

But by this historical moment, the era of absolute monarchies in Europe began to decline. The Great French Revolution, which took place at the end of the 18th century, among its many achievements, gave the world nationalism as a political principle. From now on, the state ceased to be associated with the possession of the monarch - it became the property of the entire nation. The ideology of nationalism gave ethnic minorities in European empires the opportunity to put forward claims for their own state independence.

And the first sprouts of nationalism on Ukrainian soil were not long in coming. At the beginning of the 19th century, the anonymous “History of the Rus” appeared. This book, from a scientific point of view, is hardly a good account of Ukrainian history, but it carried the most important idea for justifying future claims of Ukrainian nationalists to Russia: the Hetmanate was an independent Ukrainian republic that was captured and destroyed by a ruthless Moscow. In the future, such maxims will appear more and more often. The scientific basis for this version of Ukrainian history at the beginning of the 20th century will be given by Mikhail Grushevsky in his multi-volume “History of Ukraine-Rus”.

Mikhail Dmitriev notes that during the imperial period no serious attempts were made to create an autocephalous Ukrainian church. “In the Russian Empire, such topics begin to be discussed no earlier than the beginning of the 20th century. There is very little research indicating that in an earlier period there were tendencies towards isolation from Moscow among the Little Russian clergy. The only thing that can be talked about here is the possible influence on the clergy of the memory that until 1688 the Kiev Metropolitan was independent in relation to Moscow,” the researcher explained.

Union indestructible Orthodoxy

When the February Revolution took place in the Russian Empire, Ukrainian nationalists first started talking about the need for federalization, but demands for complete independence were not long in coming. The Orthodox Church could not stand aside in such a situation. During the 19th century, it became common practice in the Orthodox world, centered in the Ottoman Empire, to create an autocephalous church independent of Constantinople. The acquisition of autocephaly in the Orthodox world has become a kind of symbol of independence.

In 1917, the Ukrainian priesthood first spoke about the need to create a church independent from Moscow. According to Orthodox canons, the last word still remained with the Patriarch of Constantinople. Even if he supported the idea of ​​a nationalist-minded Ukrainian clergy, he would simply have no one to recognize as the legitimate patriarch.

Sophia Square in Kyiv. German occupation during the Civil War, 1918. Source: mi3ch / Livejournal

There was not a single Orthodox bishop who would want to stand at the head of the autocephalous church. And history has allocated too little time for the implementation of these ideas. When Ukrainian nationalists and priests announced the creation of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) in May 1920, the fate of Ukrainian independence was already sealed.

In real history, the last word on the possibility of autocephaly was taken by the Bolsheviks, who actively fought against the church. But numerous Ukrainian emigrants in the USA and Canada after the Civil War received their own church, albeit non-canonical, but which became a symbol of hope for returning to an independent homeland.

And in 1921, Patriarch Tikhon, realizing that nationalist tendencies in Ukraine could not be curtailed so easily, granted the Kyiv metropolis the status of an exarchate, that is, part of the church administratively subordinate to the Moscow patriarchate, but independent in internal affairs. This is how the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) appeared. But in a situation of persecution of the church, this was a purely symbolic step.

The next revolution in the history of Ukrainian Orthodoxy again took place not in Kyiv, but in Moscow. During World War II, the Soviet state stopped waging war on religion. In 1943 the patriarchate was restored. Relations between church and state began to resemble in many ways the previous pre-revolutionary model. Only the Soviet Union had much more powerful resources to expand the sphere of influence of the Russian Orthodox Church MP than the Russian Empire.

During the Second World War, for the first time in its history, Ukrainian ethnic lands were united in one state entity. This was a unique chance for the Russian Orthodox Church MP to return to its canonical space the lands lost during numerous schisms and unions of previous centuries.

In 1945, the process of preparing for the liquidation of the Uniate Greek Catholic Church began. This denomination was rightly considered by the NKVD as an organization hostile to Soviet power. In 1946, a council was convened in Lvov by the so-called “initiative group” of the clergy, which announced the rupture of the Union of Brest with the Catholic Church. After this, the catacomb period of history began among Western Ukrainian Greek Catholics.

But not only Greek Catholics became victims of the restoration of the canonical space of the Russian Orthodox Church MP. The Romanian Church was also ousted from the territory of Ukraine and its canonical territory of Moldova, which came under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church MP. By the end of Stalin's reign, the Russian Orthodox Church MP became the only legal Orthodox organization in Ukraine and throughout the USSR.

The last split

In 1988, the USSR widely celebrated the Millennium of the Baptism of Rus'. From that moment on, intra-church life intensified. Moods began to grow in the Ukrainian church to achieve full autocephaly. In a situation of growing church separatism, the Council of Bishops in 1990 confirmed the status of the Belarusian and Ukrainian churches as exarchates. They received complete financial independence and almost complete independence in intra-church life.

But these measures have not eased growing religious tensions in Ukraine. The liberalization of religious relations allowed the Uniates to come out of hiding and claim the churches that were taken away in 1940–1950 in favor of the UOC MP. Neither side even tried to find a compromise solution. In addition, the emigrant UAOC penetrated into Ukraine, where separatist-minded Orthodox priests and laity began to move en masse.

Metropolitan Filaret. Photo: ITAR-TASS

But another split came from a direction from which no one expected it. In 1990, after the Ukrainian Church was granted independence and independence, the charismatic Filaret (Denisenko), who had previously held the post of Ukrainian Exarch for 25 years, became its metropolitan. The Moscow Patriarchate hoped that it would be able to cope with both the demands of the Uniates and the intensified transition of Ukrainians to the non-canonical UAOC. At first, Filaret spoke out very harshly and fought against the prevailing negative trends for the Ukrainian church.

But in the second half of 1991, when the collapse of the Soviet Union became inevitable and Ukraine declared its full sovereignty, the classic “Balkan scenario” repeated itself. After August 1991, both politicians and clergy declared that Ukraine needed its own autocephalous church.

In November, a Council of the UOC was convened in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Unlike the long-standing Council of 1920, which led to the creation of the UAOC, almost all Ukrainian bishops came to the Council convened by Philaret. He decided to ask Alexy II for the grant of full autocephaly. The Ecumenical Patriarch, who in such disputes always has the last word according to Orthodox canons, could only do this after the consent of Moscow, since Ukraine has been officially recognized as its canonical territory since the 17th century.

As a result, difficult negotiations began in order to resolve the contradictions in a canonical way. They ended with Filaret being deprived of the rank of metropolitan in the spring of 1992. But he, in turn, with the support of the Ukrainian presidential administration and the country’s public, announced the creation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP).

Not a single Orthodox autocephalous church has recognized it as canonical. Even the UAOC, which for a time united with the UOC-KP, later left its membership. According to one version, such a sharp turn in Filaret’s views and actions is due to the fact that he lost the internal church struggle for the post of Moscow Patriarch in 1990 to Alexy II.

Due to the inter-church chaos that arose in Ukraine, a real religious war broke out. In form, it differed little from the redistribution of property that took place in the early 1990s throughout the post-Soviet space.

The second president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, in his book “Russia is not Ukraine” describes the religious situation after 1991 as follows: “The messages about the events that landed on my desk every morning sometimes resembled messages from the theater of military operations. More than a thousand church parishes took part in the battle! The houses of priests were burning, not only churches, but also entire villages were stormed, sometimes it seemed that this was a war of everyone with everyone, although everyone knew their enemy well. They continued to divide churches and parishes.”

By the mid-1990s, the conflict moved from an active phase to a passive stage. The main property was divided. The Greek Catholic Church managed to return most of its churches. In western Ukraine, the UOC-MP was defeated. In Kyiv, the main church property was divided between the UOC-KP and the UOC-MP. So, standing opposite each other, St. Michael's and St. Sophia Cathedrals in the Ukrainian capital became the property of the Kyiv and Moscow Patriarchates, respectively.

Mikhail Dmitriev believes that the current split among Ukrainian Orthodox Christians was not predetermined by history.

“Today in Ukraine, four churches have the greatest influence: the canonical UOC-MP, the non-canonical UOC-KP, the equally non-canonical UAOC and the Uniate, actively growing UGCC. But it is unlikely that today in the disputes between them there is anything predetermined by the nature of the previous church history and purely religious disputes.

In every Christian church culture, groups of dissidents appear, which either turn into a separate church, or do not turn into a separate church, the historian shares his opinion. — Today’s fragmentation of the Orthodox Christians in Ukraine is associated, first of all, with the specific socio-economic and political situation that arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union. No one will deny that at that moment it was politicians who had the strongest influence on the schism of churches, trying to win dividends for themselves as a result of it.”

Over the years since the last schism, an interesting practice has developed when politicians holding different views visit parishes belonging to different churches on major religious occasions. Thus, Leonid Kuchma, a supporter of “multi-vector” foreign policy, visited the churches of the UOC MP and the UOC KP at the same time.

Viktor Yushchenko, who replaced him, adhered to national liberal views, appeared at religious celebrations exclusively in churches belonging to the non-canonical Kyiv Patriarchate. Moreover, in the program of Yushchenko’s party “Our Ukraine” there was even a clause that promised to achieve autocephaly. Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, although he visited churches of the UOC-MP, tried to stay away from religious disputes.

The head of the Center for Ukrainian Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Mironenko, believes that the split in the Orthodox churches in Ukraine before the events of Euromaidan did not have a significant impact on the Ukrainian political process.

“It cannot be denied that this factor was important, but clearly of secondary or tertiary importance purely due to the state of religiosity of Ukrainians. Yes, in Ukraine politicians often use religious identification for public purposes. But it is a projection onto other social differences between regions, part of which is the religious split,” explains Mironenko. - Eastern regions and politicians - people from there prefer Moscow Orthodoxy, in the west and center - to Kyiv. This is just part of the political puzzle."

Crimea in exchange for the “Russian World”

Controversies between Orthodox Kiev and Moscow flared up with renewed vigor in 2009, when Kirill took the post of Moscow Patriarch. From the very beginning, the newly elected head of the church led an active offensive on the Ukrainian front, demonstrating that the Russian Orthodox Church MP was not going to give up its canonical space, which was actively promoted in non-religious spheres under the “Russian World” brand. But the ROC MP no longer has the resources that would allow it to quickly and effectively achieve its own goals.

The Moscow Patriarchate is being squeezed in Ukraine not only by non-canonical Orthodox churches, but also by the recognized Romanian Patriarchate, which lays claim to many parishes in the southwest of the country. Added to this is the complex problem of the flock of the UOC-MP, which is concentrated in the southeast of Ukraine. Here, due to the Soviet legacy, atheism is more widespread than anywhere else in Ukraine. These same territories are places of active expansion of Protestant churches, which are finding more and more supporters.

The authority of the non-canonical Kyiv Patriarchate in Ukrainian society increased significantly after the start of the Euromaidan protests at the end of 2013. When, on the night of November 30 to December 1, the clergy of St. Michael's Cathedral in Kyiv allowed in protesters fleeing from the Berkut, Russian observers were quite surprised. Speeches by priests and collective prayers, which are difficult to imagine at opposition rallies in Moscow, were common practice on the Maidan. In Russia, they have little understanding of the role the church plays for Ukrainians as a symbol of national independence.

According to the Ukrainian historian, associate professor of the Faculty of Sociology of the National Pedagogical University named after M. Drahomanov, Kirill Galushko, the role of “non-Moscow” churches has now increased. “Today, among the patriotic part of Ukrainian society, the most popular are the Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and the Autocephalous Church, which are not subordinate to Moscow. In the public space, the main church is represented, first of all, by the figure of Patriarch Filaret. Today he positions the Kiev Patriarchate as actively helping society and the army in the current circumstances,” the historian told Russian Planet.

The Ukrainian information space is currently filled with information about the growing split in the UOC-MP. Galushko points out that this happened due to her dubious position in relation to the events during the Euromaidan and the subsequent political crisis.

According to Galushko, the idea of ​​the “Russian World”, which was promoted by Patriarch Kirill, failed. “Russia acquired Crimea, but lost a loyal part of the socially active Ukrainian society in most of the regions. It should be noted that the idea of ​​the “Russian World” was not promoted as actively as resources allowed. In this context, not only Patriarch Kirill, but also Minister of Education Tabachnyk appeared in the Ukrainian information space. But there were no real steps from former President Yanukovych in this direction. Now, the supporters of the “Russian World” are no longer in power,” the historian explained.

This spring, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, pointedly walked away from publicly supporting the inclusion of Crimea and Sevastopol into Russia and did not attend the ceremony for the entry of the two new regions. It was he who was the first from Russia to congratulate Petro Poroshenko on the election of the fifth President of Ukraine.

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Friday, August 08, 2014 21:49 + to quote book Loreyn_Kr

all posts by the author UNIATISM. HISTORY OF HATE I want to say right away that it was always unclear to me where such hatred towards us, Russians, on the part of Western Ukraine came from? Well, they were annexed first in 1654, then in 1939. And everyone lived quietly and calmly, and these suddenly came to us with such ferocity... I knew even under the Uniates, but still something didn’t connect, not everything was clear. I have always believed and continue to believe that our civilization is built on religion, i.e. on Christianity, that religion is the essence of the issue and the key to understanding historical processes. Therefore, I want to turn to history. Maybe everyone has known about this for a long time and my story will not be interesting at all. Or maybe you will learn something interesting for yourself. If someone doesn't like it, object. Or just pass by! I will tell you in my own words, as briefly as possible, about everything that I was able to find on this issue. After the attack of the Tatar-Mongols, Kyiv was almost completely destroyed and for a long time was a city that no longer played any political significance. The center of Rus' moved to Vladimir and, while the Russian princes were busy with their civil strife, the lands now called Ukraine gradually came under the rule of Poland and Lithuania. The Pope launched attack after attack to convert the population of these lands to Catholicism by force or cunning. The task was to strengthen their power in the conquered territories with a rebellious population, power not only secular, but also spiritual. In addition to the lofty goal of converting “heretics” to the true faith, the Catholic Church also had a very earthly goal: all Catholics were required to pay tithes. But the harmful “natives” did not want to sell their faith! And then the Holy See made a “knight’s move”: okay, we leave you your churches, your icons, your Liturgy and your priests - and all you are required to do is recognize the authority of the Pope and pay tithes. This is how the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church appeared, in the world called Uniate (from the word “unia”, i.e. union). To complete and proclaim the union, a special council was convened in Brest. The main organizer of the union, i.e. The executor of the will of the Pope was the Jesuit Peter Skarga, who became his henchman. Metropolitan Michael Ragoza. The latter announced that the council would begin on October 8, 1596; in fact, it began two days earlier. This maneuver was calculated so that the Uniate bishops would be able to finish the matter privately even before opponents of the union came to the council - they decided to present them with a fait accompli. The Uniates, together with Catholic bishops and royal representatives, gathered in the St. Nicholas Church. Behind closed doors, they developed tactics against supporters of Orthodoxy. It was decided to invite them to the council only if the Orthodox agreed not to oppose the union. This task was taken on by Piotr Skarga. However, the priests rejected any agreement with the Uniates and Jesuits. The Uniates responded with repression. Metropolitan Ragosa, in a letter, cursed the opponents of the union, defrocked the Orthodox clergy, excommunicated them, and announced that church positions would be transferred only to those who recognize unity with the Catholic Church. By order of the royal representatives, the cathedral was completed quickly, Metropolitan Ragosa and the bishops accepted the Catholic-Uniate religion and swore allegiance to the Pope. Having concluded a union with the bishops of the Orthodox Church, the Vatican demanded that the Uniate clergy observe only the main provisions of Catholicism: unconditional recognition of the primacy of the pope over the Uniate Church and commemoration of him during services, and in terms of the confession of faith - recognition that the Holy Spirit comes from God the Father and God -son. In terms of ritual, in order to attract the broad masses of believers of the Uniate Church, it was allowed to adhere to the old Orthodox practice of worship and ritual when performing the religious sacraments of communion, baptism, repentance, confirmation, etc. Thus, the Uniate Church recognized the basic tenets of Catholicism and the authority of the Pope, preserving only Orthodox rituals. This concession to Orthodoxy was dictated by the need to take into account the negative attitude of the Orthodox towards the Catholic Church, to show a certain flexibility, or, more simply, cunning, in order to achieve the subordination of the Orthodox Church to the Vatican. The entire territory of modern Western Ukraine fell into spiritual captivity of the Roman high priests... Militant Catholics decided to finally destroy Orthodoxy through brutal persecution and persecution of Orthodox believers and clergy. In villages where Catholic lords had autocratic control over the parish churches, they forcibly forced the priests to convert to the union and expelled the disobedient. If the parishioners defended their priest and did not accept Uniateism, the lords leased the church to the Jews, who owned the keys to the church and took payment for each service, their management was rude and blasphemous. Orthodox Christians, deprived of their churches, were forced to go to Uniate churches, i.e. to their former Orthodox Christians. Orthodox priests were forced by threats and cunning to join the union. At the end of the 16th - first half of the 17th century. In response to the strengthening of national-religious and social oppression, a wide wave of Cossack-peasant uprisings swept across South-Western Rus'. As a result, they led to the holding of the Pereyaslav Rada on January 8, 1654, which adopted a unanimous decision on the reunification of the two parts of Rus'. After this, in most of the Little Russian lands, centers of Uniatism were liquidated, and the liquidation was, to put it mildly, without sentimentality. Russia has always been distinguished by religious tolerance and did not impose Orthodoxy on conquered lands by force. Moreover, Orthodoxy is not inherently aggressive and peaceful, unlike Catholicism, which propagated its faith with fire and sword. Let us remember the Crusades, the Inquisition with witch hunts and the extermination of indigenous peoples in conquered territories! In the foreseeable past, none of the Orthodox countries started wars or fought with each other, unlike Catholic countries. But in the case of the Uniates, everything was different: the Orthodox viewed the Uniates as apostates, as traitors to their original faith. Apostasy is a sin that cannot be forgiven. Now it becomes clear where the Uniates’ hatred and anger towards the “Muscovites” and Poles comes from: both of them persecuted and oppressed them 400 years ago, banned their churches, their religion. But religiosity in Western Ukraine is extremely strong! Just remember the frequent crosses along the roads with icons and figurines of the Mother of God! For residents of Western Ukraine, Greek Catholicism was and remains one of the most important signs of national identity, along with nationalism - not to mention the fact that the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine has always supported nationalists. This is where the Galician division, Bandera, the policemen, and now the fascists came from, this is where this frenzy comes from... They were better off with anyone, just not with the Russians! There is one more circumstance that cannot be discounted: these lands were “European-integrated” a long time ago! On the territory of Western Ukraine, since the 14th century, Magdeburg law existed - one of the most famous systems of city law, which developed in the 13th century in the city of Magdeburg as feudal city law, according to which economic activity, property rights, socio-political life and the class status of citizens were regulated by their own system legal norms, which corresponded to the role of cities as centers of production and money and goods. Thus, this right was granted to Vladimir-Volynsky by the Polish king in 1324, to Lvov in 1356, Kamenets-Podolsk - in 1374, Rivne - in 1492, Mukachevo - in 1445, Lutsk - in 1432. etc. Kyiv was granted this right in 1494 - 1497. and was canceled only in 1835. by decree of Emperor Nicholas 1. Residents of cities that received Magdeburg Law were exempted from feudal duties, from the court and the authority of governors, elders and other government officials. On the basis of Magdeburg Law, an elected body of self-government was created in the city - the magistrate. With the introduction of Magdeburg Law, local law was abolished, but local customs were allowed to be used if the rules necessary to resolve the dispute were not provided for by Magdeburg Law. Of course, this form of city government in those days was the most progressive and radically different from what existed in the rest of Ukraine. It should also be noted that Magdeburg law was introduced in these territories long before the adoption of the union; the very way of life and life among Catholics contributed in the future, as I believe, to the transition to Uniateism. It turns out that the inhabitants of these western Ukrainian territories lived in different conditions than the rest of the people of Ukraine; even in those centuries they adopted the culture and ideology of European Catholic countries, although formally they remained Orthodox. The vast majority of Greek Catholics live in three regions of western Ukraine: Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil. The Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine experienced its greatest rise and prosperity between 1917 and 1946. In 1946, already within the USSR and naturally under pressure, all Greek Catholic parishes in Ukraine forcibly converted to Orthodoxy, which the Uniates consider (and from their point of view, quite rightly) a tragedy. Let us remember that Bandera was the son of a Uniate priest! The short-sightedness of Stalin’s policy is striking and its consequences are terrifying... After 1946 and before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Greek Catholics in Ukraine existed underground, actually repeating the fate of the Orthodox after the adoption of the Union of Brest. An unfortunate, suffering people, who, by the will of a few scoundrels, found themselves forcibly torn away from their faith, from the rest of the people of Ukraine. They found themselves persecuted by both Orthodox and Catholics (although formally they had equal rights with Catholics), and were forced to defend themselves and, again, their faith, which had already become their own over the centuries, by any means possible. They are few in number and surrounded on all sides. And this makes them very aggressive. For some reason unknown to me, they consider only themselves to be real Ukrainians. Obviously, for a small part of the people the well-known “Napoleon complex” is triggered. And it is impossible to change anything in their attitude towards us. Unfortunately... One could feel sorry for them if they weren’t so brutally cruel! Immediately after the collapse of the USSR, Uniatism was revived, and time seemed to go back, the Middle Ages returned again: Rome again stretches its hands to Ukraine, the West again wants to take over their souls... and “tithe”. What is Uniatism today? First of all, it is the most widespread denomination in western Ukraine. Every village has a church - and in nine cases out of 10 it will be Greek Catholic. Externally and internally, such a church is almost no different from an Orthodox one, except that sometimes it will be built in the “Ukrainian Baroque” style. Inside there is an iconostasis, an pulpit, in front of the solea there is a lectern with an icon and sometimes a Gospel. All icons are decorated with embroidered towels. There are a lot of banners in the temple, most often made of white linen, cross-stitched with an embroidered image of the saint in the center. The Uniates have their own iconographic style: bright colors and a certain “common people”, popular print in the image. For example, some minor characters may be depicted in Ukrainian folk clothing. By the way, it is also popular among the Uniates themselves - coupled with faith, it apparently makes them fully feel like “independent” and “independent” Ukrainians. At least the bridesmaids at the wedding are always dressed in folk (and very beautiful) costume. The main distinguishing feature of the temple’s interior is the obligatory statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary with lit candles and lamps around them. In front of the statues you can always see several women praying on their knees. Among the manifestations of popular piety among the Uniates (although, quite possibly, this tradition is typical specifically for Ukrainians, regardless of their religious affiliation) include frequent crosses along the roads - memorial or votive ones. These crosses are quite high, in the center of the cross there are icons of the Savior or the Mother of God, the cross itself is decorated with wreaths of artificial flowers and bright multi-colored ribbons that flutter beautifully. Ukrainian journalist and writer Oles Buzina once said in Solovyov’s program: Stalin in 1939. made a huge mistake when he annexed Western Ukraine, but did not make it autonomous, but left Kyiv as its unified capital! If only they could live separately and peacefully... But for me, they really are a cut off piece, they are different, a foreign body in the body of Orthodox Ukraine. After all, water and oil never mix! Obviously, their struggle is precisely a struggle for their own, Uniate, independence. Only they, having seized power, want to take revenge for all the hardships that they had to endure, they want to crush the whole of Ukraine under themselves, and they also hate Orthodox Ukrainians, just like us, “Muscovites”.

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How Ukraine “became” Europe back in the 16th century: The Ukrainian myth of union

The Brest Church Union of 1596 is tightly inscribed in Ukrainian state mythology. Uniatism is promoted as a Ukrainian ideology, a special Ukrainian European path.

For the modern Ukrainian state, the myth of union is very important in promoting the European civilizational choice. The “values” of the union are forcibly introduced into the consciousness of residents of different regions of Ukraine through education. The postulate is being promoted that Western Ukrainians are those who have preserved the “centuries-old” traditions of “Ukrainianness.”

A Western Ukrainian, Leonid Kuchma wrote, is much closer in his concepts and habits to a Czech, a Pole, and in some ways even an Austrian, than to a Russian or Eastern Ukrainian

(see his book: Ukraine is not Russia. Moscow, 2003, p. 60).

The transition to Uniatism is associated with the preservation of cultural and ethnic identity, which is placed above religious belief.

Thus, the Ukrainian historian I.M. Biryulev claims that

by the beginning of the 19th century. The Ukrainian lands of the Russian Empire, while maintaining the Orthodox faith, are gradually losing their cultural and ethnic identity. On the other hand, Western Ukrainian society, which after the divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth found itself under the rule of the Austrian emperors, reformed the confession and, in a tough struggle with Polish culture, retained its cultural and ethnic identity

(see book: World History. Part one. Modern times (XVI - end of XVIII).

Uniatism is dear to independentists because, in their opinion, it has always been “part of the West, part historians,” like the former President of Ukraine L. Kuchma, can be proud of Western Ukrainians as real Europeans. And consider their conscious “Ukrainianness” an advantage over the eastern citizens of Ukraine, which should “be adopted in order, in the end, to feel with all your heart that your Ukrainianness is a gift from God and how you should treat it” (see pp. 60-61 his books).

Ukrainian ideologists also like Uniate Galicia because for many years it was not part of the Russian state, being either under Lithuania, then under the Poles, or under the Austrians. It is there that they see another, “real” Uniate part that has not been influenced by Russian culture, capable of re-creating the rest of modern Ukraine in its own image and likeness.

But this is just another mythological speculation. In Galicia there was not another Ukraine, but the Carpathian part of Rus', which was initially under the rule of the Rurik family, and therefore Russian statehood, until the 14th century inclusive. Russian Galicia was part of the united Orthodox cultural world of Rus' until the most terrible times of Catholicization and denationalization of the 16th–18th centuries.

Subsequently, in the 19th–20th centuries, Carpathian Russia faced the most difficult task of preserving its Russianness, its originality before the coming world of Catholicism, the German and Polish world. And she held on very steadfastly to her Russian name, until her last strength. Thus, according to the 1936 census, which took place in Galicia, then under Polish rule and experiencing all kinds of persecution, 1,196,885 people called themselves Russians, and 1,675,870 people called themselves Ukrainians.

In the same part of Carpathian Rus', which seceded after the collapse of Austria-Hungary and voluntarily joined Czechoslovakia in 1937, a “plebiscite questionnaire was held on what language of instruction should be in schools: Russian or Ukrainian. Despite the undisguised desire of the government of Czechoslovakia for a decision to be made in favor of the Ukrainian language, 86% of the population spoke in favor of the Russian language” (see: chapter “Bukovina and Carpathian Rus'” in the book by Andrey Diky “The Unperverted History of Ukraine-Rus” , New York, 1961. Vol. II).

Unfortunately, in modern Ukrainian textbooks they want to present Ukraine as “a geographical designation of the border between Western civilization and the eastern “barbarism” of Russian Orthodoxy” (see: Biryulev I.M. World History). And the church union of 1596 - as an alternative to the subordination of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the Moscow Patriarchate (see: Vlasov V.S. History of Ukraine).

For many years, Ukrainian public schools have been promoting the following:

The subordination of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the Moscow Patriarchate was a severe defeat in the liberation struggle of the Ukrainians, because since 1686 the Church no longer provided ideological support in the struggle for state independence of Ukraine, but, on the contrary, gradually became an obedient instrument of the aggressive policy of tsarism, turned into a means of Russification of Ukrainians, depriving them national statist idea

(see: Vlasov V.S. History of Ukraine. P. 199).

They say that the “Ukrainian Church” was artificially torn away from the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1686 and joined to the Moscow Patriarchate, which for some reason is interpreted as a special fear of Russians for Western culture and science (see: Biryulev I.M. World History. P. 76).

These pseudo-church Russophobic myths contributed to inflaming church sentiment in Ukraine and the emergence of non-canonical religious organizations.

It is interesting that the former President of Ukraine L. Kravchuk once even called for renaming the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate into the Russian Orthodox Church, so that real “Ukrainians” would know that this is not their religious organization, but a “Moscow” one.

Distorting your history always leads to sad and difficult consequences. Ecumenistic ideas, that Ukraine and the Ukrainian Uniate will become bridges between Catholics and Orthodox Christians, are creating a destructive hotbed of confrontation on the territory of Southern Russia, capable of fueling enormous spiritual turmoil in the Orthodox world. This must be countered by debunking Ukrainian state myths.

Uniate “patriarchy” as the final point in the “Ukraina” project

The head of the Uniate “Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church” (“UGCC”) Svyatoslav Shevchuk, speaking at the anniversary celebrations in memory of his predecessor, the prominent Nazi collaborator Yosyf Slipy, outlined the goals and objectives of creating the “patriarchy of the UGCC.”
Let me remind you that the Ukrainian Union is a religious movement distributed exclusively within two and a half regions of Ukraine, which were part of Poland and then Austria-Hungary. Actually, the Poles and the Austrians planted this invention of the Vatican in the once Russian and Orthodox Russian Galicia with fire and sword. From the introduction of the union in Brest in 1596 until the last Patriotic War, the union was an ally of almost all occupiers who entered Russian soil. And it was during the periods of occupation that the union made grandiose plans for the spiritual subjugation of all of Russia - Little, White and even Great. So the current claims to “patriarchy” only confirm the fact that, taking advantage of the favorable moment when the successors of Slipy’s spiritual children (from the executioners of Talerhof to the liquidators of Khatyn) came to power, the union – yesterday only a purely local cult – is being promoted to the role of the state religion of Ukraine. Which is quite natural, however. After all, it was through the union that the “leaven” of the Ukrainian nation, which had already emerged under the Bolsheviks, was created from the Ivanovs who did not remember their kinship. And the current regime is in many ways the creation of the “UGCC,” given its fateful role in the Maidan.

"Ukrainian Christianity of Kievan Rus"

The first applications of the Ukrainian union for the status of patriarchy were made by the same Slipy in 1975. “Patriarch Yosyf” he signed his will to the flock. “I bequeath to you: pray for the Patriarch of Kiev-Galicia and All Rus', still unknown,” the then head of the Galician Uniates showed all-Russian ambitions. – The time will come when the almighty Lord will send him to our Church and announce his name. But we already have our patriarchy.”

And this despite the fact that back in 1970 the “Holy See” refused Cardinal Slipy’s request for patriarchy. Moreover, the latter will receive an answer not personally from the pontiff, but from the prefect of the “Congregation of Eastern Churches.” Moreover, Paul VI was about to form his own synod. When, at the Vatican Council of 1971, the Uniate hierarchs, led by Slipy, tried to express dissatisfaction, the pontiff deprived the cardinal of the status of supreme archbishop. Slipoy could no longer appoint hierarchs and manage “dioceses.” Now he was nothing more than a kind of honorary head of the Ukrainian Diaspora Uniates without any real power over them.

The Vatican did this largely for political reasons. After all, no union existed on the territory of the USSR (it was liquidated primarily thanks to the setup of the same Slipy, although the Soviet government was initially inclined to cooperate with the “UGCC”). Was it worth aggravating already difficult relations with the Union for the sake of a dummy, but claiming to be “all of Rus'”?

Therefore, Shevchuk, in order to obscure the absurdity of his predecessor’s claims, tries to interpret his will in the “ecumenical dimension” (read – in the “dimension” of the absorption of Orthodoxy in Ukraine by the union): “Patriarch Joseph speaks about the various stages of the history of Ukrainian Christianity of the Kiev Church (sic!), recalls various kinds of discussions that were conducted by the Uniate and Orthodox parts of the Kiev Church.”

By “various kinds of discussions between the Uniate and Orthodox parts,” as we guess, we mean the whole variety of tortures, tortures and killings to which Orthodox Rusyns were subjected by the Uniates and their fathers - the Jesuits - in the 16th-17th and 20th centuries. But in this case, the message hidden behind this verbiage about “parts of the Kyiv Church” is much more important.

The fact is that Prince Vladimir baptized Rus' (which the Uniates call Russia-Ukraine) half a century before the Great Schism. Consequently, according to Uniate logic, the “Church of Vladimir’s Baptism” (another euphemism) is common to both the Orthodox (Greek rite) and Catholics. And therefore, the “Greek Catholic Church” is the most Kiev one! The Parisian (simple) Uniate, of course, is not supposed to know that the split between the Latins and the Orthodox in 1054 took shape only de jure, and before that it had deepened de facto for centuries. Therefore, in fact, Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir and Princess Olga quite transparently rejected the papal missionaries, preferring - like their predecessors Askold and Dir - to accept Baptism from the Greeks. But what kind of union is there without distorting history?

“Our patriarchy is not an end in itself, our patriarchy is a road,

– Shevchuk quotes his immediate predecessor Lyubomyr Guzar.
“ And the final goal is the flourishing and full life of the Kiev Church.”
Translated from Jesuit - Uniate “patriarchate”, this is the “recreation” of that very “Kyiv Church” by luring Orthodox Christians (or those who consider themselves such) into it.

Unquestioning "communication"

In Ukraine there are now the canonical UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate, as well as six unrecognized self-proclaimed pseudo-Orthodox offices, the most famous of which are the so-called. "Kiev Patriarchate" and "UAOC". There is no doubt that if the “patriarchate” is declared (especially if this happens after the last “holding in schism” anathema Filaret throws off) all the mummers will merge there. We are sick and tired of being unrecognized (in the literal sense), and at least the Vatican recognizes the “canonicity of the UGCC”. Yes, and the canonical clergy (one of those for whom mammon is above use), to outbid is a matter of technique, worked out during the years of the Union of Brest. Moreover, these clerics themselves have been sending absolutely clear signals of their readiness to sell out for ten years, exaggerating the same theme of the “Kyiv Church.”

But what is preventing the “patriarchate” from taking place now, when for Rome the obstacle in the form of the absence of “UGCC” parishes in Ukraine has disappeared? “Let us tell ourselves frankly, the ecumenical dimension is the only reason why we still do not have patriarchy today.”

, answers Shevchuk himself.

How so? For Slipy, “patriarchy” in the “ecumenical dimension” is a blessing, but now this very “dimension” is an obstacle? And so, “measurement” and “measurement” are different. In contrast to the provincial plans of the Shevchuk, Guzars and Slipy, the ecumenical requests of the pontiff are of a global scale. Hope for their implementation appeared after the Havana meeting in 2021. Therefore, excessive activity of the Uniates on the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate can only harm the strengthening of ties between the Vatican and Chisty Lane.

The primate of the Orthodox in Ukraine is the second person after the patriarch in the hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan of Kiev. If the status of the representative of Rome in Ukraine is elevated to “patriarch,” while the “representative of Moscow” (permanent member of the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church) remains metropolitan, this can be perceived as the superiority of the “patriarchy of the UGCC” over the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC (MP). Despite the fact that the UOC (MP) is truly an all-Ukrainian structure, and it has three to four times more parishes than the “UGCC”, practically concentrated within Galicia (see fragment of the Uniate, and therefore even exaggerated in terms of “all-Ukrainianness”, maps of parishes "UGCC", - Ed.). Therefore, in 2005, Huzar’s renaming of himself from “Archbishop of Lvov” to “Kyiv and Galicia” (with the connivance of the former pontiff) caused indignation among the faithful of the Moscow Patriarchate.

In the “Ukrainian dimension” the relationship of the pontiff with even the seemingly pocket ecumenist of Constantinople is not much simpler. Bartholomew dreams of the Kyiv Metropolis as part of his patriarchate on the united base of the UAOC (part of whose American parishes have already merged into the so-called Patriarchate of Constantinople) and the UOC-KP. Back in 2003, he “showed greyhoundness” by expressing bewilderment to John-Paul Wojtyla about the “unbrotherly act,” namely the “provocative and unacceptable intention to create a Uniate Patriarchate in Ukraine.”

Therefore, the Pope still does not encourage the creation of a “patriarchate”. On the other hand, in order not to be included in the rapidly expanding list of “protectors” and even “enemies” of Ukraine (like, for example, Catholic Poland), it turns a blind eye to the “patriarchal” encroachments of its fiends.

Even under Benedict, the union that had crawled to Kyiv built a “patriarchal cathedral” in a place where the Uniate had never set foot. At the opening of his “revived patriarchal residence”, Huzar proclaimed that from now on “the darkness will dissipate over Kiev and the sun of the Truth of Christ will rise in unity with the Pope” (from which it followed that until 2005 the center of the Baptism of Rus' lived in darkness). In the same year, he established the Donetsk-Kharkov Uniate Exarchate (an administrative unit established, as a rule, as part of an independent patriarchate). This allowed the official structures of the “UGCC” to openly call Guzar a patriarch. The change of regional status to all-Ukrainian allowed the latter to declare its intention to create a “Ukrainian local church in communion with Rome” united with the Orthodox.

The euphemism “communication with Rome” in fact means nothing more than communication between a superior (“pope”) and a subordinate (from an ordinary parishioner to a “patriarch”). For Roman Catholics and their local Uniate branches, the Pope is the infallible vicar of God on Earth, and therefore the direct and immediate superior of all Catholic “patriarchates” (of which there are six in the world).

Ukraine is worth a mass!

So, already as an inheritance from the “patriarch-primate of the UGCC” Guzar, Shevchuk received the “patriarchal curia” and immediately - as a “patriarch” - announced the “construction of the patriarchy.”

Screenshot of material from the website of the official structure of the UGCC

As soon as he took office, he put on the white hood of the Orthodox patriarch, explaining this by continuity from the “Kiev eastern tradition,” although, in fact, the first bishop to receive the honor of wearing a white hood was Archbishop Vasily of Novgorod and Pskov. And only in 1564 the Moscow Local Council adopted a statute on the right of the metropolitan to wear a white hood. The metropolitan see, however, by that time had already been moved for more than a quarter of a thousand years from Kiev, captured by the Tatars and then the Lithuanians, to Vladimir, and then Moscow. In any case, the white patriarchal kukol (and our Shevchuk, you know, is a “ptariarch”) began to be worn in 1589 by the Patriarchs of Moscow without the title “Kiev”. Although, for the parasitic, the excuse will, of course, work.

Already in a white doll, Shevchuk held the “Patriarchal Council of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church” in... Brazil. However, the adjective “Ukrainian” is not excluded, the prefix is ​​already becoming obsolete. Last October, for the first time in hundreds of years, the head of the Uniates served in Belarus. “It is especially touching and reverent for me to stand on this Minsk land, where Metropolitan Mikhail Ragoza, Metropolitan of the Brest Unity, comes from.”

(they are so pathetically camouflaging the “Union of Brest” - DS.),
who was elected Metropolitan of Kiev from here, from a monastery near Minsk
, - the ukroniat became emotional.
– And then he, as the head of the Kiev Church (you feel, such an imperceptible fraud - D.S.) restored the unity of the Kiev Metropolis with the Roman Apostolic See
(“unity”, which actually never existed - D.S.).
“Your Mother, the Kiev Church, does not forget her children.
Your Mother Church feels a maternal duty against you ,” the tongue-tied (like all his predecessors) “patriarch” assured of his paternal feelings towards the Belarusians.

And why was there any need to be ashamed of Blind’s ambitions with his “all Rus'”? Moreover, back in 2013, the “UGCC” proposed to the Vatican to transfer the “relics” of Metropolitan Isidore of Moscow from Rome to Kyiv. Isidore, as you know, was expelled from Moscow for signing the Union of Florence with the Roman Church. According to tradition, he was titled Metropolitan of Kyiv (although the Russian see a century and a half before him was transferred from Kyiv to the Moscow region). By the way, the Orthodox Rusyns of Lviv in the 15th century (or Muscovites, as they were called in the West) also did not accept Isidore.

Such initiatives, of course, clearly indicated the ambitions of the UGCC. However, such a holistic justification of claims to an all-Ukrainian (at least) “patriarchy”, as at the last celebrations of the memory of Slipy, was heard for the first time. In particular, Shevchuk “refuted” the above “myth repeated by the hierarchs of the Orthodox Churches” that (I quote) “the creation of the Patriarchate of the UGCC would mean trampling on the rights of the Moscow Patriarchate, which considers Ukraine its canonical territory.” And do you know why this is a “myth”? Because, it turns out, the Moscow Patriarchate cannot have any canonical territory! Simply because the Moscow Patriarchate is not a Church. We follow the Jesuit logic:

a.

Comparing the Uniate “patriarchy” with the Orthodox patriarchy is absolutely incorrect, because
in the Orthodox patriarchates there is “an absolute misunderstanding of the role of the Pope as the Ecumenical Bishop.”
Indeed, the Orthodox do not understand how the popes deserved the honor of unquestioning submission to them. In Orthodoxy, where the principle of conciliarity prevails, all heads of local churches are equal (and in their churches they do not have the status of a single leader). And this, according to the Uniate Shevchuk, and the entire Latin “theology”, is evidence that:

b. In Orthodoxy, “ecclesiology on the concept of the Universal Church is not yet very developed.”

Let us leave aside the highly intelligent tautology “ecclesiology on the concept of the Universal Church” (ecclesiology is the branch of theology that studies the nature of the Church). The main conclusion here seems to be obvious:

c. If the Orthodox Church is underdeveloped, then it is not a Church

(for how can the Body of Christ be “not very developed”?). Hence:

d. The only truly ecclesiastical patriarchy can be the Catholic one.

(albeit Greek Catholic). From here:

“The great mission of the Greek Catholic Patriarchate is to explain to the Orthodox world the essence of the ministry of the successor of the Apostle Peter.”

Thus, the purpose of the “UGCC Patriarchate” is the mission of “witnessing the unity of the Church of Christ of the first millennium, as in communion with the Roman Apostolic See in the first millennium there was the Patriarchate of Antioch, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Patriarchate of Constantinople and all other local Churches.” Here, however, the tongue-tied and cunningly constructed (a purely Ukrainian-Uniate combination) “Father and Head of the UGCC” modestly keeps silent that the communion of completely equal local churches of the first millennium and the Vatican’s demand for complete subordination of the second millennium are “two big differences.” This modest silence allows the faithful disciple of the Jesuits to completely brazenly entangle the righteous with the sinful: “The Moscow Patriarchate does not have this church memory, since it was born and arose after the so-called great schism.”

Well, let us remind His Ignorance that the Russian Orthodox Church did not “emerge and emerge” after the “great schism” of 1054, but received the status of a patriarchate (the same one of Moscow). The Metropolitanate of Russia was established back in the 9th century (when Askold and Dir and their retinue were baptized, and after them Olga and her servants). That is, 600 years before Shevchuk’s union.

“Yednannya” was introduced solely to resubordinate the Russians to the Pope (Catholics did not go to the union). But historically, the union was consolidated only in the Carpathian region (due to the tragic thoughtlessness of Alexander I, who gave this Russian land to the Austrians in exchange for the alien Kingdom of Poland). The result was a kind of parochial Catholicism. I like the comparison with trembita. There is such a Hutsul instrument. It is called national Ukrainian, but even in the lands neighboring Galicia you will never hear it. But now he howls sadly from every radio point throughout Ukraine. On the other hand, Ukrainians were once exotic - the lot of urban madmen. So, Ukraine is worth union. Only with her can it finally take place. And union without Ukraine is meaningless.

The only question is in the souls of people living in present-day Ukraine. Without Orthodoxy they will not be saved. But will anyone save Orthodoxy in Little Rus'?

Dmitry Skvortsov

Alternative

Have you noticed that for a couple of years now, the seemingly popular post-Maidan expression “Poland is the European lawyer of Ukraine” has been forgotten? On the contrary, the Third Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth becomes almost the general European prosecutor for the “country of victorious rule.”

And we are no longer talking about public organizations that have always dreamed of the return of oriental crosses and not about football fans chanting about the “originally Polish” Lviv. Marches with the slogans “Death to Ukrainians” and demands for the return of Lviv are now held under the patronage of city halls. The same Lvov now appears in a competition announced by the Minister of Internal Affairs for a sample of a new passport. And the Minister of Foreign Affairs warns the president of the “Orians” that the glorification of the fascists from the UPA and the infringement of the rights of national minorities (remember the education reform recently signed by Poroshenko) will lead to Poland’s veto on “Ukraine’s potential accession to the EU.” Approximately the same thing was repeated regarding education reform in Ukraine. Readers of Alternative are also aware of the attitude of Poles towards neo-Nazis operating in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We also clearly showed how the partners in the coveted association with the EU are nightmares about the “unbreakable nation” within the framework of economic cooperation in seasonal field work.

Well, the attitude towards the Ukrainian state as such was demonstrated by the unhindered arrival of the “passport-free” “Shatunoshvili” in Warsaw and its “launch” into Ukraine from the Polish checkpoint. In the ease with which even the cordon, reinforced by the singing of “Schenevmerla,” was broken, one can see, if not a hint, then a reminder of the eternal Polish dreams of eliminating this border.

Until recently, these sacred impulses of the Catholic nation of Europe itself lacked only sacred consecration. And now, it seems, the first samples of the pod[1] have appeared.

And where?! On a Russian resource!

And whose?! Archbishop of Lvov!!!

Spiritual zrada

Prelate Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki (ex-secretary of two popes) complained to Russian Catholics (the overwhelming majority of Polish origin) that “the overwhelming majority of beautiful and ancient Roman Catholic churches” were occupied by Uniates in Galicia: “When communist rule was established in these lands power, it liquidated Catholic life... They took away churches, giving them to cinemas, theaters, organ halls, and more often to fertilizer warehouses or cowsheds. But when Ukraine gained independence... the authorities, having received control of these churches, did not return them to their former owners, but gave them again into the hands of others.

It pains us that the current Ukrainian government did the same as the communists... - they handed over the Roman Catholic churches to other, illegal owners. In Soviet times, 126 churches were taken from us here. In Lviv itself, the current democratic government illegally gave 23 of our churches to the Greek Catholics... While not a single church was returned to the Roman Catholic community!

Other church communities, mainly Greek Catholics, accepted our churches without even asking us for consent. They had no moral right to do this. Now they pray in illegally appropriated churches, one might say stolen from another community.

... The issue of the usurpation of our Roman Catholic shrines by the Greek Catholics still remains unresolved. We are not going to give up the ownership of them (hereinafter it is emphasized by me - D.S. ).”

To be fair, we note that this is not the first message of this kind from Prelate Mokshinsky. But the previous interview was “for internal use” - to a Polish TV channel.

However, it did not go unnoticed, and the rector of the Uniate Drohobych Theological Seminary, Miron Bandyk, gave a rebuke to the Roman Catholic:

“a) The Greek Catholics did not take away a single functioning church from the Roman Catholics. The local government handed over to the Greek Catholics buildings that had not been used for decades or had been turned into warehouses, cinemas, discos, and therefore dilapidated or desecrated (but isn’t the Roman Catholic prelate talking about the same thing? - D.S. );

b) ... Many churches of the UGCC, selected by the Bolsheviks and after 1946 transferred to the Orthodox Church, are still used by this Church (mostly by the Philaretists and autofecals, as discussed below - D.S. ). In the 90s of the twentieth century. the authorities handed over abandoned premises of former churches to the Greek Catholics as compensation for irrevocable churches (but does this mean that the Uniates “as compensation” had to accept other people’s property? - D.S. );

c) Roman Catholics, whose number in Ukraine, for well-known reasons, fell sharply after World War II, in the 90s, due to their small numbers, did not apply for the return of former churches (here, it turns out, one of the Pope’s subjects is simply lying; and it seems that he is guided by the cause-and-effect “logic” “due to the small number they did not apply” - D.S. )…;

d) over twenty years, Greek Catholics brought abandoned buildings into proper condition through their own labor and financial donations (it’s as if “they gave us someone else’s apartment, but we made expensive repairs to it, so it’s now ours,” - D.S. . )… Once these people were accused by the communist authorities, now Bishop Mieczyslaw is accusing them.”

The last sentence is already generally hysterical. So let's stop for now. And again let us turn to the Lviv Roman Catholic Archbishop.

In his latest interview, he gives a general answer to the “points of accusation” from the Uniate “brother in Christ” (or rather, the Pope):

“According to moral law, we not only cannot take a stolen thing, but also buy stolen property. If a group of ten people turns to the bishop to give them a priest, then the bishop must find out where they got the church building from: did they build it, buy it? If they received someone else's property from the authorities, then he should not give a priest. If your son brought a car and asked you to register it in your name, would you ask him where the car came from?

...We are told that “when the Poles owned everything here, it was Polish, now there are no Poles - it has become Ukrainian.” Not true. It was and is the property of the Roman Catholic Church. We are not giving up our church buildings, and we still lay claim to them. And we will constantly remind you of our right to them .”

In response to this, the main Uniate website cannot find anything better than... repeating the same shattered arguments from six years ago. Showing in all its glory how different the native Basilians[2] with their natural stubbornness are from their skilled prototypes - the Jesuits.

But what do we care about that?

Here's what. “The Bishop cannot but know that in his native Poland there are also Greek Catholics who, after the Lvov pseudo-council of 1946, were subjected to the same injustice as the Greek Catholics in Ukraine: their churches were either closed or transferred to Roman Catholics and Orthodox “, – Uniate Miron Bandyk goes into counter-argumentation in the style of “that’s how he is.” But in Uniat he “doesn’t finish speaking.”

Namely, that the overwhelming majority of churches “subjected to untruth” in Poland were Orthodox. In the last century, the Poles massively destroyed or converted into churches the churches that in Kholm Rus', thousands of communities returned from the union to Orthodoxy after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Now, about the “Greek Catholic churches,” which, they say, “are still used by this Church.”

Galician supposedly “Greek Catholic” churches before the 18th century (including those with unique wooden architecture) are originally Orthodox. If only because the Union of Brest of 1596 was established in the Galician diocese only in 1700. That year alone, 1,250 churches were forcibly transferred to the union, starting from the St. George Cathedral in Lvov (the same “St. Yura”) to the church in the distant village of Zavyaly. The Maniavsky monastery was the last one to survive until it was closed by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II in 1785. The same Manyavsky monastery, which since 1611 has been the “ancient shrine of the Kyiv Patriarchate”, founded... in 1992.

This has to do with which “Orthodox” things were conveyed to. As for the canonical Church, it will be enough to say that for almost a million people in Lviv there are only three Orthodox churches! Two of which are converted trailers.

One of three churches in the capital of Galicia, the site for which the Orthodox begged for daily standing under the city council

You can learn about how the “transfer of Greek Catholic churches to the Orthodox” actually took place from the Bulletin of the press service of the UOC (MP) No. 49: “December 1, 1989, during the meeting of M. S. Gorbachev with Pope John Paul II the issue of legalization of the UGCC has been finally resolved...

January 1990 Negotiations between the delegations of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church on the situation in Galicia. An agreement was reached on the creation of a Quadrilateral Commission (the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, the UGCC and the Roman Catholic Church) to resolve interfaith problems in the region in the spirit of brotherly love and mutual respect.

March 8-13, 1990 Negotiations of the Quadripartite Commission take place in Lvov. An agreement was reached that by surveying the population with secret voting in each locality, the ratio of Orthodox and Uniates would be determined, and the distribution of churches between confessions would be determined by the results of these surveys. If there are several temples in a locality, the religious majority will receive more temples; if there are two, they will receive a larger temple; if there is one, they will receive it with the condition of providing assistance to the minority in the construction of a temple of another denomination. However, on the last day of negotiations, the Uniate archbishop, unexpectedly for the Orthodox, announced that he was leaving the negotiating commission and did not explain the reason for his action...

1990 Local government elections, during which pro-Uniat political forces came to power in Galicia. Mass seizures of Orthodox churches have begun... Local councils simply stamp out illegal decisions to transfer churches to the Uniates, and then fight them off with the police and riot police. Everywhere the temple war is accompanied by violence. During 1990-1992, three Orthodox dioceses in Galicia were practically destroyed. During the storming of the local church in Stary Sambir by riot police, even members of the Quadripartite Commission, who arrived in Kyiv with broken noses, bruises and bandages, were brutally beaten and appeared before journalists. The Eastern Patriarchs appealed to the Pope with a demand to stop arbitrariness and not to take advantage of the social and economic crisis of the Eastern Orthodox countries to increase proselytizing pressure.”

“As a result of the purge, the UOC lost 600 churches in the Lvov region alone,” summed up the head of the press service of the UOC (MP). – Patriarch Alexy II said that everyone was shocked, no one expected that the union would be revived in the parameters of the times of the Crusades, with a cavernous hatred of Orthodoxy. Despite calls from all the Eastern Patriarchs to Rome to condemn and stop the violence, no one in the Vatican lifted a finger. On the contrary, John Paul II sent encyclicals here that spoke of the “growing dialogue of love” between the Orthodox and the Uniates, who together went through the terrible repressions and persecutions of the atheist regime in the USSR, which, against the backdrop of the Galician-Uniate lawlessness, looked like a mockery. The Orthodox Church has not forgiven the Vatican for such an insidious betrayal: His Holiness Patriarch Alexy has never met the Pope, and I think that His Holiness Patriarch Kirill will also never meet. Therefore, the union became a stumbling block on the path of dialogue between East and West, the unity of Christianity. The most curious thing is that the union is only happy with this. There are creatures born with the complex of the old woman Shapoklyak - to always harm, to harm everywhere, until the last days of the Donetsk - and receive deep satisfaction from it.”

Therefore, to the question “what should we do?” Let’s answer this: stock up on popcorn and get ready to watch a movie in the style of “SDD”.

Moreover, it promises to be exciting.

“Vladyka Mieczyslaw came to Ukraine as an envoy of the pope, and he himself belonged to the Polish people,” our Myron lights the fuse. And he hints to the prelate of John Paul II: “We say “make yourself at home, but do not forget that you are a guest”... Therefore, I, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic, was surprised by the recent statement of Metropolitan Mieczyslaw that he had already invited Pope Benedict XVI to Ukraine in Lviv to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the transfer of the residence of the Roman Catholic metropolitans to Lviv... Let us imagine the reaction of our Polish neighbors if a Ukrainian citizen were appointed Przemysl-Warsaw Greek Catholic Metropolitan, and he, having arrived in Poland, invited the pope, for example, to Przemysl to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the destruction of the Ukrainian see in Przemysl by the Polish king Władysław Jagiello.”

In fact, the departments are Russian and Orthodox. But that's from another movie. The future, let's hope.

Dmitry Skvortsov,

specially for alternatio.org

[1] Brush for anointing (confirmation in Catholicism).

[2] If the Jesuit Order in the 16th century prepared the ground for the introduction of a union in the Russian lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, then the Basilians (Basilians), mainly from newly converted natives, were engaged in its planting. From this order the current so-called order grew. “Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church” (“UGCC”).

Uniate essence of “Ukrainian Ukraine”

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What should be understood by the strange phrase “Ukrainian Ukraine” - is it “butter”, or something completely different? What forces are fighting for “UU”, what are their chances for “peremoga”? And why should the answer to both questions be sought in the history of Uniatism? Half of the “Euromaidan” participants are Greek Catholics, boasted the Apostolic Exarch of the Ukrainian Uniates of France, Switzerland and the Benelux countries, Borys Gudziak. Union of Brest and Russian… Uniate Church

Uniatism, or Greek Catholicism, arose on the territory of Ukraine at the end of the 16th century.
On December 23, 1595, the Act of annexation of the Kyiv Metropolis of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople to the Roman Catholic Church was signed in Rome, and on October 19, 1596 (NS) it was approved by the Uniate Council in Brest - hence the name Union of Brest. The subject of the act was the adoption by the episcopate of the Kyiv Metropolis of the Orthodox Church of the Catholic Church of the Catholic faith and the transition to subordination to the Pope while simultaneously preserving the worship of the Byzantine liturgical tradition in the Church Slavonic language. As a result, the Russian Uniate Church arose on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was soon joined by the Lviv and Lutsk Orthodox dioceses.

Ideologist of the Union of Brest - Jesuit Peter Skarga

But at the same time as the Uniate Council, a council of the Orthodox clergy of the Kyiv Metropolis took place in Brest, headed by Patriarchal Exarch Nicephorus, two bishops and Prince Konstantin of Ostrog. The Orthodox hierarchs present refused to support the union, confirmed their loyalty to the Patriarchate of Constantinople and anathematized the Uniates. The majority of ordinary priests and laity were on their side. The Polish authorities and the bishops who joined the union did not take their opinion into account and tried to force them into the new denomination. Moreover, the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sigismund III, granted her privileges that allowed her to take away churches and monasteries from the Orthodox, along with land holdings. If in the early 90s of the last century and today the seizures of UOC churches represent banditry and raiding, at the dawn of Greek Catholicism, the property of the Orthodox was transferred to the Russian Uniate Church by court decision. The entire Zaporozhye army is against Greek Catholicism

However, church communities and monastic brethren did not accept such “legal” robbery. The Cossacks came to the defense of their interests, stopping the Uniates with threats and force, and killing those who were too zealous. The union was not recognized by the main Orthodox monasteries in Kyiv. The king even officially freed the Pechersk Lavra from Uniate jurisdiction in 1603. Around 1615, opponents of the union united into the Kiev Brotherhood, where in 1616, along with “the entire Zaporozhye army,” Hetman Pyotr Sagaidachny joined, establishing his guardianship over him. The Uniates failed to oppose the Cossacks and townspeople with thoughtful and decisive actions. When in 1618 the Uniate governor of the Vydubitsky Monastery, Anthony Grekovich, tried to confirm by force the rights to own the St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, the Cossacks immediately recaptured him, drowning the governor in the Dnieper.

Metropolitan of Kyiv Peter Mohyla

In 1620, Patriarch Theophan of Jerusalem, thanks to the Cossacks and personally to Hetman Peter Sagaidachny, appointed Job Boretsky Metropolitan of Kyiv, thereby updating the Orthodox hierarchy in Kyiv. In 1626, churches, monasteries and their property again began to pass into the hands of the Orthodox. The death of Sigismund III put an end to the confrontation. The new king Vladislav IV recognized the legitimacy of the Orthodox Church in 1633, and all Kiev churches and monasteries were transferred to Peter Mogila, who became the Kyiv metropolitan. One Vydubitsky monastery remained in the possession of the Uniate Metropolitan Joseph of Rutsky until his death in 1637. As we see, the Russian Uniate Church - the predecessor of the Belarusian and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Churches - arose under the “roof” of the Vatican and Warsaw and tried to “promote” their interests, and not the interests of Ukrainians and Belarusians, among the Orthodox people. At the same time, the Uniate clergy did not succeed in enlisting the support of the people; on the contrary, the townspeople, with the support of the Cossacks, stood up for Orthodoxy and achieved the restoration of its rights. The Greek Catholics found themselves far from the people - just like two centuries later the Decembrists (in the words of a certain Lenin)! On the same rake: from the Khmelnytsky uprising to the Koliivshchyna

In 1648, Bogdan Khmelnitsky led a Cossack uprising, which was joined by masses of peasants and townspeople. Some immediately joined his army, others created partisan detachments and destroyed the estates of the Poles, captured cities and castles with Polish garrisons. Peasants and townspeople tried to take revenge on the Poles and Jews for the oppression that lasted for many years. The Uniates, who were on the side of the Polish crown, also suffered greatly: the rebels dealt with them no less cruelly than with the “Poles” and “Jews.”

Khmelnitsky uprising

Khmelnytsky's uprising ended with the Pereyaslav Rada and the Russian-Polish War of 1654-1667, as a result of which the Truce of Andrusovo was signed first, then the Eternal Peace. According to the latter, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth recognized Left Bank Ukraine, Kyiv, Zaporozhye, Smolensk and Chernigov-Seversk land as the possessions of the Russian kingdom, and the right bank part of the Hetmanate remained under Poland. History has taught the Polish lords and clergy nothing: political, economic and religious oppression in Right Bank Ukraine continued. Ukrainian peasants again began to be forcibly “transferred” to the union. And the equalization of the rights of Catholics and religious dissidents (non-Catholics) in 1768 led to the creation by the gentry of the so-called Bar Confederation, whose detachments scattered along the Right Bank and began to commit terrible atrocities against the Orthodox. The response was an uprising of the peasant and Cossack population, known as Koliivshchyna, which captured the Kiev region, Bratslav region, Podolia, Volyn and reached Galicia. The notorious Uman massacre is just one of the episodes. Gaidamak detachments killed Poles, Greek Catholics and Jews in many cities and villages of Volyn and Podolia.

Koliivshchyna

After "Koliivshchyna"

The Naydamak uprising was suppressed by the joint efforts of Polish and Russian troops, but for Poland it all ended very sadly.
The Koliyivshchyna actually served as the beginning of the First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. As is known, it was followed by the Second and Third Partitions, which ended with the abolition of Polish statehood. As a result, most of the right-bank Ukraine became part of Russia, and only the lands of Eastern Galicia went to Austria. After this, the “return” began and the Orthodox began to take revenge on the Uniates for centuries of oppression. The queen ordered the arrest of those Uniate priests who refused to convert to Orthodoxy. In place of the Uniate clergy who were arrested, expelled and died in the turmoil, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church appointed newly ordained priests. 1,200 churches that previously belonged to the Uniate Church became Orthodox. PolitNavigator has already written about how absurd it is to make a neo-Bandera “Defender of the Fatherland Day” out of the Orthodox Cossack holiday of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Ukraine for Ukrainians – which ones?
At the end of the 19th century in Austria, the Uniates became an instrument of the “Ukrainization” of Galicia, which Vienna started, cherishing the hope of seizing the territories around the Dnieper.

Parliament of Austria

In October 1911, a professor at Lvov University, member of the Austrian Parliament, Uniate Stanislav Dnistryansky, in a speech at a party rally in the Galician town of Kulikovo, stated that Ukrainians, with the help of the Austrian government, were striving to correct the mistake of the great Bogdan, namely, to tear “Ukraine” away from Muscovites and establish their own a special Ukrainian kingdom." In August 1915, in an appeal to the high military command of Austria-Hungary, the “All-Ukrainian National Rada” created with funding from Vienna, represented by deputies of the Reichsrat (Austrian parliament) from Galicia E. Olesnitsky, K. Levitsky and L. Tsegelsky, persistently suggested that the German-Austrians attack to the Dnieper and the Black Sea. All three deputies come from families of Uniate priests, the last one is an active participant in the persecution of the Galician Russophile movement of Carpathian Rus. Interestingly, the backbone of the Galician Russophiles was also initially the Uniate clergy. However, as the repressions and political struggle intensified, more and more panots switched to Ukrainophile positions. In the diary of “Kamenyar” Ivan Franko, meticulous historians discovered the phrase: “Today I was murdered, they called me a Ukrainian, although everyone knows that I am a Rusyn.” And the explanation for this is this: before the outbreak of the First World War, the ethnonym “Ukrainians” did not exist, and “Ukrainianism” meant a political position, a kind of “party affiliation,” which denoted commitment to the idea of ​​​​creating “Ukraine.” And the nationality “Ukrainian” appeared in use only later – in the passports of residents of the Ukrainian SSR based on the results of the 1926 population census. In Taras Shevchenko’s Kobzar, the word Ukraine is used many times - as a land or a country, but not once, in any work, including prose, is the word “Ukrainian” or “Ukrainian” used as an ethnonym. Don't believe me? Try to find it. The conclusion suggests itself that “Ukrainian Ukraine” means anti-Russian and anti-Orthodox. But at the same time, you need to understand something else: the national myth, as Nazi-building researcher Benedict Anderson calls it, is formed by imaginary communities, even if there are none in reality. These communities containing people influence the members so much that they soon associate themselves with the bearers of this myth. This is precisely what explains the phenomenon of Russian-speaking and Russian-cultural “ukrops” now on the territory of Ukraine. And it is no coincidence that one of the pillars of the current imposition of dense nationalist myths on society is the same Uniate Church. Monuments to the Uniate Metropolitan Sheptytsky are being erected - the same one who wrote letters of greeting to Hitler, and the Uniates are extending their influence not only to Kyiv, but even to the Donbass. As they say, an old horse will not spoil the furrow.

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Galician history of Ukraine: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church - “I serve the fascist occupiers”

It’s not for nothing that the President of United Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, singled out a supernation within the country’s borders, an ubermenshey. “There is no doubt. On the contrary, I believe that Galicians are the basis of Ukraine’s statehood,” Poroshenko emphasized.

It was on their basis that the coup d'état was formed. It was the dense, uneducated Westerners who provided the picture to the Western media, covering it with a crowd of militants from Ukrainian Nazi organizations. It was the Galicians who were mainly among the “one-children”. And now Galicians regularly pray in Uniate churches for the victory of the punitive Ukrainian army and for the destruction of the “separatists”, “Colorados” and “Muscovites” in the Donbass.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is of great importance in the life of Galicians, whose patriarchs in 2014 openly called for war and the murder of the Berkut soldiers, Crimeans and Donetsk residents.

The same Lyubomir Huzar, a citizen of the United States, the Vatican and Ukraine, the Supreme Archbishop of Kiev-Galicia, Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church from January 25, 2001 to February 10, 2011, called on mothers to send their sons to the Donetsk front to kill rebellious Donetsk residents.

And the parish of the UGCC Arsenich called for taking up arms and killing the enemies of Ukrainian Ukraine.

It seems that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, like ordinary Uniates, has not changed at all for a whole century. Because they were the same during the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union.

But in the Lvov history textbook we are considering, which is intended to brainwash schoolchildren, the UGCC appears in a completely different image. All negative facts, cooperation with Hitler’s Nazis and Ukrainian nationalists - all this is declared to be slander of the Soviet special services. "Who is guilty? NKVD! And the Uniates are “they are children.” Indeed, nothing changes, not even the rhetoric of the Galitsa.

A special place in the myth-making of the non-existent Ukrainian state is occupied by

Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in 1900-1944, Metropolitan of Galicia, Sheptytsky.

Who is he? And what facts is the Lvov history textbook trying to hush up?

Firstly, he is a representative of the Galician count family of Sheptytsky. The same Galician elite that still pretends to be the most correct Ukrainians. The elite that supported and supports Euromaidan and the civil war in the East.

On October 1, 1883, Sheptytsky enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian army. Graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Wroclaw. During his studies, he traveled to Italy (where he was received by Leo XIII), as well as to Kyiv and Moscow, where he communicated with representatives of the Ukrainian nationalist movement.

Sheptytsky studied at the Jesuit seminary in Krakow, receiving a doctorate in theology in 1894. He was involved in politics, was a deputy of the Galician Sejm, the Austrian House of Lords.

It is quite logical and predictable that in the very first days of the Great Patriotic War, Sheptytsky sided with Hitler’s government. On July 1, 1941, the day after the occupation of Lvov by German troops, he addressed the congregation with a welcoming message on this occasion.

And already in July 1941, Sheptytsky met with the leader of the OUN Stepan Bandera and, as the head of the church, agreed to the fight of Bandera’s followers against the Bolsheviks.

To show how much the UKGC knows how to groom and serve, on September 23, 1941, after the capture of Kyiv, Sheptytsky sent a congratulatory letter to Hitler, in which he welcomed the Fuhrer as “the invincible commander of the incomparable and glorious German army.”

“Your Excellence! As the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, I convey to your Excellency my heartfelt congratulations on the capture of the capital of Ukraine, the golden-domed city on the Dnieper - Kiev!.. We see in you the invincible commander of the incomparable and glorious German army. The cause of destruction and eradication of Bolshevism, which you, the Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich, have set yourself as a goal in this campaign, ensures your Excellence the gratitude of the entire Christian world. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church knows the true meaning of the mighty movement of the German people under your leadership... I will pray to God for the blessing of a victory that will guarantee lasting peace for your Excellence, the German Army and the German People.

With special respect Andrey Count Sheptytsky, Metropolitan"

So the question arises. Why would the NKVD falsify something if there are many documents written and signed by Sheptytsky, where he openly supported both Hitler and Bandera. But the student will not go to the archives to check - he will trust the teacher so as not to get a bad grade. This is exactly what the authors of the history textbook are counting on.

On January 14, 1942, Sheptytsky, at the head of a group of nationalist leaders, signed a letter to Hitler: “We assure you, Your Excellency, that the leadership circles in Ukraine are striving for the closest cooperation with Germany in order to, with the combined forces of the German and Ukrainian people... implement a new order in Ukraine and throughout Eastern Europe."

The dream of the Galitsa people is a New Order in Ukraine and throughout Eastern Europe. They say correctly: “No matter what the Galitsians build, they always end up with a concentration camp where they are policemen.” And the Galician church does not lag behind its parishioners - the same bloodthirstiness and lack of minimal humanism that Christian priests should have.

Metropolitan Sheptytsky, among other things, helped the Nazis export Ukrainian youth to forced labor in Germany, publishing an appeal on this matter: “Staying in a foreign land will in some way bring you benefit and benefit. Learn a foreign language, get to know the world and people, gain life experience, gain a lot of knowledge that can be useful to you in life.”

Sheptytsky also took part in the creation of the 4th SS Grenadier Division "Galicia". In 1943, the Uniate clergy, led by Sheptytsky, helped the occupiers of this division, which consisted mainly of Uniates from Western Ukraine, including seminarians. The unit was equipped with Greek Catholic chaplains.

At the beginning of 1944, Sheptytsky ordered his clergy to hand over church bells to the German authorities for the purpose of their subsequent melting down for the needs of the front.

Sheptytsky is a staunch supporter of “European integration” and the “great nation of proto-Ukrainians.” It’s not for nothing that it is so valued by the residents of Galicia.

The Lviv textbook did not forget about the outstanding Ukrainian Yaroslav Galan. The Galitsai hated him and hate him to this day, just like the recently vilely murdered Oles Buzina. And they are even often compared in modern publications.

Yaroslav Galan wrote a lot about Ukrainian nationalists; in his essay “What Has No Name,” he described the crimes of the OUN:

“A fourteen-year-old girl cannot calmly look at meat. When they are going to fry cutlets in her presence, she turns pale and trembles like an aspen leaf. A few months ago, on Sparrow Night, armed people came to a peasant hut near the town of Sarny and stabbed the owners with knives. The girl looked with wide eyes in horror at the agony of her parents. One of the bandits put the tip of a knife to the child’s throat, but at the last minute a new “idea” was born in his brain: “Live for the glory of Stepan Bandera! And so that you don’t die of hunger, we will leave you food. Come on, boys, chop up some pork for her!..” The “lads” liked this proposal. A few minutes later, a mountain of meat from the bleeding father and mother grew in front of the girl, numb with horror...”

As with Oles Buzina, Ukrainian nationalists dealt with Galan bloodily and cruelly.

Yaroslav Galan was killed on October 24, 1949 in his office in an apartment on Gvardeiska Street in Lviv as a result of an assassination attempt - 11 blows with a Hutsul ax. Just imagine how much hatred and bestial anger there was in those Galicians if they were already chopping up the writer’s corpse with an ax.

The UKHC is one of the pillars of Ukrainian bestial nationalism. And therefore, in order to denazify the territories where Ukraine once was, it is necessary to ban the activities of the Uniates - once and for all.

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Person of the Russian Federation

The Russian Greek Catholic Church (otherwise the Russian Catholic Church of the Byzantine Rite) is an Eastern Catholic Church sui iuris (“its own right”), created for Catholics practicing the Byzantine Rite in Russia and for Russian Byzantine Catholics in exile, the so-called. Russian apostolate. Within its framework, two apostolic exarchates were created (both currently without a hierarch): in Russia (1917), in Harbin (China, 1928)

"Themes"

Tandem “Putin-Medvedev”, “Religious Organizations of the Russian Federation”

"Structure of the Russian Greek Catholic Church"

Ecumenical Bishop - Pope Benedict XVI.

"Ruling Bishop - Ordinary"

Bishop Joseph Werth - Ordinary of the Diocese of Transfiguration in Novosibirsk, Ordinary for Catholics of the Byzantine Rite in Russia.

Official website: https://www.rkcvo.ru/

"News"

Herman: The majority at Euromaidan are Greek Catholics

“Most of the protesters at Independence Square in Kyiv are from Western Ukraine. Therefore, it is quite natural that the clergy of the UGCC are also present there. And if their priests were with the Greek Catholics on the Maidan, then this is absolutely natural... After all, a shepherd should be with his flock. If there were many Orthodox believers there, Orthodox priests would also be there. Therefore, we need to treat every religion with equal respect,” said Anna German. yyndlfzh https://www.vsenovosti.in.ua/news/0135187

The Greek Catholic Church within the Russian Empire in the first third of the 19th century: problems and prospects. (part two)

In the preserved at the beginning of the 19th century. In Russia, the Greek Catholic Church the problem of the conviction of ordinary Uniates in the religious truth of the union was not solved, just as it had not been solved in the previous two centuries. The parish Uniate clergy not only did not propagate the Uniate idea, but in general, due to their weak theological training, did very little in the elementary catechesis of the people. link: https://zapadrus.su/zaprus/istbl/556—xix-.html

Greek Catholic community of St. Petersburg: status, spiritual life, activities

Talking about the current state of the Greek Catholic community in St. Petersburg, I would like to start with two very important statements. First of all, let me testify to the fact that there are Greek Catholics in St. Petersburg - although I have heard opposing opinions more than once - well, they are false. Secondly, I want to emphasize the community of the Universal Church - and the community of the Byzantine tradition within it. National church traditions are often faced with a terrible temptation - to withdraw into themselves, to live according to the principle of “your own home is on the edge” and “your own shirt is closer to the body.” link: https://vselenstvo.narod.ru/index/news/doklad.htm

Pavel Parfentyev. RUSSIAN GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH: history, present day and prospects. Part I

In the vastness of today’s rather vast “religious space” of our country, the Russian Greek Catholic Church seems to be a very small figure. Probably, many residents of Russia are not aware of its existence at all. Meanwhile, the Russian Greek Catholic Church has a fairly long history and has its own identity, quite different from the identity of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, its Sister Church. link: https://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=fresh&id=171

“ARKA”: Bishop Joseph Werth: “The Greek Catholic Exarchate will be revived in Russia”

The other day, Roman Catholic Bishop Joseph Werth visited Lvov, who has been serving in the vast expanses of Siberia for over 15 years. In Soviet times, Vladyka Joseph was a prisoner of conscience; in prison, his paths crossed with the Greek Catholic Bishop Alexander Hira, and therefore he knows well the problems of the Greek Catholic Church (this is how the biography of Vladyka is stated in the original text of the article - approx. transl.). His Eminence Bishop Werth is the head of the Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops of Russia, the eparch of the Transfiguration (West Siberian) Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, and since 2005 he has been the Ordinary for Catholics of the Byzantine Rite in Russia. link: https://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=monitor&id=7904

The rector of the Greek Catholic community of monks of St. Basil the Great in the village. Sargat abbot PHILIP (Maizerov): “After the bishop’s arrival, the children discussed not the divine service, not the words about the unity of Christians, but how the bishop kicked the monks out of the church.”

– What did the faithful of the Russian Catholic Church expect from this visit? What did the community of monks of St. expect? Basil the Great? link: https://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=authority&id=352 Council in Siberia, or an attempted coup in the Catholic Church in Russia.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, in St. Petersburg, and then in Moscow and other cities of the Russian Empire, groups of Orthodox Christians appeared who converted to Catholicism, but wanted to preserve their Byzantine rite. In 1917, a Council of the Russian Greek Catholic Church took place in Petrograd. On it, Metropolitan Andrei (Sheptytsky) of Lvov established the Russian Greek Catholic Exarchate, the head of which was appointed Fr. Leonid Fedorov. This step was confirmed by Rome only four years later. By the middle of the twentieth century, the Exarchate virtually ceased to exist. The few Russian Catholics of the Eastern rite either emigrated or died in the camps.

Only a few sisters remained from the legendary “Abrikosov” community of Dominican nuns, who made several unsuccessful attempts to revive the Eastern Catholic communities. However, the Vatican, which is usually in no hurry to change decisions once made, to this day continues to indicate the formally existing Exarchate of Russian Catholics in the annual directories of the Catholic Church. Although there is a dash opposite the paragraphs designed to report the number of faithful, priests and monks. link: https://www.otechestvo.org.ua/statyi/2004_09/st_13_01.htm