Abstract
The dialectics of Soviet religious policy repudiate any uniform and universally held theoretical premises valid under all conditions and historical circumstances. Identical treatment or consistent rules have not been applied to the “opiate of the people” everywhere in the U.S.S.R. or in all periods of Soviet rule. Religion, like nationality and democracy, is viewed not abstractly but specifically, as a concrete phenomenon or situation in a given setting of events and interacting forces. Seen in some settings as useful, in others it may be viewed as a nuisance or an outright social-political peril. Expediency, prompted by opportunism, defines the criteria which determine the course to be followed towards a certain ecclesiastical community. Contradictory policies may even be pursued simultaneously in one and the same case, depending on the particular context of the episode and the objectives set by the policy-makers. Thus any course of action may be chosen — alliance, toleration, deliberate exploitation, hostility, or suppression — vis-à-vis a religious community. Any course but passivity, disinterest, or benevolent neutrality, which would dispute the very nature of the Soviet system and ideology.
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References
I. Hrynioch, Prologue (New York), vol. 4 (1960),pp. 5–51
L. Mydlowsky, Bolshevik Persecution of Religion and Church in the Ukraine: 1917–1957 (London: Ukrainian Publishers, 1962)
B. Bociurkiw, ‘The Uniate Church in the Soviet Union: A Case Study in Soviet Church Policy’, Canadian Slovanic Papers (Toronto), vol. 7 (1965), pp. 98–113
Their role may evolve depending on various foreign-policy implications, e.g., the progress in Soviet-Vatican dialogue, the policy of rapprochement with the West.
In 1944, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church on Ukrainian ethnic territory comprised one Archeparchy and four eparchies of which one (Priašiv) remained in Czechoslovakia and one (Peremysl’) partially in Poland; of three Apostolic Administrations, one remained in Poland and one partly in Rumania. The Church had 3,500 priests, over 1,000 nuns, and 500 seminarians; the total number of the faithful approached five million, of whom four and a half million were incorporated in the Soviet Union as a result of new Soviet territorial acquisitions. Cf.First Victims ofCommunism, Annuario Pontificio, and other sources.
For a detailed account of the events of the 1830s see W. Lencyk, The Eastern Catholic Church and Czar Nicholas I (Rome: Centro di Studi Universitari Ucraini, 1966).(The dioceses mentioned in this paper were known in Polish or Hungarian at that timeas follows: Halyč-Lviv=Lwów; Mukačevo = Munkácz; Kholm=Chelm; Ternopil=Tarnopol.Ed.)
This author has developed an approach to the interpretation of Russian foreign policy in terms of moving ‘zones of security’ in his unpublished monograph, The WesternRepublics of the U.S.S.R.
Pravoslavnyi Visnyk (Kiev) (1971), no. 6, p. 27.
The Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate (Moscow) (1974), no. 2, p. 24.
Nova Zoria (The New Star), Chicago, (August 18, 1974), no. 31.
In 1961, there were 132 Latin Rite Catholic parishes in the Ukraine. SeeUkrains’ka Radians’ka Encyklopediya (Kiev), vol. 6, p. 253.
There are indications that Soviet public authorities and the Orthodox leaders would prefer to have the Ukrainian Catholics join the Latin Rite rather than remain Uniates.
Ukrains’kyi Visnyk gives the name of one priest with the notation that he was ordained after 1946; see the Paris-Baltimore edition, 1971, vol.I, p. 61. The same source mentions ordinations of two young priests by Bishop Velychkovskyj of the ‘underground Church’.
A visitor to the Ukraine reported that in 1970 in a typical West Ukrainianrayon city of about 10,000 there lived three Ukrainian priests: the pastor of the open Orthodox church (a former Catholic priest) and two priests who did not join the R.O.C.; all three were actively performing their priestly functions. Russian dissident Anatoly Levitin estimates that in the city of L’viv and its vicinity alone reside 80 Ukrainian Catholic priests. See ‘Soviet Writer Appeals to U.N. Against Persecution in Ukraine’, The New World (Chicago), 22.11.1974
Pravoslavnyi Visnyk (1968), no. 8, p. 20.
In one of his sermons Archbishop Major Josyf Slipyj recalled that in his Siberian exile he extended pastoral care also to the Orthodox Christians who asked for it. Bishop Velychkovskyj also related his missionary work while in captivity; see V. Markus, ‘Vladyka Vasyl Velychkovskyj — Ispovidnyk Viry’, Cerkovnyi Kalendar-Almanach na 1974 rik (Chicago, 1974), pp. 158–159. Testimony on the life and work of imprisoned Ukrainian Catholic priests and nuns can be found in the memoirs of W. Ciszek, With God in Russia (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), A. Shifrin, ChetvertyiVymir (Munich: Sučasnist’, 1973), Radiguin, Klainer, and others.
Bishop Velychkovskyj was sentenced to three years of imprisonment for the second time (he was first sentenced in 1946), was released in 1972 and expelled from the country. He lived in Rome and in Canada, where he died June 30,1973. See V. Markus, ‘Vladyka V. Velychkovskyj…’, op. cit., pp. 153–164.
Archbishop Major J. Slipyj, at the papal audience of the Ukrainian Catholic hierarchy in November, 1973, spoke “on behalf of thirty bishops”. The exact count of all Ukrainian (Ruthenian) bishops outside the U.S.S.R., including four Ruthenian bishops of the Byzantine rite in the U.S.A., comes to only 25 prelates. It appears that the remaining five are those in the Ukraine. According to A. Levitin (see above), three Uniate bishops in the Ukraine function illegally. “As soon as one dies or is arrested, another is immediately consecrated”, adds Levitin.
There were notices in the émigré press on the episcopal status of the Užhorod canon Alexander Khira in 1968–1969, when he was evicted from the Transcarpathian region and lived as a priest among Lithuanian Catholics.
A revealing document about the recent reprisals against the Ukrainian Catholics is the article ‘A Few Remarks about Freedom of Conscience’ in theUkrains’kyi Visnyk (Paris-Baltimore: Smoloskyp, 1971), vol.I, pp. 56–63. Other issues of theVisnyk, as well as of the RussianKhronika, contain occasional references to the situation of Ukrainian Catholics.
Zovten’ (L’viv), (1974), no. 4, pp. 92–95.
Visti z Ukrainy (Kiev), 21 March, 1974; this newspaper along with an English counterpart, News from the Ukraine, is distributed among the Ukrainians abroad.
M. P. Mčedlov, Katolicizm ( Moscow: Politizdat, 1970 ), p. 244.
Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church (1974), no. 8.
New York Times, June 25, 1974.
V. L. Bodnar, ‘Osobennosti razvitija ateizma v processe kul’turnoj revoljucii v nacional’noj respublike’, inAteizm i socialističeskaja kul’tura (Moscow, 1971 ) pp. 37–52.
Pravoslavnyi Visnyk (1971), no. 7, p. 11.
Ukrainis’ki Visti (New York), (30 March 1972).
Cf. materials in the SamvydavUkrains’kyi Visnyk. A particularly sympathetic treatment of the Uniate Church is given by V. Moroz in his essay ‘Chronicle of Resistance’, inReport from the Beria Reserve, by Valentyn Moroz (Chicago: Cataract Press, 1974). The religiously inspired poems of I. Kalynec have been published abroad:Poeziyi z Ukrainy (Bruxelles: Lettres et Art, 1970), andPidsumovujučy Movčannia ( Munich: Sučasnist’, 1971 ).
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Markus, V. (1976). The Suppressed Church: Ukrainian Catholics in the Soviet Union. In: De George, R.T., Scanlan, J.P. (eds) Marxism and Religion in Eastern Europe. Sovietica, vol 36. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1870-8_7
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