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75-922: History of Christianity in Ukraine The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church ( UGCC ) is a major archiepiscopal sui iuris ("autonomous") Eastern Catholic church that is based in Ukraine . As a particular church of the Catholic Church , it is in full communion with the Holy See . It is the third-largest particular church in the Catholic Church after the Latin Church and the Syro-Malabar Church . The major archbishop presides over

150-479: A patriarch , which met with strong support as well as controversy. Pope Paul VI demurred, but compromised with the creation of a new title of major archbishop (assigned to Yosyf Slipyi on 23 December 1963 ), with a jurisdiction roughly equivalent to that of a patriarch in an Eastern church. This title has since passed to Myroslav Ivan Lubachivsky in 1984 and thereafter to Lubomyr Husar in 2000 and Sviatoslav Shevchuk in 2011; this title has also been granted to

225-465: A catch-all term for Eastern Catholics under its rule until 1918. The Ruthenian population of Galicia and Bukovyna began to increasingly identify themselves as Ukrainian, emphasizing the connection to Ukrainians in the Russian Empire, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The papal statistical yearbook Annuario Pontificio began referring to the church as Ukrainian from 1912. In the wake of

300-746: A fierce sense of loyalty to the Habsburg dynasty. When Polish rebels briefly took control of Lviv in 1809, they demanded that the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Antin Anhelovych , substitute Napoleon 's name in the Divine Liturgy for that of Austrian Emperor Francis I . Anhelovych refused, and was imprisoned. When the Austrians retook control over Lviv, Anhelovych was awarded the cross of Leopold by

375-693: A similar yearbook in French called Annuaire Pontifical Catholique , not compiled by the Holy See. This contained much additional information, such as detailed historical articles on the Swiss Guards and the Papal Palace at the Vatican . The Annuario Pontificio provides the Catholic Church's list of popes . As historical questions are reinterpreted by each successive pope, they are recognized in

450-475: A thousand Ukrainian Uniate parishes were taken over by Orthodox priests. According to Larry Wolff of American Academy of Arts and Sciences , the years of Polish partitions were "years of lawless bullying in Ukraine, which remained in a state of suspended irregularity while Catherine fought her wars and negotiated the partition". Following the failure of Kościuszko Insurrection and the final partition of Poland ,

525-652: The Acta Apostolicae Sedis , was declared the only "official" publication of the Holy See. In 1912, it resumed the title Annuario Pontificio . From 1912 to 1924, it included not only lists of names, but also brief illustrative notes on departments of the Roman Curia and on certain posts within the papal court , a practice to which it returned in 1940. For some years, beginning in 1898, the Maison de la Bonne Presse publishing house of Paris produced

600-541: The Annuario Pontificio . For example, the 1942 Annuario Pontificio recognized the decisions of the Council of Pisa (1409), listing three popes for the period: Gregory XII (1406–1409), Alexander V (1409–1410), and John XXIII (1410–1415). The Western Schism was reinterpreted when Pope John XXIII (1958–1963) chose to reuse the ordinal XXIII, citing "twenty-two Johns of indisputable legitimacy." This

675-560: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . Its new primates were styled " Metropolitans of Kiev, Galicia and all Ruthenia ". He appointed Gregory II Bulgarian as the new Greek Catholic primate, who rejoined the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople under Dionysius I of Constantinople in 1470. This situation continued for some time, and in the intervening years what is now western and central Ukraine came under

750-667: The Pontifical Yearbook of 2022 , the number of Catholics in the world increased to 1,359,612,000 at the end of 2020. A yearbook of the Catholic Church was published, with some interruptions, from 1716 to 1859 by the Cracas printing firm in Rome, under the title Information for the Year ... ( Italian : Notizie per l'Anno ... ) From 1851, a department of the Holy See began producing a different publication called Hierarchy of

825-561: The Ruthenian Uniate Church , where Ruthenia is the anglicization of Rus' , the medieval kingdom that ruled what is now Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia, and uniate means 'part of a union', in this case the Union of Brest (1595). However, the term Uniate became a term of abuse in writings by Orthodox authors, and fell of out favour among Greek Catholics themselves. The people in this church were referred to by

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900-567: The UNA-UNSO , took an uncompromising stance towards the return of 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 grandparents and great-grandparents." History of Christianity in Ukraine Too Many Requests If you report this error to

975-671: The Union of Brest , the Ruthenian church was transferred from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to the jurisdiction of the Holy See in 1596, thereby forming the Ruthenian Uniate Church . The Union of Brest was a treaty between the Ruthenian Orthodox Church in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , under the leadership of the metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus'— Michael III —on one part, and

1050-564: The 1960s when their organizers were arrested. In 1974, a clandestine convent was uncovered in Lviv. During the Soviet era, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church did flourish throughout the Ukrainian diaspora. Cardinal Yosyf Slipyi was jailed as a dissident but named in pectore (in secret) a cardinal in 1949; he was freed in 1963 and was the subject of an extensive campaign to have him named as

1125-523: The 20th century. In 1945, Soviet authorities arrested, deported, and sentenced to forced-labor camps in Siberia and elsewhere the church's metropolitan Yosyf Slipyi and nine other Greek Catholic bishops, as well as hundreds of clergy and leading lay activists. In Lviv alone, 800 priests were imprisoned. All the above-mentioned bishops and significant numbers of clergymen died in prisons, concentration camps, internal exile, or soon after their release during

1200-543: The Catholic hierarchy primarily as Graeci catholici ( Greek Catholics ) because they used the "Greek" or Byzantine Rite , as well as more specifically Rutheni catholici ( Ruthenian Catholics). The leader of the Church was called Metropolita Kioviensis or "Metropolitan of Kiev" and sometimes also "of Galicia and all Rus'" until 1805. The Austrian Empire later used Griechisch-katolisch (German for 'Greek Catholic') as

1275-402: The Church arranges the same data by country and continent. According to the Annuario Pontificio 2012 the statistical data given in the yearbook regarding archdioceses and dioceses are furnished by the diocesan curias concerned and reflect the diocesan situation on 31 December of the year prior to the date on the yearbook, unless there is another indication. The data recorded are shown in

1350-727: The Emperor. As a result of the reforms, over the next century the Greek-Catholic Church in Austrian Galicia ceased being a puppet of foreign interests and became the primary cultural force within the Ukrainian community. Most independent native Ukrainian cultural and political trends (such as Rusynophilia, Russophilia and later Ukrainophilia ) emerged from within the ranks of the Greek-Catholic Church clergy . The participation of Greek Catholic priests or their children in western Ukrainian cultural and political life

1425-725: The Eparchy of Volodymyr, for example, two different lay noblemen were both appointed as bishop by the Polish king. Both "bishops" hired mercenaries and fought a pitched battle over control of the Eparchy, before the Polish king finally stepped in and appointed one of the two candidates to an adjacent Orthodox See. Meanwhile, the religious renewal caused by the Counter-Reformation among Latin Catholics in Poland and Lithuania drew

1500-528: The Greek-Catholic Church and removed Polish influence. They also mandated that Uniate seminarians receive a formal higher education (previously, priests had been educated informally by their fathers), and organized institutions in Vienna and Lviv that would serve this function. This led to the appearance, for the first time, of a large, educated class within the Ukrainian population in Galicia. It also engendered

1575-677: The Greek-Catholic Church in Russia was completed in 1875 with the abolition of the Eparchy of Kholm . By the end of the century, those remaining faithful to this church began emigrating to the U.S., Canada, and Brazil due to persecution by the Orthodox Church and the Russian Empire, e.g. the Pratulin Martyrs . Despite being once the majority religion in Ukraine, the Uniate church was now mostly confined to Eastern Galicia . Within

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1650-657: The Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church Worldwide ( Italian : Gerarchia della Santa Chiesa Cattolica Apostolica Romana in Tutto L'Orbe ), which took the title Annuario Pontificio in 1860 but ceased publication in 1870. This was the first yearbook published by the Holy See itself, but its compilation was entrusted to the newspaper Giornale di Roma . The Monaldi Brothers ( Italian : Fratelli Monaldi ) began in 1872 to produce their own yearbook entitled The Catholic Hierarchy and

1725-738: The Latin Church under the leadership of Pope Clement VIII on the other part. Following the partitions of Poland , the eparchies of the Ruthenian Uniate Church ( Latin : Ecclesia Ruthena unita ) were liquidated in the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia . Only the three eparchies that came under Austrian jurisdiction remained of the Brest Union. In 1963, the church was recognized as Ukrainian through

1800-519: The Lviv Komsomol , Oleksiy Babiychuk, claimed: in this oblast, particularly in the rural areas, a large number of the population adheres to religious practices, among them a large proportion of youth. In the last few years, the activity of the Uniates [Ukrainian Catholics] has grown, that of representatives of the Uniates as well as former Uniate priests; there are even reverberations to renew

1875-614: The Papal Household for the Year ... ( Italian : La Gerarchia Cattolica e la Famiglia Pontificia per l'Anno ... ). The Vatican Press took over the Gerarchia Cattolica in 1885, thus making it a semi-official publication. It bore the indication "official publication" from 1899 to 1904, but this ceased when, giving the word "official" a more restricted sense, the Acta Sanctae Sedis , forerunner of

1950-556: The Polish authorities sought to weaken the UGCC. In 1924, following a visit with Ukrainian Catholic believers in North America and western Europe, the head of the UGCC was initially denied reentry to Lwów (the Polish name at the time for Lviv), only being allowed back after a considerable delay. Polish Catholic priests, led by their Latin bishops, began missionary work among Greek Catholics; and administrative restrictions were placed on

2025-804: The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. After World War II Ukrainian Catholics came under the rule of Communist Poland and the hegemony of the Soviet Union . With only a few clergy invited to attend, a synod was convened in Lviv, which revoked the Union of Brest. Officially all of the church property was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate , Most of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic clergy went underground. This catacomb church

2100-679: The Ukrainian identity started to sharply develop in the 16th and 17th century. Greek Catholicism became the dominating religion in Ukraine, and "the Ukrainians became almost strangers to the Russians". At the same time, the Uniates were not treated on par with Latin Catholics in Poland-Lithuania; Greek Catholics were excluded from the Polish Senate , and bishops were to be supervised by Latin Catholic bishops. The Uniate church

2175-405: The Union of Brest, the new Greek Catholic church was widely supported by both the Ukrainian clergy and local Christians. According to Ludvik Nemec, the creation of the Uniate church was a turning point for the development of Ukrainian national awareness – the separation from Russian-dominated Orthodoxy made the Ukrainian population more aware of the linguistic and cultural differences from Russia, and

2250-402: The Union." Theodosius Rostocki wrote that in response to resistance encountered by Greek Catholics in Ukraine, Russian authorities took over the Uniate churches: "Wherever priests and people, in spite of threats and terrors, remained steadfast, then, even when they [the persecutors] had obtained only a few signatures from the community, they confiscated the church with all its furnishings, took

2325-573: The Vatican combined with hostility to the Poles, who in Ukraine constituted the vast majority of these Christians". Latin Catholic and Uniate churches were closed, and Catholic clergy was a common target of Nazi executions. Nazi anti-Catholic policies were extended to Germans as well – the Catholic church in Mykolaiv was also forcefully closed, despite most of the parishioners being ethnic Germans. In

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2400-601: The Vatican tried to raise the status of the Catholic Church to a state within a state. In the last few years, the Vatican has paid particular attention to the question of Catholicism of the Slavonic nations. This is poignantly underscored by the Pope when he states that he is not only a Pope of Polish origin, but the first Slavic Pope, and he will pay particular attention to the Christianization of all Slavic nations. By

2475-699: The Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.237 via cp1104 cp1104, Varnish XID 211003658 Upstream caches: cp1104 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:50:46 GMT Annuario Pontificio The red-covered yearbook, compiled by the Central Office of Church Statistics and published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana , is mostly in Italian. The 2015 edition had more than 2,400 pages and cost €78 . According to

2550-633: The World) published in Kyiv wrote: Proof that the Church is persistently striving to strengthen its political influence in socialist countries is witnessed by the fact that Pope John Paul II gives his support to the emigre hierarchy of the so-called Ukrainian Catholic Church . . .. The current tactic of Pope John Paul II and the Roman Curia lies in the attempts to strengthen the position of the Church in all socialist countries as they have done in Poland, where

2625-546: The clergy themselves or by their children. This influence was so great that western Ukrainians were accused by their Polish rivals of wanting to create a theocracy in western Ukraine. The territory received by Austria in the partition of Poland included Galicia (modern western Ukraine and southern Poland). Here the Greek-Catholic Ruthenian (Ukrainian) peasantry had been largely under Polish Catholic domination. The Austrians granted equal freedom of worship to

2700-758: The country (see Religion in the Soviet Union ). In the city of Lviv, only one church was closed (at a time when many cities in the rest of Ukraine did not have a working church). Moreover, the western dioceses of Lviv-Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk were the largest in the USSR and contained the majority of the Russian Orthodox Church's cloisters (particularly convents, of which there were seven in Ukrainian SSR but none in Russia). Orthodox canon law

2775-501: The creation of the West Ukrainian People's Republic in 1918, the church was also increasingly referred to as Ukrainian in pastoral letters. During the interwar period, the word Ukrainian was well established in the diasporan parishes. Most documents from the Vatican did not officially change the church's name until 1963. The first use of various names of the church are listed here. The Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church

2850-554: The efforts of Yosyf Slipyi . In 1963, the ordinary (or hierarch ) of the church was granted the title of "Major Archbishop". He currently holds the title of "Major archbishop of Kyiv-Galicia". However, the hierarchs and faithful of the church acclaim their ordinary as " Patriarch " and have requested Papal recognition of this honour. In its early years, the church was called the Ecclesia (Ruthena) unita in Latin, often anglicized as

2925-401: The entire Church but is not distinguished with the patriarchal title. The incumbent Major Archbishop is Sviatoslav Shevchuk . The church regards itself as a successor to the metropolis that was established in 988 following the Christianization of Kievan Rus' by Grand Prince Vladimir the Great . Following the establishment of the metropolis of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' , by the terms of

3000-416: The envy of Orthodox clergy. With the encouragement of the Society of Jesus , four bishops of the Ruthenian Church signed the Union of Brest in 1595, broke from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople , and reunited with the Catholic Church under the authority of the Holy See , while continuing to say the Byzantine Rite in Old Church Slavonic . The Union of Brest was also motivated by outrage over

3075-450: The governance of the nations of Poland , Hungary , Romania and Czechoslovakia . Under the previous century of Austrian rule, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church attained such a strong Ukrainian national character that in interwar Poland, the Greek Catholics of Galicia were seen by the nationalist Polish and Catholic state as even less patriotic than the Orthodox Volhynians. Extending its Polonization policies to its Eastern Territories ,

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3150-407: The group behind this publication, Yosef Terelya, was arrested in 1985 and sentenced to seven years imprisonment and five years of exile. His successor, Vasely Kobryn, was arrested and sentenced to three years of exile. The Solidarity movement in Poland and Pope John Paul II supported the Ukrainian Catholics. The state media attacked John Paul II. The antireligious journal Liudyna i Svit (Man and

3225-686: The heads of three other Eastern Catholic Churches . In 1968, when the Greek Catholic Church was legalized in Czechoslovakia , a large-scale campaign was launched to harass recalcitrant clergy who remained illegal. These clergy were subject to interrogations, fines and beatings. In January 1969 the KGB arrested an underground Catholic bishop named Vasyl Velychkovsky and two Catholic priests, and sentenced them to three years of imprisonment for breaking anti-religious legislation. Activities that could lead to arrest included holding religious services, educating children as Catholics, performing baptisms, conducting weddings or funerals, hearing confessions or giving

3300-541: The insult to the Primacy of the See of Kiev implicit in the recent promotion of the See of Moscow to a patriarchate by Jeremias II of Constantinople . In 1596, the Ruthenian bishops finalized their agreement with the Holy See. The union was not accepted by all the members of the Ruthenian Orthodox Church in these lands, and marked the creation of Greek Catholic Church and separate eparchies that continued to stay Orthodox among which were Lviv eparchy, Peremyshel eparchy, Mukachevo eparchy and Lutsk eparchy that at first accepted

3375-472: The lands of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the largest Eastern Catholic Church , priests' children often became priests and married within their social group, establishing a tightly knit hereditary caste . Numbering approximately 2,000-2,500 by the 19th century, priestly families tended to marry within their group, constituting a tight-knit hereditary caste . In the absence of a significant culturally and politically active native nobility (although there

3450-442: The last rites, copying religious materials, possessing prayer books, possessing icons, possessing church calendars, possessing religious books or other sacred objects. Conferences were held to discuss how to perfect the methodology in combatting Ukrainian Catholicism in West Ukraine. At times the Ukrainian Catholics attempted to employ legal channels to have their community recognized by the state. In 1956–1957, there were petitions to

3525-461: The late 1980s there was a shift in the Soviet government's attitude towards religion. At the height of Mikhail Gorbachev 's liberalization reforms the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was allowed again to function officially in December 1989. But then it found itself largely in disarray with the nearly all of its pre-1946 parishes and property lost to the Orthodox faith. The church, actively supported by nationalist organizations such as Rukh and later

3600-429: The latter group, led by Bishop Iosif Semashko (1798–1868) and firmly rejected by the ruling Greek-Catholic synod remained largely controlled by the pro-Polish clergy with the Russian authorities largely refusing to interfere. Following the Congress of Vienna , the Russian Empire occupied so-called West Galicia (formerly in Austrian Poland) and, temporarily, Tarnopol district, where a separate metropolitan of Galicia

3675-419: The local bishops and royalty of the Grand Principality of Moscow , he was exiled from Moscow, while a council of Russian bishops appointed their own metropolitan, Jonah of Moscow , without the consent of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople , leading to the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1448. For this reason, Patriarch Gregory III of Constantinople reorganized the Ruthenian Church in

3750-477: The metropolitan of Halych. Just before his death, Peter moved his episcopal see from Vladimir to Moscow. During his reign, the Metropolitanate of Lithuania was established in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , while the metropolis of Halych was also re-established after his death. In 1445, the metropolitan Isidore , with his see in Moscow, joined the Council of Florence and became the papal legate for all Ruthenia and Lithuania. After Isidore suffered prosecution by

3825-451: The official adoption of Byzantine rites by Prince Vladimir I of Kiev in 988 when the metropolis of Kiev within the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople was established. Later at the time of the Great Schism ( c.  1054 ), the church took sides and remained Orthodox . Following the devastating Mongol invasions and the sack of Kiev in 1240, Metropolitan Maximos moved to the town of Vladimir-on-Klyazma in 1299. In 1303, at

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3900-409: The original diocesan structure of the Ruthenian Uniate Church was split among the three states in the following way: The Habsburg monarchy established the crown land of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and also a territory called West Galicia , which in 1803 was merged with Galicia and Lodomeria. In 1804, the combined entities became a crownland of the Austrian Empire . The Greek Catholic Church

3975-410: The overt activity of this Church. After Stalin died, Ukrainian Catholics hoped this would lead to better conditions for themselves, but such hopes were dashed in the late 1950s when the authorities arrested even more priests and unleashed a new wave of anti-Catholic propaganda. Secret ordinations occurred in exile. Secret theological seminaries in Ternopil and Kolomyia were reported in the Soviet press in

4050-442: The persecution of Ukrainian Greek Catholics intensified, and the church was forbidden from accepting converts from Orthodoxy. Russian authorities harassed and arrested Uniate priests, while Russian Orthodox priests accompanied by Russian soldiers visited Ukrainian villages and intimidated the population into converting to Orthodoxy. Wolff notes that despite harsh persecution and heavy pressure, "the great majority of Uniates held fast to

4125-437: The post-Stalin thaw. The exception was metropolitan Yosyf Slipyi who, after 18 years of imprisonment and persecution, was released in 1963 thanks to the intervention of Pope John XXIII . Slipyi took refuge in Rome, where he received the title of Major Archbishop of Lviv, and became a cardinal in 1965. The clergy who joined the Russian Orthodox Church were spared the large-scale persecution of religion that occurred elsewhere in

4200-445: The proper authorities to request for churches to be opened. More petitions were sent in the 60s and 70s, all of which were refused. In 1976, a priest named Volodymyr Prokipov was arrested for presenting such a petition to Moscow. The response to these petitions by the state had been to sharpen attacks against the community. In 1984 a samizdat Chronicle of the Catholic Church began to be published by Ukrainian Catholics. The founder of

4275-428: The request of the Ruthenian kings of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia , Patriarch Athanasius I of Constantinople created the separate metropolis of Halych which included the western parishes of the original metropolis of Kiev. The new metropolis did not last for long (inconsistently throughout most of the 14th century), and its new metropolitan, Peter of Moscow , was consecrated as the metropolitan of Kiev, rather than

4350-405: The rule of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . The Polish king Sigismund III Vasa was heavily influenced by the ideals of the Counter-Reformation and wanted to increase the Catholic presence in Ukraine. While the clergy of the Ruthenian lands were technically ruled from Constantinople, the Ruthenian Orthodox bishops were appointed by the Polish Catholic monarch, often with disastrous results. In

4425-418: The sacraments in private. The identities of former priests could have been known to the Soviet police who regularly watched, interrogated and fined them, but stopped short of arrest unless their activities went beyond a small circle of people. New secretly ordained priests were often treated more harshly. The church even grew during this time, and this was acknowledged by Soviet sources. The first secretary of

4500-449: The synod were removed; and the Church began to disintegrate, with its parishes in Volhynia reverting to Orthodoxy, including the 1833 transfer of the famous Pochaiv Lavra . In 1839 the Synod of Polotsk (in modern-day Belarus), under the leadership of Bishop Semashko , dissolved the Greek-Catholic church in the Russian Empire , and all its property was transferred to the Orthodox state church. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia says that, in what

4575-443: The union but later oscillated back and forth, depending on who was the Bishop. There was an attempt to resolve the conflict between Orthodox and Greek Catholics by adopting "Articles for Pacification of Ruthenian people" in 1632. Following that, both churches existed legally in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth with Metropolitans of Kyiv, one, Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky , Greek Catholic, and another, Peter Mogila , Orthodox. Following

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4650-415: The whole village under their spiritual administration ad drove out the Uniate priests." A 19th-century historian Edward Likowski commented on Catherine's death: "The eternal Judge called her to the justice of His judgment seat so that she might account for the rivers of blood and tears that flowed during her reign from millions of Uniates, solely on account of their religious conviction." The dissolution of

4725-414: The winter of 1944–1945, Ukrainian Greek Catholic clergy were summoned to 'reeducation' sessions conducted by the NKVD . Near the end of the war in Europe, the state media began an anti-Ukrainian-Catholic campaign. The creation of the community in 1596 was discredited in publications, which went to great pains to try to prove the Church was conducting activities directed against Ukrainians in the first half of

4800-461: Was also relaxed on the clergy allowing them to shave beards (a practice uncommon to Orthodoxy) and conduct liturgy in Ukrainian as opposed to Church Slavonic . The Ukrainian Catholics continued to exist underground for decades and were the subject of vigorous attacks in the state media. The clergy gave up public exercise of their clerical duties, but secretly provided services for many lay people. Many priests took up civilian professions and celebrated

4875-478: Was considerable overlap, with more than half of the clerical families also being of petty noble origin), and enjoying a virtual monopoly on education and wealth within western Ukrainian society, the clergy came to form that group's native aristocracy. The clergy adopted Austria's role for them as bringers of culture and education to the Ukrainian countryside. Most Ukrainian social and political movements in Austrian-controlled territory emerged or were highly influenced by

4950-427: Was created with the Union of Brest in 1595/1596, yet its roots go back to the Christianization of Kievan Rus' . Byzantine missionaries exercised decisive influence in the area. The 9th-century mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Great Moravia had particular importance as their work allowed the spread of worship in the Old Church Slavonic language . The Byzantine-Greek influence continued, particularly with

5025-510: Was determined to reinstate Orthodoxy as the majority religion in Ukraine. As Russian troops entered Polish-controlled Ukraine to suppress the Bar Confederation , Catherine "unleashed an Orthodox missionary crusade against the Uniate parishes of Ukraine", and actively incited violence against Latin Catholics, Uniates, and Jews, resulting in atrocities such as the Massacre of Uman . Greek Catholic parishes were pressured to convert to Russian Orthodoxy, and priests who resisted were expelled. More than

5100-454: Was established between 1809 and 1815. The territory of Kholm eparchy along with Central Polish territories became part of Congress Poland . The situation changed abruptly following Russia's successful suppression of the 1831 Polish uprising , aimed at overthrowing Russian control of the Polish territories. As the uprising was actively supported by the Greek-Catholic church, a crackdown on the Church occurred immediately. The pro-Latin members of

5175-429: Was established on 1807 with its metropolitan see based in Lemberg . Its suffragan dioceses included Chelm and Przemyśl . Following the 1809 Treaty of Schönbrunn , the Austrian Empire was forced to cede most of the territory of the former West Galicia to the Duchy of Warsaw . In 1815, the final decision of Congress of Vienna resulted in the cession of West Galicia to the Russian Empire . The diocese of Chelm, which

5250-452: Was located in West Galicia, ended up under the Russian jurisdiction. The Russian emperor Pavel I of Russia restored the Uniate church, which was reorganized with three eparchies suffragan to metropolitan bishop Joasaphat Bulhak. The church was allowed to function without restraint (calling its adherents Basilians ). The clergy soon split into pro-Catholic and pro-Russian, however, with the former tending to convert to Latin Catholicism, while

5325-420: Was neglected by Polish authorities, causing resentment towards Polish rule as well. As the result of being alienated from both Polish Latin Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy, the Greek Catholic church in Ukraine had developed its own separate, Ukrainian identity. Greek Catholic bishops of Ukraine such as Josaphat Kuntsevych are considered the precursors of Ukrainian nationalism . After the partitions of Poland,

5400-632: Was reflected in the 1963 Annuario Pontificio , which treated Alexander V and the first John XXIII as antipopes. Many churches try to obtain accurate ecclesiastical statistics by actively counting their congregants. The Annuario Pontificio superseded the French Annuaire pontifical catholique in providing global statistics on the Roman Catholic Church and arranges such data by diocese; the Statistical Yearbook of

5475-707: Was so great that western Ukrainians were accused of wanting to create a theocracy in western Ukraine by their Polish rivals. Among the political trends that emerged, the Christian social movement was particularly linked to the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Many people saw the Austrians as having saved the Ukrainians and their Church from the Poles, though it was the Poles who set into motion the Greek-Catholic cast of their church. After World War I , Ukrainian Greek Catholics found themselves under

5550-766: Was strongly supported by its diaspora in the Western Hemisphere. Emigration to the U.S. and Canada, which had begun in the 1870s, increased after World War II. According to Karel C. Berkhoff , during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine , the treatment of Christian churches by German authorities varied from denomination to denomination. The Nazi authorities were friendly towards Ukrainian Protestants and treated them with "magnanimity", and were left unsuppressed; pacifist denominations were specifically favoured as well. Meanwhile, Greek and Latin Catholics were harshly persecuted, something that Berkhoff attributes to "Nazi hostility to

5625-978: Was then known as 'Little Russia' (now Ukraine ), the pressure of the Russian Government "utterly wiped out" Greek Catholicism, and "some 7,000,000 of the Uniats there were compelled, partly by force and partly by deception, to become part of the Greek Orthodox Church". In the years following and preceding the Partitions, Catherine the Great played a huge rule in forcefully dismantling the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. She expressed disdain towards both Greek and Latin Catholicism while praising Protestant denominations, and

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