Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

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The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), also known as the Ukrainian Catholic Church, is one of the successor Churches to the acceptance of Christianity by Grand Prince Vladimir the Great (Ukrainian Volodymyr) of Kiev (Kyiv), in 988. UGCC is the largest Eastern Rite sui juris particular church in full communion with the Holy See, and is directly subject to the Pope. The Primate of the Church, in union with the Pope, holds the office of Archbishop-Major of Kiev-Halych and All Rus, though the hierarchs of the church have acclaimed their primate "Patriarch" and have requested Papal recognition and elevation. The Church is now geographically quite widespread, having some 40 hierarchs in over a dozen countries on four continents, including three other metropolitans in Poland, the United States, and Canada, the head of the church is Cardinal Lubomyr Husar.

Within Ukraine itself, the UGCC is a minority faith of the religious population, being a distant second to the majority Eastern Orthodox faith. Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is the second largest religious organization in Ukraine in terms of number of communities. In terms of number of faithful, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church ranks third in allegiance among the population of Ukraine, after the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate). Currently, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church predominates in three western oblasts of Ukraine, but constitutes a small minority elsewhere in the country.

1 History
2 See also
3 External references
4 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Early pre-history

The foundation of the Ukrainian Catholic Church was laid by the communion of the Patriarch of Constantinople with the Popes in Rome throughout most of the first millennium (until 1054) and intermittent communion thereafter. Early inroads of the apostolic Catholic Church included the evangelism of 'first-called' apostle, St. Andrew to the region in the first century AD, and the presence of a representative of the region from the Greek colonies along the Black Sea at the first Ecumenical Council of Nicea in 325. Some three hundred years later, Pope St. Martin of Rome was exiled to the territory of today's Ukraine by the Greek Emperor in Constantinople (654–655 AD).

Two centuries later, the relics of Pope St. Martin were retrieved by the Greek brothers from Macedonia, Saints Cyril and Methodius, while passing through today's Ukraine on their mission to the Khazars of today's Russia. Later, these brothers would lay the foundation of Christianity in today's heartland of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Western Ukraine. Cyril and Methodius were sent from Constantinople at the request of the ruler of Great Moravia, an empire which included the westernmost portions of modern Ukraine. In Velka Morava (Great Moravia) these brothers created an alphabet, known as "Cyrillic" (most likely Glagolitic) which enabled the local population to worship God in Slavonic.

In response to local disputes with clerics of the Latin Church, Sts. Cyril and Methodius appealed in person to the Bishop of Rome in 867, bringing with them the relics of Pope St. Martin. Their labors and request were met with approval from the Bishop of Rome, and their continued efforts planted the Christian faith, at once both Greek and Catholic, into Western Ukraine. Later, their efforts, and those of their apostles, led to the development of the Cyrillic alphabet and the translation of the Christian Scriptures and service (liturgies) of the Greek Church into the "Old Church Slavonic" language (sometimes referred to as "Old Bulgarian") in the nation of Bulgaria. Today, most Ukrainian Catholic Churches have moved away from Church Slavonic and use Ukrainian. Many churches also offer liturgies in the official language of the country the Church is in, for example, German in Germany or English in Canada; however, some eparchies continue to recite the liturgy in Slavonic even today.

[edit] Old Ruthenian period

These developments in the Roman Empire, Great Moravia, and Bulgaria set the stage for the conception of metat the Baptism of Kiev ordered by the Saint Vladimir at the Dnieper River in 988. From the beginning, the Metropolitans of Kiev resided at Pereyaslav in Ukraine, then Kiev (1037). The identity and further separate development of the Kievan Church was achieved by the election of Metropolitans, native and/or not confirmed by the Patriarch of Constantinople (Ilarion, 1051-1054; Klym Smolyatich 1147-1154; and, Hryhoriy Tsamblak 1415-1419).

Following the Mongol annihilation of Kiev in the 13th century, the Metropolitan of Kiev moved to Vladimir in 1299. By 1326, the Metropolitan had settled in Moscow, and by 1328 had changed the title of Metropolitan of Kiev for the title Metropolitan of Moscow. The separate legal tradition of the Russian Church, as differentiated from the church in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was codified in the decision of the first properly Russian Church Council of the Hundred Chapters ('Stoglav') in 1448, followed by the formal separation of the church of Rus into separate Russian (Muscovite) and Ruthenian (Kievan) Metropoliae in 1453.

[edit] Middle Ruthenian period

Meanwhile, for the Ukrainian Catholic Church of Kiev, the loss of the Metropolitan of Kiev in 1299 was rapidly supplanted by the creation of the Metropolia of Halych for Southern Rus in 1303. In 1352, the Metropolitan of Halych for Ukraine began to relocate back to Kiev; thereafter, the Kievan Church was headed by the Metropolitan of Kiev-Halych and All Rus. The Metropolitan of Moscow opposed the creation of this Metropolia at Halych/Kiev. This church governed most of the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, often from the city of Navahrudak in today's Belarus. Between 1054 and 1448, this Ruthenian Church continued to send representatives to the ecumenical councils called by the Pope of Rome ^{[citation needed]}, but also succumbed to increasing pressure by her mother church among the Greeks in Constantinople to cease communion with the Bishop (Pope) of Rome. There was partial support in the Ruthenian Church lands of Ukraine and Belarus for the union ratified at the Council of Florence, but no representative was sent to the Catholic Council of Trent in 1545.

[edit] The era of Catholic-Orthodox rivalry and separation

The memory of the Council of Florence on the Ruthenian lands of Ukraine and Belarus, which had passed under the control of the states of Lithuania and Poland after the decline of the Ukrainian-centered empire of Rus', bore concrete fruit in the Union of Brest (Berest') in 1596, which united the Ruthenian Church of the Ukrainian and Belarusyn lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the Pope of Rome. This union was not accepted by all the members of the Greek Church in these lands, and marked the beginning of the creation of separate Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches on the lands of Ukraine and Belarus. Due to violence, the Metropolitan of the Kievan Greek Catholic Church left Kiev early in the 1600s and settled in Navahrudak and Wilno in Belarus.

[edit] The Ukrainian period

The final step of the full particularity of the Ukrainian Catholic Church was then effected by the development of the middle Ruthenian language into separate Ukrainian and Belarusian language around 1600 to 1800. With the Orthodoxy being largely suppressed during the two centuries of the Polish rule, the Uniate influence on the Ukrainian population was so great that hardly any remained Orthodox.

After the partition of Poland, the Uniate territory was mostly divided between Russia and Austria. In the Russian partition, that included Volhynia and Podolia, only in the easternmost areas of Podolia the population quickly and voluntarily returned to Orthodoxy. Initally, the Russian authorities were extremely tolerant of the Uniate church and allowed it to function (calling them Basilians). However immediately the clergy was split into pro-Catholic and pro-Russian, with the former tending to convert to Latin Rite Catholicism, whilst the demands of the latter group led by Bishop Joseph Semashko being firmly rejected by the ruling Uniate synod still largely controlled by the pro-Polish clergy with the Russian authorities largely refusing to interfere. The situation changed abruptly following the Russia succesfull suppression of the 1831 Polish revolt aimed at overthrowing the Russian control of the Polish territories. As the uprising was actively supported by the Uniate church, the crackdown on the Church became imminent. The pro-Latin members of the Synod were removed and the Church began to disintegrate with its parishes in Volhynia reverting to the Orthodoxy including the 1833 transfer of the famous Pochaiv Lavra. In 1839 the Synod of Polotsk (Modern Belarus) under the leadership of bishop Joseph Yamashko dissolved the uniate church in the Russian Empire, and all its property was transferred to the Orthodox state church.

The dissolution of the Uniate Church in Russia finished in 1875 with the abolition of the Eparchy of Kholm.[1]

[edit] 19th century: West Ukrainian period

With the elimination of Ruthenian Catholics on the territory of the Russian Empire during the 1800s the Pope of Rome granted the transfer of the quasi-patriarchal powers of the Major-Archepiscopate of Kiev/Halych and all Rus to the Metropolitan of Lviv (Lemberg) in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1803. Suffragan sees included Ivano-Frankivsk (then called Stanislav) and Przemyśl (Peremyshl). By the end of the century, the faithful of this church began emigrating to the U.S., Canada, and Brazil.

In Austrian Polish partition that included Galicia (modern Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and parts of Ternopil oblasts), the uniate Ruthenian (Ukrainian) peasentry was largely under the Polish Latin Catholic domination. The Austrians granted equal legal privileges to the Uniate Church and removed Polish influence. As a result, within Austrian Galicia over the next century the Uniate Church ceased being a puppet of foreign interests and became the primary cultural force within the Ukrainian community. Most independent native Ukrainian cultural trends (such as Rusynophilia, Russophilia and later Ukrainophilia) emerged from within the ranks of the Uniate Church. For many people, the Austrians were seen as having saved the Ukrainians and their Church from the Poles.

[edit] 20th century: persecution and internationalization

Ukrainian Greek Catholics found themselves under the governance of the nations of Poland, Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia after World War I. Under the previous century of the Austrian rule, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church attained such a strong Ukrainian national character that in the interwar Poland, the Greek Catholics of Galicia were seen by the nationalist Polish and Catholic state as even less reliable than the Orthodox Volhynians. Carrying its Polonization policies throughout its Eastern Territories, the Polish authorities sought to weaken the UGCC in various ways. In 1924, following a visit with the Ukrainian Catholic believers in North America and western Europe, the head of the UGCC was initially denied reentry to Lviv until after a considerable delay. Polish priests led by their bishops began to undertake missionary work among Eastern Rite faithful, and the administrative restrictions were placed on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. <ref name=Magosci>Magosci, P. (1989). Morality and Reality: the Life and Times of Andrei Sheptytsky. Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.</ref>

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The aftermath of World War II placed Ukrainian Catholics under the rule of the Soviet Union and Soviet Bloc regimes, which using positions of only a few clergy called a synod in Lviv (Lvov) and annulled the Union of Brest. Whilst officially all of the church property was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church, some clergy went underground. This catacomb church was storngly supported by the diaspora created by the mass emigration to the Western hemisphere, which began in the 1870s. The persecution led to the re-establishment of parishes eastward throughout Ukraine, and the further spread of the Church into Russia (especially Siberia) and Kazakhstan).

For the clergy that joined the Orthodoxy the Soviet athorities refrained from large-scale persecution of religion that was seen elsewhere in the country. In the city of Lviv alone only one church was closed. In fact the western diosceses of Lvov-Ternopol and Ivano-Frankovsk were the largest in the USSR. Canon law was also relaxed on the clergy allowing them to shave beards (a practice uncommon to Orthodoxy) and conduct liturgy in Ukrainian as opposed to Slavonic.

Nevertheless in 1989, at the height of the Gorbachev's liberalization reforms the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church emerged from the catacombs to find itself largely in disarray with the nearly all of its pre-1946 parish lost to the Orthodox faith. The church actively supported by nationalist organisations took an uncompromising stance towards returning its lost property and parishes. According to a Greek Catholic priest "even if the whole village is now Orthodox and one person is Greek Catholic, the church [building] belongs to that Catholic because the church was built by his grand-parents and great-grand-parents"<ref name=Wilson>Andrew Wilson, The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, p. 246, Yale University Press, 2002, ISBN 0300093098</ref> The weakened Soviet authorities were unable to pacify the situation and most of the parishes in Galicia came under the control of the Greek-Catholics during the events of a large scale inter-cofession rivarly that was often accompanied by violent clashes of the faithful provoked by their religious and political leadership.<ref name=Davis>Nathaniel Davis, A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy, p. 75, Westview Press, 2003, ISBN 0813340675</ref> These tensions led to a rupture of relations between the Patriarch of Moscow and the Pope.

Currentely the church admits between 3 and 5 million supporters on the territory of Ukraine. Worldwide, the faithful now number some 6 to 10 million, forming the largest Roman Catholic Church, after the majority Latin Church.

In the 2000s, the construction has begun for the transfer of the major see of the Ukrainian Catholic Church back to its historic home in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev; however, this move remains controversial for some Ukrainian Catholics, who view Lviv in Western Ukraine as the true stronghold of Ukrainian Catholicism, having supported and protected the Ukrainian Catholic Church through long periods of genocide and persecution. Moving the Ukrainian Catholic Church to Kiev, therefore, has taken on political overtones in the Church. The move tends to be supported by those people who favor the appointment of a Ukrainian Catholic Patriarch to oversee the Ukrainian Catholic Church. This issue has caused much controversy in the modern Ukrainian Catholic Church and was widely opposed by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchy and the Eastern Orthodox Communion, putting a major strain on their relations with the Vatican.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has moved its administrative center from western Ukrainian Lviv to a new cathedral in Kiev on 21 August of 2005. The title of the head of the UGCC was changed from The Major Archbishop of Lviv to The Major Archbishop of Kiev and Halych.

The current eparchies and other territorial jurisdictions of the church are:

Major Archeparchy of Kiev-Halych

[edit] See also

[edit] External references

Articles in Zerkalo Nedeli (Mirror Weekly): "Moscow, Vatican and an unpredictable weather in Ukraine", March 2004,in Ukrainian and in Russian
"Account of the history of the Unia and its disestablishment in 19th Century Russia" in Russian