Greek Catholics, Latin Catholics and Orthodox in Ukraine: Who’s who?

An address given by Prof. Oleh Turiy, Acting Director of the Institute of Church History in Lviv, on September 15, 2000 at a conference held in Freising, Germany

Before I begin discussing the main subject, I would like to comment briefly on the terminology that I will use. Precision and correctness in the use of these and other ideas and categories are essential, as these will determine the objectivity of the picture we are presenting, the adequacy of its reception by the audience and the solid grounds for the rest of the discussion. Perhaps some of you have noticed that in the program of this conference instead of the usual terminology which is used in the West, "Catholic, Orthodox and Uniate," the terms "Greek Catholics, Latin Catholics and Orthodox" were used. For someone not very familiar with the peculiarities of Christian History and the nuances of current interdenominational relations in Ukraine, a change like this may seem unnecessary. I think this says a great deal. First of all, this special terminology is evidence of the organizers' desire to be as prudent as possible in their formulations in order to emphasize the purpose of our meeting as accurately as possible, secondly, it indicates the existence of a serious problem regarding the identity and even the self-identification of these ecclesial communities. This question of identity is, I would suggest, a key to understanding the complicated religious situation in Ukraine. 

I will not start a theological, ecclesiological or historical analysis of the terms Orthodox and Catholic, which from the beginnings of Christianity were complementary, though not separate, categories. I must mention, however, that I will be using them according to contemporary confessional usage. According to many authoritative scholars, this usage was only completely adopted at the beginning of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the territory of Ukraine was, from the beginnings of its Christian history, one of the lands where the influences of East and West were both united and in conflict, where the differences between Christian traditions often took the form either of extended and bitter conflict or led to attempts at church union. All these historical, geopolitical, ethno-cultural and other particularities, the detailed analysis of which could be the subject of a separate discussion, have had an important influence on the development of ecclesiastical life in Ukraine throughout the ages. This influence can now be seen in the various Christian Churches and other religious organizations in contemporary Ukraine and in their complex relations with each other.

1. Historical Context

It is the Christian heritage that is without doubt dominant in the Ukrainian religious tradition and has a documented history of more than one thousand years. The identity and historical fate of the Christian Church in Ukraine was set in 988: Prince Volodymyr the Great established Christianity in its Eastern (Byzantine-Slavic) rite as the national religion of Kyivan-Rus' and the Kyivan Metropolia was created as a single hierarchical structure for the Eastern Slavs. From this time on, the gift of faith developed in the Ukrainian lands from the Byzantine tradition and was organically joined to the heritage of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Keep in mind also that the Baptism of Rus' occurred before the Great Church Schism of 1054 that divided the Christian East and West. The Rusyn Church was an integral part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and was generously enriched by the theological, liturgical, canonical and spiritual traditions of the Byzantine East, even though it remained in full communion with the Latin West. Even after the Schism of 1054, the Kyivan Metropolia remained open to mutual relations with its Western neighbors and seldom entered directly into the disputes between Constantinople and Rome. It is true that the arguments between the Christian East and West were keenly felt in the practice of the religious life in the Ukrainian lands from the very beginnings of its Christianization. This, however, was much more evident after the lands of the former Kyivan-Rus' lost their national independence and most of its territory passed under the domination of the neighboring nations of Hungary, Lithuania and Poland. The majority of the ruling elite in these countries was Roman (Latin) Catholic and the faithful of the Eastern rite suffered discrimination. With the support of the civil authorities a parallel hierarchical structure of Latins arose in the 14th Century alongside the ancient episcopacy of the Kyivan Metropolia. This spread the Latin influence and catholicised and polonised portions of the local population. 

Though geopolitical conditions and historical development discouraged it, the Rusyn hierarchy made serious efforts at restoring Christian unity. Representatives from Rus' took part in the Western councils in Lyon (1245) and Constance (1418) and the Union of Florence (1439) was positively received in Ukrainian and Belarusian lands. Kyivan Metropolitan Isidore was himself one of the creators of this union. The seed of Christian harmony, nevertheless, was still unable to blossom in the grounds of political struggle and religious prejudice.

The refusal to accept the Union of Florence, combined with other ecclestiastical-cultural and national-political factors, led the Church of Moscow to separate from the ancient Kyivan metropolia and in 1448 it announced its autocephaly (self-governing status). In 1589, by taking advantage of the subjugation of Greek Orthodoxy to Turkish domination, the Church of Moscow became a patriarchate that supported the plans of Moscow's secular leaders for political rule over the lands of the ancient Kyivan nation and also advanced its claims to a providential role as the Third Rome in the Christian world.

The episcopate of the Kyivan metropolia at the end of the 16th Century, however, had a very different orientation; it accepted the decision of its synod to pass under the jurisdiction of the See of Rome, provided that its traditional Eastern rite would be preserved and its own ecclesial and ethnic-cultural existence would be guaranteed. This came about because of the bishops' desire to bring the Church out of a serious internal crisis and because of their concern about the aggressive challenges of the Protestant Reformation and Post-Tridentine Catholicism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

This model of church reunion was confirmed at the Council of Brest in 1596, which is the beginning of the institutional existence of the Church reunited with Rome and known as Uniate or Greek Catholic. Not all the hierarchs and faithful of the Kyivan Metropolia supported this, as some of them were dissatisfied with the Roman vision of union and insisted on maintaining canonical dependence on the Patriarchate of Constantinople. They demanded the ordination of a parallel hierarchy (1620) and its official recognition by the secular authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1632). The result was the confessional division of the Rusyn Church into two jurisdictions.

Throughout the following centuries bitter polemics took place, and continue to this day, between supporters and opponents of the Union of Brest. Socio-economic, ethno-cultural and national-political conflicts manifested themselves in the form of religious disputes. As a result, in 1654 the central and eastern sections of Ukraine passed under "the high hand of the ruler of Moscow, which had a single faith." The Orthodox Kyivan Metropolia was soon under the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate (1686) and from this time on, the Russian civil and ecclesiastical authorities used all their efforts to root out any distinctive features of the Ukrainian Orthodox tradition, to unite the religious life of the faithful and to transform the Church itself into an instrument for russifying the Ukrainians.

Increasingly, these features of the national and ecclesiastical politics of Russia were evident in dealings with the united (Uniate) Church. Each time the Tsarist Empire extended its power in the adjacent Ukrainian land, it began repressions against the Uniates and forced their conversion to Russian Orthodoxy (1772, 1795, 1839, 1876). The close connections of the Russian Orthodox Church with the imperial power and the Great Russian national interests, led to dissatisfaction among the Orthodox clergy and laity of Ukraine and the birth of Ukrainophile movements at the end of the 19th Century. After the 1917 Revolution a movement arose demanding autocephaly for Ukrainian Orthodoxy but attempts to proclaim autocephaly in the 1920s and 1940s were severely opposed by the Moscow Patriarchy and repressed by the Soviet powers.

However, the western section of Ukraine remained a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and with the support of the civil authorities the Church united with Rome and by the end of the 18th Century encompassed all the faithful of the Eastern rite. Though the Polish secular and ecclesiastical elite attempted to transform the church union into a tool for full latinization, the Church played the leading role in preserving the cultural and religious independence of the Ukrainian population. When the western Ukrainian lands passed under Austrian rule, the Greek Catholic hierarchy received the support and the protection of the imperial government and it was under this Habsburg rule that the former Uniates began to be officially called Greek Catholics. The civil authorities encouraged the formation of an ecclesiastical administrative structure for the Greek Catholics. In 1771 the independence of the Mukachevo eparchy in Transcarpathia was declared and in 1807 the Metropolia of Halych [Galicia] in western Ukraine was restored.

The educational reforms of the Habsburg rulers Maria-Teresa and Joseph II gave Ukrainian youth access to education in their native language. Greek Catholics were given equal legal status with the faithful of the Latin rite and their spiritual leaders were provided with a minimal material subsistence. This led to the close integration of the Greek Catholic Church with the national political structure and social life and the active participation of the clergy in the Ukrainian national movement.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the Greek Catholic Church in Halychyna was graced with the exemplary leadership of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky (1901-1944). His spiritual leadership occurred in the difficult times of two stormy world wars and seven changes of political regime (Austrian, Russian, again Austrian, Ukrainian, Polish, Soviet, Nazi and again Soviet). Nevertheless, his tireless pastoral work, his concern for education and culture, his defense of the national and social rights of his people, his charitable activities and his ecumenical efforts made Sheptytsky the undisputed leader and moral authority of Ukrainian society. The Church itself became an influential social institution in western Ukraine.

2. Legacy of Totalitarianism

The tragedy of the twentieth Century, the epoch of terror and violence, has had perhaps the most direct effect on the development of religious life in contemporary Ukraine. Approximately 17 million people are estimated to have died violent deaths in Ukraine in that century. It is all the more tragic that these losses were caused not only by war and conflict but also by Utopian ideals of reorganizing the world. Since it was not possible to speak of this savagery in public or even in private conversations during the Soviet era, this tragedy never took root in the consciousness of society, the deaths remained unmourned, the violence and injuries unforgiven, the psychological and spiritual wounds unhealed. Deep traumas left their mark, both on those who were persecuted and on the persecutors themselves. Dignity defiled, honor gone, morality degraded, consciousness deformed - these are the notable characteristics of the new human being, homo sovieticus, the type of person who survived the system that gave him birth.

The premeditated persecution of religion and the propagation of atheism became an integral part of the tragedy of bloody violence in Ukraine. Eager to solidify its totalitarian rule, the communist regime could not tolerate the existence of a structure that proclaimed other human values. The war on religion became the government ideology; no effort was spared to firmly establish this and no methods were overlooked. Church buildings were ruined, burnt down and profaned; priests and faithful, Orthodox, Catholic and representatives of other denominations and religions were shot or arrested and deported to the Siberian gulags. Churches and other religious communities were persecuted, confined to underground activities or entirely destroyed as, for example, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church [UAOC] at the beginning of the 1930s and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church [UGCC] in 1946 in Halychyna and in 1949 in Transcarpathia. These are the marks of real socialism.

The existence of the religious communities which survived and were formally permitted by the atheistic regime was limited for many decades to a narrow, private sphere, if one can even talk in these terms about such a system of thorough ideological control and indoctrination. Whole generations were deprived of the freedom of religious expression, long-standing religious traditions were forgotten, there was a progressive spiritual vacuum and a deepening demoralization of society.

There was another notable aspect of Soviet religious policies; after Stalin made a corrective manoeuvre during the years of World War Two, the legally functioning church structures became instruments used to further the political goals of the atheistic regime. A special place was reserved for the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) as "defender of the socialist fatherland," co-creator of "a new historical community, the Soviet people" and the mouthpiece of "Soviet peace-loving policies" in the international arena.

Having achieved a modus vivendi with the Communist authorities, the ROC had certain advantages. The attempts at autocephaly in Ukraine were paralyzed, the ROC extended its canonical territory and increased the number of its churches and faithful at the expense of the liquidated UGCC. It also brought some Orthodox dioceses and churches under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate that had never before belonged to it. The influence of the ROC in world Orthodoxy and in the Christian Oikumene in general was strengthened. 

With the crisis of Soviet power and Gorbachev's perestroika at the end of the 1980s, however, all these advantages showed their other side. The ROC was discredited in the eyes of a portion of its clergy and faithful and it became the object of criticism by dissidents and the national-democratic movement. With the emergence of the formerly forbidden UGCC from the underground and the creation of communities of the UAOC in 1989, the ROC began to lose its former monolithic status. At the same time the unprecedented rise in religiosity in the new conditions of freedom was accompanied by increasingly bitter conflicts in Ukraine, which seriously complicated international ecumenical relations. The declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991 created a new national-political context for the activities of all the churches in this territory.


3. Modern Structures
The present confessional map of Ukraine shows those who call themselves Orthodox to be the majority with 12,400 of the total 23,600 religious communities. This and further statistical data are from the Ukrainian government’s Committee on Religious Affairs as on 1 January, 2000. Ukrainian Orthodoxy, in fact, is itself not a monolith, but is divided into at least three major jurisdictions:

1. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, canonically subject to the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), has 8490 communities, the majority of which are in the central and southeastern parts of Ukraine, 113 monasteries with 3396 monks and nuns, 7122 priests, 8166 churches and a further 759 that are being built. This is the former Ukrainian exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). In January 1990 it received its new name and at the end of October of that year it was granted self-governing status.

The request of the local council of the UOC-MP to receive canonical autocephaly after the announcement of the independence of the Ukrainian nation in 1991 was not granted by the council of hierarchs of the ROC, and the head of the UOC-MP, Metropolitan Filaret (Denysenko) was deprived of his status. The great majority of bishops of the UOC-MP repudiated their signatures in support of autocephaly and in May 1992 elected Volodymyr Sabodan as the new head of the Church. Formerly the Metropolitan of Rostov and Novocherkassiy, Sabodan is still governing the affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, with the title of Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine.

2. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) has 989 communities, 79% of which are located in Western Ukraine, 2 monasteries, in which there are 2 monks, 602 priests, 661 churches and a further 103 which are being built. Its first communities began to appear in western Ukraine in August 1989 after Volodymyr Yarema, the pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Lviv, left the jurisdiction of the ROC and Ivan Bondarchuk, one of the bishops of the ROC, joined the movement for autocephaly. The spread of autocephaly in Ukraine occurred not only as part of a dispute with the Moscow Patriarchate but also in fierce competition with the revival of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and with the support of the Orthodox Churches of the Ukrainian diaspora in North America.

One of the hierarchs of these diaspora Churches, Mstyslav Skrypnyk, was proclaimed head of the UAOC. In June 1990 at a council of this Church he was elected Patriarch of Kyiv and all Rus-Ukraine. Dymytriy Yarema became his successor in 1993. After Dymytriy’s death in February 2000 and in accord with his testament, the name of Metropolitan Kostyantyn, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA, which is in the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, is to be commemorated in the churches of the UAOC. 

3. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP) has 2491 communities, of which about a third are in the central regions and 12% in the southeastern areas of Ukraine. It has 17 monasteries, 87 monks and nuns, about 2000 priests, 1825 churches and another 217 which are being built. It was created in June 1992 by Metropolitan Filaret (Denysenko), who was removed from the direction of the UOC-MP, and his supporters from a part of the episcopate of the UAOC. The civil authorities at that time encouraged this through members of parliament and political parties of the so called national and radical nationalist orientations. Since October 1995 Filaret has been the head of this Church, with the title Patriarch of Kyiv and all Rus-Ukraine.

The last two Churches (UAOC and UOC-KP) do not at the present time have official recognition from Orthodox Churches in other countries and so are considered uncanonical. According to the legislation of the Ukrainian government these are all legal Churches and, together with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, belong to the category of traditional Churches.

There are other groups of the Eastern Christian tradition also active in Ukraine: the Old Believers with 66 communities, the Free Russian Orthodox Church (outside Russia), the Russian True Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, Greek communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Russian communities directly under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate and a few other independent Orthodox communities. These groups do not have general national influence nor ambitions, inasmuch as they are composed of communities of national minorities or are numerically small communities that arose as a result of schisms within the Russian Orthodox Church.

Catholics in Ukraine are also of different types and their differences have an ecclesiastical and historical basis:

a) Catholics of the Eastern rite (Uniates ) are heirs of the Union of Brest of 1596, which the hierarchy of the Kyivan Metropolia established with the See of Rome. They make up the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), which was liquidated by Stalin’s regime and forcibly united with the Russian Orthodox Church after World War Two. Regardless of the fact that it was officially forbidden and harshly persecuted, this Church preserved its hierarchical structures in the underground and diaspora. In December 1989 it requested official legalization. In the spring of 1991 the late Myroslav Cardinal Ivan Lubachivsky, at that time the head of the Church, returned from exile to his see in Lviv. Today the UGCC has the second largest number of religious communities in Ukraine. There are 7 eparchies (dioceses) in western Ukraine and one exarchate (for Central and Eastern Ukraine), 14 bishops, 78 monasteries with 1188 monks and nuns, 1976 priests (of whom 53 are foreign citizens), 3240 parishes, 2721 churches (a further 306 are being built) and the total number of faithful is estimated to be between 4.5 and 6 million. In 2001 Lubomyr Husar was elected the new head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and was subsequently named cardinal.

b) “Latins” are members of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in Ukraine, whose hierarchical structures in the past were spread over those Ukrainian lands that became incorporated into neighboring nations where Roman Catholics were in the majority. After these territories were incorporated into the USSR, the Soviet power liquidated the diocesan network of the Roman (Latin) Catholics, deporting and repressing a significant portion of its clergy and faithful. Only about one hundred parishes remained under the severe government control. Now the RCC in Ukraine has 4 dioceses and 1 apostolic administrature (in Transcarpathia), 9 bishops, 38 monasteries with 262 monks and nuns, 408 priests (of whom 278 are foreign citizens), 674 churches (with a further 65 being built), 772 communities, of which more than half are located in the central regions (Vinnyts’kiy, Khmel’nyts’kiy, Zhytomyr and Kyiv). The number of faithful is not clear. Depending on different estimates there could be as few as 200,000 or as many as 800,000.
Marian Cardinal Jaworski is the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine.

Both Catholic Churches are Churches sui juris. They are in full and visible ecclesial communion with the Roman Apostolic See, but they have separate eparchial (diocesan) structures, liturgical life, canonical order and historical and cultural characteristics. 

In 1996 the first and, to the present, the only community of the Armenian Catholic Church was restored in Lviv. Before World War Two they had their own archiepiscopal see in Lviv.

A significant number of believers in Ukraine belong to Protestant Churches, church groups (5952 communities, which account for 26.1% of the entire number of religious communities in Ukraine) and other religious faiths, in particular, non-traditional and new religious movements (48 denominations, 1083 communities). The number of communities and the number of faithful of these are growing dynamically, but this matter goes beyond the scope of our present discussion.

4. Identity

The problem of identity sharply affects those Churches that the Ukrainian government terms traditional, the three major Orthodox jurisdictions and Greek Catholics, or historical, namely the triad, Orthodox, Greek Catholics and Latin Catholics. The problems are manifested in three main spheres, governmental, nationality and ecclesial. The difficulties regarding church identity, even though each has its own character, are all exacerbated by the present instability of Ukrainian society. This instability is caused by the long absence of a tradition of independent national government, the eclecticism of the national political, social and economic order, the incomplete process of formation of the nation and historical, cultural and regional differences. Civil institutions are weak, there are human rights abuses, there is spiritual devastation, demoralization and other consequences of the totalitarian regime and the more distant past. This problem of identification cannot be explained simply as a transient situation or the slow development of Ukraine; it is the result of radical changes which have occurred in society and which require appropriate responses from the Churches, which for decades were on the margins of social life or were forcibly split from society. 

In the case of the Orthodox these difficulties of self-identification are perhaps felt most, primarily because the Orthodox Churches have the institutional problems of schism, with several jurisdictions fighting among themselves. While remaining aware of the whole complexity of the processes that have led to the divisions in Ukrainian Orthodoxy, we can distinguish the main orientations of each of the currently existing jurisdictions.

1. The creation of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) was, initially, a consequence of an internal crisis within the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). The ROC was used in the assimilationist policies of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union that aimed at the cultural russification of Ukrainians and the russification of the Ukrainian Orthodox tradition. It collaborated closely with the atheistic, totalitarian regime. This led a part of the Orthodox hierarchy, clergy and faithful, mainly in western Ukraine, to separate itself from this heritage and to link its ecclesial identity to a preserved or re-awakened Ukrainian nationalism. The desire for Ukrainian autocephaly occurred at the same time as the growth of the national movement, with the result that its ideology initially had a populist character, as with the Orthodoxy of the Cossacks, and a definite wish to differentiate itself from Catholicism, things Polish, the Soviets and Russia. 

The leaders and activists of the UAOC also spoke of a rebirth of the precedents of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1940s. However, the first contemporary communities of the UAOC appeared in Halychyna (western Ukraine), where, before World War Two, there was literally only a handful of Orthodox parishes. Having passed through a series of unions and internal schisms, the UAOC is now coming to a deeper understanding of the national, historical, ecclesial and canonical foundations of present-day autocephaly.

2. The following were the consequences of the crisis in post-soviet Orthodoxy: the development of the leadership of the Ukrainian exarchate in the person of Metropolitan Filaret and his supporters in the form of canonical autonomy and autocephaly, the break with the ROC and the declaration of a Kyivan Patriarchate. In the course of time the rhetoric altered and heated arguments using the terms Uniate or schismatic gradually changed to nationalistic and patriotic demands for the union of all Christians and Churches of the Byzantine-Ukrainian tradition in this self-proclaimed patriarchate. The dominant idea behind the creation and development of the UOC-KP was, and remains, support for the new Ukrainian government by a single national Church and for close working relations with the secular authorities.

3. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) is often perceived as fearful of any changes whatsoever. In spite of its unclear autonomous status, it continues to maintain its subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate. It makes sharp condemnations using words like separatist and schismatic. Even though there are some grounds for the use of these terms, it is necessary to maintain canonical order and preserve "the pure faith and unity of the Church". The use of such harsh terms is inappropriate considering the multinational character of the clergy and faithful of the UOC-MP itself.

Because of its own innate conservatism and the rhetoric that it has inherited from Soviet times, the UOC-MP has been unable or unwilling to acknowledge the new conditions of civil and religious life in Ukraine. For a Church which throughout the centuries has considered itself to be the spiritual guardian of a different nation, for a Church which was an integral part of the power structures of a different government and did not admit the possibility of other Churches of equal standing within the boundaries of its canonical territory, it is difficult to accept changes. This difficulty will continue until the hierarchy of the UOC-MP can explain, first of all to itself and to its own faithful, what its name really signifies.

The Roman (Latin) Catholic Church in Ukraine also has identity problems because, at one time, nearly all those who belonged to the Latin rite were of Polish or, in Transcarpathia, of Hungarian nationality. During Soviet times the number of Roman Catholics significantly decreased because of the mass deportation of the Polish population, repression of the clergy and natural assimilation. With the declaration of Ukrainian independence its faithful became Ukrainian citizens, the majority of whom are from mixed families and speak Ukrainian or Russian. At the same time a large number of its clergy are of Polish background or even citizens of Poland. With this in mind, the hierarchy of the RCC in Ukraine has two alternatives, either polonization (and in some individual cases, re-polonization) or ukrainianization (that is, inculturation). The first alternative, polonization through latinization, is well known from history; the second exists more on the level of natural social contact, having neither a theoretical foundation nor any clear promotion. Another difficulty for the identity of Roman (Latin) Catholics in Ukraine lies in the fact that in the past they were members of the Church of the ruling power, but now they are forced to accept their position as a religious minority.

It could be expected that Ukrainian Greek Catholics would have the greatest problems with their identity. Only fifteen years ago this Church was officially non-existent within the USSR and, today, many think its existence an historical mistake, a failed experiment and the main obstacle to the success of worldwide ecumenism. In other words, the very existence of this Church as a separate church is problematical, whether in relation to its acceptance by others or in relation to its own self-identification. The idea of union as an intermediate stage on the way to the more perfect and more "worthy" Latin rite, or as a model for extending papal jurisdiction to the non-united East, has not withstood the test of time. In fact, this concept today is unequivocally condemned by both Catholics and Orthodox and also, officially, by the Uniates themselves. 

Nevertheless, this Church has survived the test not only of time, but also of constant repression, prohibition and so-called "re-union" with Orthodoxy over a period of more than four centuries. It maintains, as the essential characteristics of its identity, the ethos of Eastern Christianity, jurisdictional union with the Holy See and Eucharistic communion with Latins.

Since the middle of the nineteenth century the Greek Catholic clergy in Halychyna (western Ukraine) have been closely identified with the Ukrainian national movement and the struggle for Ukrainian statehood. This affected the complex relations with Roman Catholics and became the grounds for repression by the Soviet power. At the end of the 1980s, the Greek Catholic movement for the legalization of their church was an integral part of the opposition to the totalitarian regime, the promotion of democracy and national revival. The clergy and laity of the UGCC had no difficulty with national and civil identification and at the same time had great moral authority as the largest banned Church in the world and the largest structure of resistance to the Communist regime that had survived underground and helped to bring about the collapse of that same regime. The UGCC encouraged the renewal of spiritual life and attracted many people into active church attendance who had been far from religion because of atheistic propaganda and the suppression of freedom of conscience. 

In contemporary conditions, however, a section of the clergy and the lay activists overemphasize civil and political matters. This, combined with an inadequate theological and ecumenical formation, has undermined, to some extent, the great trust that the Church had earned. This hinders the Church's spiritual mission and encourages feelings of xenophobia. These feelings are manifested in conflicts with the Orthodox and misunderstandings with Roman (Latin) Catholics. They are also manifested in the complex relations of Galician Greek Catholics with the dioceses of Transcarpathian Ukraine, which date back to the Union of Uzhorod in 1646, which historically did not belong to the Galician metropolia and to this day are not under the jurisdiction of the head of the UGCC.

Within the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church itself there exist fairly serious divergences between the Eastern tradition and membership in the Catholic Church, between universality and local factors, between involvement with the state and government on the one hand and social and spiritual service on the other, between loyalty to the country and dependence on foreign governing centers (to use official post-soviet terminology). There are even divergences regarding the possibilities of Christian reconciliation and ecumenical dialogue in Ukraine and in the world. This is reflected not only in ancient polemics about liturgy and rite, but also in the divisions among clergy and congregations between pro-East and pro-West, between veterans of the underground and converts from Orthodoxy or, even, newcomers from the diaspora. Then there is also the discussion about a new name for the Church. The following variations have been suggested: the Kyivan Catholic Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox-Catholic Church, the Ukrainian Catholic Church and simply keeping the present name.

5. Conflicts
The problem of the self-identity of Greek Catholics, Latins and Orthodox in Ukraine is, I would say, the main source of tension and conflicts in inter-denominational relations. The absence of a positive response to the question "Who are you?" leads to attempts to emphasize and confirm self-identity by separation from others with the formula "We are not them," which often is stated more categorically with the words, "only us, and not them." 

Most often the West associates religious life in Ukraine with conflicts between denominations. This is often the case because of distorted mass media reports and sometimes because of the tendency to project the miseries of interested parties onto the problems of others, but there is only one conflict that really describes the situation, that between Orthodox and Catholic. Even this conflict has its own peculiarities and evaluations depend on which Churches are being considered. The characteristic feature of mutual accusations is, by and large, a difference of emphasis.

The Moscow Patriarchate considers the legalization of the UGCC a sign of the perpetual aggression of the Vatican and the consequence is proselytism in its canonical territory. All this is regardless of the fact that Eastern rite parishes in Halychyna and in Transcarpathia never were part of the jurisdiction of Moscow and became part of the ROC only after the brutal and extremely uncanonical ending of the Union by Stalin's regime. In fact, those who first joined the restored UGCC were those, or their descendants, who earlier had belonged to it and freely made this choice. To insist on categories like canonical territory at a time when there exist ideas like human rights and freedom of conscience seems, at the very least, anachronistic. At the same time, the dynamically growing structures of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine do not draw such harsh reactions from the ROC. Paradoxically, the growth of Roman Catholic structures is a source of concern for Greek Catholics. A similar situation exists with the complaints of the Moscow Patriarchy about the so-called occupation and, more recently, profanation, of Orthodox churches by Greek Catholics in western Ukraine. However, the statistics show that the great majority of conflicts regarding church buildings are between Greek Catholic and Autocephalous, rather than Moscow Patriarchate communities or between different Orthodox jurisdictions. This problem is gradually decreasing because of the building of new churches or agreements made to share buildings and celebrate liturgies at different times. Very often representatives of the UOC-MP will not accept such agreements and traditionally refer to canonical obstacles. In like manner, some Greek Catholics, in conflicts with Orthodox who belong to noncanonical jurisdictions, are often ready to imagine the tricks of all-powerful agents of the KGB at work and see the supposedly omnipresent hand of Moscow.

It is no exaggeration, in even a pious analysis of the development and substance of the existing difficulties of religious life in Ukraine, to state that at present arguments occurring within individual denominations are more heated than those between denominations.

1. In the Orthodox sphere this conflict is between the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Churches with irregular canonical status. This, in fact, is a dispute between Ukrainian, with an emphasis on national or state interests, and non-Ukrainian identities. The latter term does not necessarily mean anti-Ukrainian. Sociologists have observed the presence in modern Ukraine of Orthodox, with a Soviet national and political sympathy and a unique type of Orthodox atheists. In the ecclesiastical field this conflict takes the form of the eternal conflict between parents and children. In this situation the basis of these disputes is the question of whether or not the Moscow Church can be considered the Mother Church of the Kyivan Church, or about the family relationship between all these Churches and Constantinople? An important feature of the conflict among the Orthodox is its absolute character. The participants in this conflict cannot reconcile themselves to the fact of the existence of parallel structures, calling them either foreign agents or unblessed schismatics, and set as their goal the full liquidation of all opponents. One more potentially dangerous characteristic of the struggle within Ukrainian Orthodoxy is its tendency to grow into a nationwide conflict. This is in contrast to the conflicts with Greek Catholics that, as a rule, are limited to property issues and localized in the western part of Ukraine. The intensity of the conflicts between the Orthodox in Ukraine is increasing with the direct interference of various political powers and power structures, both Ukrainian and foreign.

These conflicts, as they escalate in certain directions, can take the form of arguments between ethnic groups, such as that between Ukrainians and the so-called Russian speaking population of Ukraine itself, and between governments, such as that between the Ukrainians and Russians, for whom the defense of its fellow countrymen in neighboring lands is one of the main priorities of its foreign policy doctrine which aims at regaining influence among the former members of the Soviet Union. The growth of conflict between the Orthodox in Ukraine conceals within itself the danger of increasing division in world Orthodoxy. This could happen if, for example, Constantinople were to acknowledge Ukrainian autocephaly or if the national Autocephalous Churches, dissatisfied with the pretensions of Moscow to a dominating role, were to establish relations with the uncanonical jurisdictions in Ukraine and even if a unique uncanonical International were to form around Kyiv. 

2. The internal differences amongst the Catholics are neither so sharp nor dramatic. They have, instead, the character of strategic competition between two local Churches with different ritual traditions. However, this struggle also has its centuries old tradition, as it carries the weight of historical rivalry between Ukrainians and Poles and mutual accusations of nationalism. We cannot help but notice that relations between Ukraine and Poland, contacts between secular intellectuals and even exchanges at the level of the mass movement of small-time merchants, were certainly never so lively and friendly in the past as today. This is especially the case when contrasted with the cooling of relations between the Churches because of, for example, the situation of the Greek Catholic Cathedral in Peremyshl. Another sore point in relations between Greek and Roman Catholics are the remaining traces of the concept praestantia ritus latini, the pre-eminence of the Latin rite. This, at least, seems to be apparent in the way Greek Catholics are received by their Latin brethren. They can be seen, for example, in the Vatican's delay in acknowledging the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Patriarchate, in obstacles to spreading the juridical structures of the UGCC to eastern parts of Ukraine, in the limitation of the pastoral work of married priests in the diaspora and so on. The better material and financial support of Latin clergy and the limited direct contacts and concrete cooperation between Greeks and Latins are also a cause of suspicion and distrust.

The changes in the historic roles of both Catholic Churches as a result of the development of Catholic ecclesiology after the Second Vatican Council, demographic changes in Ukraine and Ukrainian political independence, have all caused some tension. Latins are now not only a religious minority but also a minority among Catholics in Ukraine. They must either come to terms with this role or they must direct all their efforts to becoming the majority. This last possibility is one cause of the struggle on the part of Greek Catholics. Greek Catholics themselves are faced with the difficult challenge of not using their position as the more numerous and traditional Church to revenge history but to work to overcome historic misunderstandings and improve cooperation.

In this respect it can be seen that the orientation of religious conflicts in Ukraine is not only to local confessional or jurisdictional matters but also to a more universal sphere. It also lies in arguments between those who emphasize the historical, ecclesial, cultural, national and other peculiarities of Kyiv centered Ukrainian Christianity and those who use universal considerations and are orientated towards ecclesial authorities outside of Ukraine and to non-Ukrainian national and political influences.

6. Prospects for the Future

Although we hear mostly about conflicts, there are events which show that there is a gradual decrease of tensions and which give chances of improving relations. These events are assisted by the democratic political system of Ukraine, together with all its post-totalitarian problems, and by the peaceful co-existence of differing ethnic groups despite occasionally aggressive rhetoric and xenophobic habits. There is a growing acceptance of the fact that all Christian Churches have a spiritual mission in Ukrainian society. 

It is a great pity that we are unable to say that the situation has calmed down as a result of the conscious and intentional activities of these same Churches for reconciliation and understanding. The present compromise that has been reached is not so much the result of the Christian imperative to love but the consequence of mutual advances and the common interests of separate Churches under pressure from external factors. Also, the government has taken an interest in the internal stability of the Churches. Ukrainian society, often caught up in problems of physical survival, is simply exhausted from continuing internal struggles. The worldwide Christian community, disturbed by the religious misunderstandings in Ukraine, desires to involve the Ukrainian Churches in international ecumenical activities. The existing calm comes not so much from a balance of power but from a balance of weakness of the Churches in the face of the challenges of post-totalitarian commotion and misery, hypocritical consumerism, a great hunger for spiritual ideals, global secularization, popular mass culture (or, better, lack of culture), deep demoralization and the aggressive missionary activities of the new sects and quasi-religious movements.

Therefore, the awareness of all these and many other challenges and the readiness to present a Christian response, the understanding of our own ecclesial identity and the recovery of common Christian fundamentals are not merely distant possibilities but also the demand of our times. This is the path that Christianity in Ukraine must take if it is to have a future.