History of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Історія Української Греко-Католицької Церкви

The first Christians appeared on the territory of Ukraine during the first Christian missions at the turn of the 1st — 2nd centuries. According to chronicle tradition, Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called visited our lands — what was then Scythia — undertaking missionary activities. He blessed the lands above the Dnipro, where in a few centuries the center of Christianity and Christian culture of the Eastern Slavs would be founded — Kyiv.

The chronicles say that the Apostle Andrew ascended the hills of Kyiv to declare, "Believe me that the grace of God will shine the light upon these hills: a great city will rise here, and the Lord will erect many churches there and enlighten the Rus' lands with church baptism."

There is evidence that some Scythians adopted Christianity, and that there even were Scythian bishops. Christianity was the most widespread, however, amongst the Greeks who inhabited southern Ukraine at that time. Roman emperors exiled Christians to the Greek settlements of Tyre, Olbia, Chersonesos, and it is they who became the first preachers of the Gospel there.

The most famous of these "Ukrainian Greeks" was Pope Clement of Rome, author of the First Letter to the Corinthians, whom Emperor Trajan exiled to Chersonesos, one of the largest Greek colonies, and who was martyred there. According to the testimony of the early Christian writer Irenaeus, St. Clement was the fourth successor of the Apostle Peter in the See of Rome.

When Clement arrived in Chersonesos, he found many Christians residing there. Through his missionary efforts many pagans turned to the Christian faith in a short period of time, and numerous temples were built. His evangelizing led to his martyrdom in the year 100.

The cult of St. Clement spread in Rus' after the brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica, found his relics in 861. This fact is closely related to the Slavic mission of the holy brothers. They brought part of the relics to Rome in 867 and gave them to Pope Adrian II, who became a symbol of reconciliation between the Churches of the East and the West.

Archaeological finds from the 3rd century indicate the presence of Christian communities in the Bosphoran Kingdom: in the 4th century a separate Bosporus diocese was already functioning. Their bishop, Cadmus I, took part in the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325.

The introduction of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire in the late 4th — early 5th centuries further contributed to its spread among the population of Crimea. By that time, a diocese had already been established in Chersonesos, whose bishop was a member of the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381.

The adoption of Christianity in Crimea dates back to the late 5th — early 6th centuries. In the 3rd century Germanic tribes entered the territory of Ukraine and sometime during 341–348 they were converted to Christianity by Bishop Ulfilas, who translated the Gospel into the Gothic language. During the 4th–5th centuries Slavic tribes spread over the territory of Ukraine, particularly to the trans-Dnipro Polian tribal lands with their center being in Kyiv.

The formation of the Kyivan state is closely intertwined with the spread of Christianity on Ukrainian territories. According to Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Byzantine chroniclers, in 860 Prince Askold of Kyiv and his entourage were baptized (received the "first baptism of Rus'") during the campaign against Constantinople, and invited missionaries to Kyiv.

The missionary work of Cyril and Methodius also had a decisive influence on this process starting from the 9th century. The city of Thessalonica (Solun), where the brothers were born, was very close to Slavic lands. Cyril studied in Constantinople at the court of the Byzantine Emperor Michael III and knew Slavonic, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic languages.

On the invitation of Prince Rostislav of Greater Moravia and with the consent of Emperor Michael III and Patriarch Ignatius, the brothers commenced their missionary work, preaching Christianity to the people of Greater Moravia. The success of the endeavor was facilitated by the fact that before leaving for Moravia, Cyril created a Slavic alphabet to help translate the Holy Scriptures.

Through a language understood by the Slavs, the Christian faith began to spread rapidly not only in Greater Moravia, but also among the neighboring Slavic tribes, particularly in Poland and Western Rus'. Moreover, the translational activity of Saints Cyril and Methodius contributed to the further development of Slavic culture in general. "Old Slavonic" for centuries became not only the Church language, but also the official literary language used by the educated strata of society.

Saints Cyril and Methodius are recorded in history as the "bridges" that united the Slavic peoples with the Catholic Church. By that time, the differences between Rome and Constantinople were heating up and led to fierce polemical debates in church literature. However, the activities of the holy brothers had a conciliatory nature. They sought compromise and believed that disputes should be resolved through dialogue.

On November 30, 1880, Pope Leo XIII formally introduced the feast day of Saints Cyril and Methodius into the Western Church, emphasizing their universal significance. On December 31, 1980 Pope John Paul II declared Saints Cyril and Methodius, together with Saint Benedict, the spiritual patrons of Europe.

Before Prince Volodymyr's reign, Christianity had no official status in Rus', although Kyivan princes, beginning from Askold, either themselves converted to Christianity or were tolerant of the Christian faith. For the year 944, during the reign of Prince Ihor (912–945), chronicles mention a St. Elijah church in Kyiv's Podil district. Ihor's wife, Princess Olha (945–969) was baptized in Constantinople circa 957.

However, the decisive step for the future and identity of the Church in the East Slavic lands was the adoption of Christianity of the Eastern rite as the state religion in 988, during the reign of the grandson of Prince Ihor and Olha, Volodymyr the Great (978–1015).

While the Chronicle of Nestor reports that the Prince sent envoys to representatives of various religions and ultimately accepted Christianity, the decision was not accidental. Besides religious reasons, an important role in the adoption of Christianity was the political and cultural expediency of such a step, since Christianity played a key role in what was then the civilized part of the world.

The adoption of Christianity ensured moral prestige for Prince Volodymyr and his state, giving it a legitimate status among other nations and rulers, and thereby changing their attitude towards Rus'. The baptism of the Eastern Slavs who lived within the Kyivan state at that time, facilitated the rapid spread of a written culture.

For Grand Prince Volodymyr, the formal baptism of Rus' was not an end in itself. Having changed his ways (in his youth he was prideful and imperious, leading a reckless and bloody tyrannical life) he became engaged in the formal enlightenment of the masses. He built temples, supported literary crafts, founded libraries, and supported schools.

The Kyivan Metropolia enjoyed a golden age during the reign of another of Volodymyr's sons, Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054), when "the Christian faith began to multiply and spread." The prince initiated the construction of Kyiv's majestic monasteries and churches, completed construction of the Cathedral of St. Sophia, which had been commenced by his father.

The Kyivan Metropolia faced significant changes that occurred as a result of the gradual disintegration of the state into separate principalities and the violent struggle of the many descendants of the Rurik dynasty for the "Kyiv heritage." After the invasion of the Mongol Horde in 1240, rulers from neighboring states joined the fight.

The decline of the ancient state under pressure from the Mongol Horde and the transfer of a large part of Rus' lands to Polish and Lithuanian rule in the 14th century led to the displacement of the Metropolitan See of Kyiv and attempts to divide it. However, being on the border of East and West Europe, the ecclesiastical elites took repeated steps to restore Christian unity.

The Florentine Union between Rome and Constantinople in 1439 received a positive reception in what is now the Ukrainian and Belarus lands. One of the founders of the Union was Metropolitan Isidore of Kyiv. The Pope elevated him to the dignity of cardinal and appointed him legate to Poland, Lithuania and Muscovy.

At the end of the 16th century, the bishops of the Kyivan Metropolia made a Synodal decision to reestablish communion with the Apostolic See of Rome. Thus, the Union of Brest was concluded in 1596. The visionaries of the union aimed not only to preserve the traditional church structure and eastern (Byzantine) rite, but also to resist assimilation and conversion of Ukrainian and Belorussian eastern rite Christians to Polish Roman Catholicism.

The bishops of the Kyivan Metropolia chose the first project, which they believed to be more realistic, and on December 23, 1595 delegated two bishops, Ipatiy Potiy and Cyril Terlecki, to travel to Rome to present the proposal to Pope Clement VIII.

In Halychyna (Galicia), where Polish-Ukrainian antagonism was particularly tense, union with Rome was resisted for almost a century. The Przemysl Eparchy accepted the union only 1691, while the Lviv Eparchy — in 1700. The Synod of Zamość institutionalized the status of the Uniate Church, as this union was called, in 1720 as the only eastern rite Church in the lands of the Commonwealth.

The strengthening of Ukrainian (Ruthenian) Church in the Commonwealth did not last for long. After the weakening and division of the country in 1772, 1793 and 1795, the Russian Empire extended its power to neighbouring Ukrainian lands, accompanying it with repression against the "Uniates" and forced "conversion" to the Moscow Church.

Meanwhile, the idea of Orthodox-Catholic church unity gained more supporters in the western part of Ukraine. At the Uzhhorod Council of 1646 a part of the clergy from the Eparchy of Mukachevo, an area which for centuries was under Hungarian rule, decided to restore communion with Rome.

The educational policy of the Habsburgs was critically important in changing the nature of the relationship between Christians of different traditions — first in Transcarpathia and later in Galicia, which after the first partition of Poland (1772) passed to the Austrian monarchy.

1808 saw the restoration of the Galician Metropolitanate with the center in Lviv. The Habsburg reforms strengthened the principles of tolerance, respect for freedom of conscience, and the integration of Ukrainian Christians and their religious structures into public and political life.

The Greek-Catholic Church in Galicia played a special role in the Ukrainian national movement. Although most of the Greek-Catholic clergy were polonized in the late 18th — early 19th century, some of the lower clergy and seminarians under the influence of the "Ruthenian Triad" — Markiyan Shashkevych, Ivan Vahylevych and Yakiv Holovatsky, drew public attention to the common people in the 1830's.

1868 saw the creation of the society Prosvita (Enlightenment), which engaged the Ukrainian peasantry in educational work. Every town and village had local chapters of Prosvita with reading rooms led by local priests. The most prominent Ukrainian socio-political and cultural figures were often members and alumni of this organization.

The life and work of Metropolitan Sheptytsky had a tremendous impact on the Ukrainian Church. He was one of the first bishops of the UGCC to begin using the Ukrainian vernacular to communicate with the faithful. Under his leadership, the Greek-Catholic Church became an extensive and influential institution, an important agent of consolidation and spiritual support in the struggle for Ukrainian statehood.

Metropolitan Sheptytsky was born into an old Ukrainian family. After entering the Basilian monastery in Dobromyl in 1888, he took the monastic name Andrew. He studied philosophy and theology in Krakow and then law in Munich, earning doctoral degrees in Theology and Philosophy. In 1899 Sheptytsky was nominated bishop of the Stanislav eparchy and in 1900 — Metropolitan of Galicia.

There were few important areas of public life in which the Metropolitan did not take an active part. He supported young Ukrainian artists by providing them with scholarships for education in the best schools of Europe. In 1905 he founded the Ukrainian National Museum and acquired a building for that purpose. Thanks to Sheptytsky's efforts, the museum owns one of the largest collections of icons in Europe.

As the Galician Metropolitan, he was a member of the Austrian parliament and Galician Sejm, and this gave him the opportunity to advocate for the rights of Ukrainians. Sheptytsky's support of the Habsburg Monarchy during World War I led to his arrest and imprisonment during the Russian occupation of Galicia in 1914–1917.

On his initiative, the Lviv Theological Academy was founded in 1928. This institution, led by the Rev. Dr. Yosyf Slipy, was meant to develop into a full-fledged university along the lines Western European higher education institutions.

The Metropolitan's activities during the Second World War, according to the Parliament of Canada, was an "enduring example of commitment to fundamental human rights as humankind's highest obligation." Sheptytsky provided self-sacrificing help to Jews during the tragic times of the Holocaust. Risking his own life, the Metropolitan saved about a hundred Jews, mostly children.

Metropolitan Sheptytsky died on November 1, 1944 and is buried in the crypt of St. George's Cathedral in Lviv.

World War II was one of the most difficult periods in the history of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west while the Soviet Union invaded from the east and seized western Ukraine. At that time, the UGCC had 2387 parishes and 3.6 million faithful, 2352 diocesan priests, 31 male and 121 female monasteries and monastic houses.

The Soviet government perceived the Ukrainian Church as a serious obstacle in the implementation of Sovietization of the region. That is why Stalin's regime immediately began to attack the UGCC. The new authorities organized a broad campaign of persecution, intimidation and defamation of the Greek-Catholic bishops and clergy.

On December 22, 1939, with the permission of the Vatican, Metropolitan Andrey secretly ordained Fr. Yosyf Slipy (1892–1984) as bishop with the right of succession to the Galician metropolitan seat. On April 11, 1945, Metropolitan Yosyf Slipy and later other bishops were arrested.

The so-called Lviv Synod of March 8–10, 1946, organized by the government and state security bureau in collaboration with the Sponsoring Group, unanimously adopted the resolution "to revoke the 1596 Council of Brest, to eliminate the Union, to break away from the Vatican and to return to the bosom our Mother Holy Orthodox faith and the Russian Orthodox Church."

This act from beginning to end was a true farce, so it was not valid both in terms of church law and state law. However, the Church was considered officially liquidated and its parishes and the faithful were absorbed by the ROC.

Yosyf Slipy — one of the most colorful figures in the modern history of UGCC. Scientist, theologian, leader of academic institutions, primate of the Ukrainian Church — he was a multifaceted personality. After finishing primary school and Ternopil high school, Yosyf Slipy went to Lviv Theological Seminary in 1911.

Metropolitan Andrey noticed the talented young seminarian, and at the end of his second year sent him to the University of Innsbruck (Austria), where the young Yosyf received a classical education and defended two academic theses in the field of dogmatic theology.

Metropolitan Slipy spent 18 years in Soviet prisons, camps and in exile. Fellow prisoners mentioned the Metropolitan as a man who was willing to go all the way for his faith and beliefs. In the years 1953–1958, while in exile in a nursing home in Maklakovo, he wrote a multivolume history of the Universal Church in Ukraine.

In Rome (1963–1984), Metropolitan and later Cardinal and Major Archbishop Slipy concentrated his efforts on protecting the oppressed Church. He used every public forum to emphasize the persecution of churches in the Soviet Union and advocated more radical action in protecting the rights of believers.

In 1963 he created the Ukrainian Catholic University, which was to consolidate Ukrainian scientific forces abroad. Patriarch Slipy advocated the preservation of national identity and inter-confessional convergence. In his "Testament", he called attention to the common heritage of the Kyivan Christian tradition as the basis for future understanding.

In September 1992, Yosyf Slipy was reburied in accordance with his "Testament" in the crypt of St. George's Cathedral in Lviv next to his predecessor Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky.

Any pastoral work done by Greek-Catholic priests after the Lviv pseudo-council was considered illegal by the authorities, and priests, monks and nuns were repressed. In 1945–1946 alone the KGB arrested and convicted more than 800 Greek-Catholic priests, who received prison terms from 10 to 25 years.

Even though the "visible" Church structure was destroyed by the arrests of its bishops, the UGCC succeeded in keeping the continuity of episcopal ministry in the conditions of persecution and deep underground. From 1945 to 1989, fifteen underground bishops were ordained in secrecy.

Despite the unbearable physical and mental conditions in the Soviet camps and harsh conditions in exile, the Greek-Catholic clergy used every opportunity to fulfill their pastoral vocation. In prisons and in exile they held liturgies, prayers, and administered Holy Sacraments. Even priestly ordinations were held in the labor camps.

In Galicia, church life continued in hiding, including with the help of those bishops, priests, monks, and faithful who returned from the camps and exile. Secret worship services would take place in private homes, places of pilgrimage, and in front of the closed churches.

The Church faithful paid considerable attention to Christian parenting, manufactured and stored liturgical utensils, took care of closed churches, accompanied and guarded their pastors, brought priests to people who needed confession or communion, and hence rightly become indestructible pillars of the underground Church.

During the period of democratization in the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1980s under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, Greek-Catholics decided that they would no longer put up with injustice against the Church. The harbinger of legalization of the UGCC was the August 4, 1987 public statement by a group of 23 priests and faithful under the leadership of Bishop Pavlo Vasylyk that the Church was leaving the underground.

At the end of that year Greek-Catholic activists formed the Committee for the Protection of Rights of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, led by former political prisoner Ivan Hel. The Committee began collecting signatures for a petition demanding the official recognition of the UGCC. About 120,000 signatures were collected over the period of 1988–1989.

Open-air worship services were held in the towns and villages across western Ukraine. Initially, they drew relatively small numbers of faithful, but they eventually grew into thousand-strong rallies. That same year saw an unprecedented hunger strike of Greek-Catholics in Moscow's Arbat, started by the bishops Pavlo Vasylyk, Sophron Dmyterko and Philemon Kurchaba.

Under internal and external pressure the Soviet government was forced to acknowledge the rights of the UGCC, and on November 28, 1989 issued a statement according to which Greek-Catholics were given the right to establish and register communities and enjoy "all the rights established by law for religious organizations in the USSR."

On January 23, 1990, bishops, more than 200 priests and many laymen from across Ukraine gathered for a Church council in the Lviv Transfiguration Church. The council took several decisions, including voiding the decisions of the Lviv pseudo-council of 1946. The return of St. George Archcathedral in Lviv to Greek-Catholics on August 19, 1990 completed the legalization of the Church.

Having revived in western Ukraine, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church implemented a series of reforms concerning the territorial division of eparchies, expanded the jurisdiction of the Major Archbishop and the Synod of Bishops to the entire territory of Ukraine, except Transcarpathia, where the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has an autonomous status.

In 2004, His Beatitude Lubomyr (Husar), who was the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church at that time, with the approval of the Synod of Bishops and with the blessing of the Pope, made the decision to return the See of the Major Archbishop of the Church from Lviv to Kyiv. The official date of return was the 21st of August 2005.

Since that time, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has activated its ministry throughout the entire territory of Ukraine. In the course of the recent reorganization of the Church at the end of 2011, three new Metropolitan provinces were established in the country.

Lubomyr Husar described the return to the See of the Head of the Church to Kyiv and the construction of the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ on the banks of the Dnieper River as the symbol of "our internal unity."

"The history of our Church," His Beatitude told the media, "has 1025 years since the Christianization of Kyivan Rus'. The Greek Catholic Church is not a Western, but an all-Ukrainian reality."

The UGCC is a part of the Universal Church with the status of a self-governed Major-Archepiscopal Church. Its head, the Major Archbishop, is in communion with the Holy Apostolic See of Rome. It is the largest among the 22 self-governed Eastern Catholic Churches.

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, with more than 6.5 million believers is the largest Eastern Catholic Church in the world.

The head of the UGCC is the Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halych, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, who succeeded Cardinal Lubomyr Husar in March 2011, after His Beatitude's resignation was accepted by the Pope in February 2011.

During the years of 1989–2011, the UGCC held five sessions of the Patriarchal Sobor (Church council): the first was devoted to the question of new evangelization (1996), the second — the role of the laity in the life of the modern Church (1998), the third — problems in Ukrainian society (2002), the fourth — youth (2007), the fifth — monasticism (2011).

In the words of His Beatitude Sviatoslav, "Today our church, by building up its structures, step by step heads toward a patriarchate." "And it's only a matter of time," he told a press conference, "when the Pope, according to his authority, will make this decision public."

The Major Archepiscopal Church in Ukraine is divided into eparchies and exarchates: Kyiv Archeparchy, Lviv Archeparchy, Ivano-Frankivsk Archeparchy, Ternopil-Zboriv Archeparchy, Kolomyia-Chernivtsi Eparchy, Sambir-Droyobych Eparchy, Buchach Eparchy, Stryi Eparchy, Sokal-Zhovkva Eparchy, Donetsk-Kharkiv Exarchate, Odesa-Crimea Exarchate and Lutsk Exarchate.

The Mukachevo Eparchy of GCC, being formally a church sui juris and not subject to the head of the UGCC, maintains an autonomous status.