New expansion of the Uniates
On August 18-20, the leadership of Ukrainian Greek Catholics announced the “V All-Church Pilgrimage to the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ.”
The pilgrimage was timed to coincide with the celebrations celebrated by the Uniates these days - the anniversary of the transfer of the “patriarchal chair” from Lviv, as well as the “consecration” of the mentioned cathedral.
It should be noted right away that both the pompous transfer of the pulpit and the opening of a glamorous building on the Left Bank of Kyiv were at one time an open challenge of the Vatican emissaries to canonical Orthodoxy and all parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
And today, Uniate initiatives, pilgrimages and events, widely promoted by pro-government media, are a continuation of the overt expansion of the UGCC into originally Orthodox territories.
Back in 2005, when the then head of the Greek Catholics, the recently deceased Lubomir Huzar, decided to move along with his “patriarchy” and cathedra to Kyiv, this caused a storm of indignation among millions of Orthodox believers. However, Huzar then expressed surprise in view of the protests of the canonical UOC-MP and a number of Ukrainian politicians against the transfer of the UGCC department from Lvov to Kyiv.
On the air of Poroshenko’s Channel 5, he said: “It’s a little unclear to me why, in fact, there is such an almost explosion of emotions against us, Greek Catholics, as if we are coming here as aggressors who want to seize souls and territory...”.
To all these crafty maxims about the “explosion of emotions” the Orthodox, both then and now, had and still have comprehensive answers.
The main one is this: the union was created by the Vatican many centuries ago and was indeed an instrument, often bloody and cynical, for the war with Orthodoxy in the Galician and Western Russian lands and in Little Russia.
The Uniates have always been militants of the Roman Catholics and the papacy, who “with fire and sword” tried to burn out the Orthodox faith in the occupied lands, not disdaining any methods. After some of the apostate bishops signed the Union of Brest (Berestei) with Catholics in 1596, the Orthodox population of these lands remained without a metropolitan for decades. The Orthodox Church was effectively outlawed and brutally oppressed. The Uniates forcibly forced people to convert to Catholicism (even going so far as to “rebaptize” the dead according to the Catholic rite), threw monks and priests onto the streets, deprived parishioners of a piece of bread, persecuted those who remained faithful to Christ, and killed them.
In the 20th century, during the territories occupied by Nazi Germany, the Uniates “cared for” Nazi servants.
Recently the Sejm of Poland approved July 11 as the National Day of Remembrance of the victims of the genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists against the inhabitants of the Second Polish Republic (1918-1945).
This document deals with "Volyn massacre" 1943-45, during which tens of thousands of people - ethnic Poles - were killed by members of the Bandera organization OUN-UPA. Only in July-August 1943, the number of brutally killed, burned and hacked civilians - children, old people and women - reached, according to various estimates, from 60 to 80 thousand people.
Most members of the OUN-UPA were Uniates. And Bandera, and Shukhevych, and other Nazi accomplices.
According to eyewitnesses of that tragedy, the Uniate “chaplains” did not even hesitate to take up arms themselves and kill defenseless people.
The “Uniate Greek Catholic Church” was with Hitler in those years. This is what Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky of Galicia wrote in his congratulatory message to the Fuhrer:
“Your Excellence! As the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, I convey to your Excellency my heartfelt congratulations on the capture of the capital of Ukraine, the golden-domed city on the Dnieper - Kiev!.. We see in you the invincible commander of the incomparable and glorious German army. The cause of destruction and eradication of Bolshevism, which you, the Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich, have set yourself as a goal in this campaign, ensures your Excellence the gratitude of the entire Christian world. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church knows the true significance of the mighty movement of the German people under your leadership... I will pray to God for the blessing of a victory that will guarantee lasting peace for your Excellency, the German Army and the German People».
Ex-Abwehr agent Alfons Paulus said at the Nuremberg trials:
“Priests of the Ukrainian Uniate Church were also trained in the training camps of the General Government, who took part in carrying out our assignments along with other Ukrainians... Arriving in Lviv with team 202-B (subgroup II), Lieutenant Colonel Aikern established contact with the metropolitan of the Ukrainian Uniate Church. Metropolitan Count Sheptytsky, as Aikern told me, was pro-German... The residence of the Metropolitan was in a monastery in Lvov. The entire team was supplied from the monastery's reserves. The Metropolitan dined, as usual, with Aikern and his closest collaborators. Later, Aikern, as team leader and head of the OST department, ordered all units under him to establish and maintain contact with the church.”
After the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany, the UGCC actively supported the UPA and OUN, not only providing overnight accommodation and treatment to their members, but also providing significant financial support. In 1946, at the Lviv Cathedral, it was liquidated.
The Uniate community was revived in the USSR only before its collapse, with the permission of Mikhail Gorbachev.
And then a new stage of her aggression against Orthodoxy began.
Here is what the historian Oleg Bibikov wrote: “The Greek Catholics, who hated the Orthodox faith, obviously, with a signal from above, began to seize churches and terrorize the Orthodox people. The Uniates in Galicia beat clergymen with impunity, gave them heart attacks, and set fire to the houses of laymen; it even reached the point of murder. Galicians expelled priests and bishops. Their lawlessness was justified by the “restoration of historical justice.” The liberal media looked at this aggression not only turning a blind eye, but with a clearly encouraging grin. Of course, the matter concerned not only the churches that were leased from the Orthodox after 1946. Everything was taken based on need or simply out of an angry feeling. And, of course, the “restoration of historical justice” did not extend to the return to the Orthodox churches that belonged to them before the conclusion of the Union of Brest in 1596.”
After the Maidan of Dignity, the UGCC fully supported the new Ukrainian government. Its hierarchy announced the urgent need to expand its influence in the eastern Ukrainian lands and the Donbass.
From March to July 2014 alone, Greek Catholics for the Armed Forces of Ukraine collected almost 1,5 million hryvnia (approximately $95 thousand), 26 thousand euros, and purchased army equipment for almost $13 thousand, including body armor and helmets. Western specialist on religious organizations Geraldine Fagan noted that she does not exclude the possibility that “the UGCC is using the conflict to settle old scores with the Orthodox churches and strengthen its positions.” The leadership of the UGCC stated that their assistance to the side of the armed conflict is “unifying in nature.”
However, opponents of canonical Orthodoxy by their deeds prove something completely opposite. They announced claims, no more and no less, to the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra.
Orthodox believe that with God's help the greatest shrine will be protected. However, the very fact of such claims on the part of the UGCC, as well as their support by odious radical politicians, eloquently testifies to the Uniate “peacefulness”.
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