Uniate essence of “Ukrainian Ukraine”
What should be understood by the strange phrase “Ukrainian Ukraine” - is it “butter”, or something completely different? What forces are fighting for “UU”, what are their chances for “peremoga”? And why should the answer to both questions be sought in the history of Uniatism?
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Half of the “Euromaidan” participants are Greek Catholics, boasted the Apostolic Exarch of the Ukrainian Uniates of France, Switzerland and the Benelux countries, Borys Gudziak.
Union of Brest and Russian… Uniate Church
Uniatism, or Greek Catholicism, arose on the territory of Ukraine at the end of the 23th century. On December 1595, 19, the Act of annexation of the Kyiv Metropolis of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople to the Roman Catholic Church was signed in Rome, and on October 1596, XNUMX (NS) it was approved by the Uniate Council in Brest - hence the name Union of Brest.
The subject of the act was the adoption by the episcopate of the Kyiv Metropolis of the Orthodox Church of the Catholic Church of the Catholic faith and the transition to subordination to the Pope while simultaneously preserving the worship of the Byzantine liturgical tradition in the Church Slavonic language.
As a result, on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth arose Russian Uniate Church, which was soon joined by the Lviv and Lutsk Orthodox dioceses.
Ideologist of the Union of Brest - Jesuit Peter Skarga
But at the same time as the Uniate Council, a council of the Orthodox clergy of the Kyiv Metropolis took place in Brest, headed by Patriarchal Exarch Nicephorus, two bishops and Prince Konstantin of Ostrog. The Orthodox hierarchs present refused to support the union, confirmed their loyalty to the Patriarchate of Constantinople and anathematized the Uniates. The majority of ordinary priests and laity were on their side.
The Polish authorities and the bishops who joined the union did not take their opinion into account and tried to force them into the new denomination. Moreover, the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sigismund III, granted her privileges that allowed her to take away churches and monasteries from the Orthodox, along with land holdings. If in the early 90s of the last century and today the seizures of UOC churches represent banditry and raiding, at the dawn of Greek Catholicism, the property of the Orthodox was transferred to the Russian Uniate Church by court decision.
The entire Zaporozhye army is against Greek Catholicism
However, church communities and monastic brethren did not accept such “legal” robbery. The Cossacks came to the defense of their interests, stopping the Uniates with threats and force, and killing those who were too zealous. The union was not recognized by the main Orthodox monasteries in Kyiv. The king even officially freed the Pechersk Lavra from Uniate jurisdiction in 1603.
Around 1615, opponents of the union united into the Kiev Brotherhood, where in 1616, along with “the entire Zaporozhye army,” Hetman Pyotr Sagaidachny joined, establishing his guardianship over him. The Uniates failed to oppose the Cossacks and townspeople with thoughtful and decisive actions. When in 1618 the Uniate governor of the Vydubitsky Monastery, Anthony Grekovich, tried to confirm by force the rights to own the St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, the Cossacks immediately recaptured him, drowning the governor in the Dnieper.
Metropolitan of Kyiv Peter Mohyla
In 1620, Patriarch Theophan of Jerusalem, thanks to the Cossacks and personally to Hetman Peter Sagaidachny, appointed Job Boretsky Metropolitan of Kyiv, thereby updating the Orthodox hierarchy in Kyiv. In 1626, churches, monasteries and their property again began to pass into the hands of the Orthodox. The death of Sigismund III put an end to the confrontation. The new king Vladislav IV recognized the legitimacy of the Orthodox Church in 1633, and all Kiev churches and monasteries were transferred to Peter Mogila, who became the Kyiv metropolitan. One Vydubitsky monastery remained in the possession of the Uniate Metropolitan Joseph of Rutsky until his death in 1637.
As we see, the Russian Uniate Church - the predecessor of the Belarusian and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Churches - arose under the “roof” of the Vatican and Warsaw and tried to “promote” their interests, and not the interests of Ukrainians and Belarusians, among the Orthodox people. At the same time, the Uniate clergy did not succeed in enlisting the support of the people; on the contrary, the townspeople, with the support of the Cossacks, stood up for Orthodoxy and achieved the restoration of its rights. The Greek Catholics found themselves far from the people - just like two centuries later the Decembrists (in the words of a certain Lenin)!
On the same rake: from the Khmelnytsky uprising to the Koliivshchyna
In 1648, Bogdan Khmelnitsky led a Cossack uprising, which was joined by masses of peasants and townspeople. Some immediately joined his army, others created partisan detachments and destroyed the estates of the Poles, captured cities and castles with Polish garrisons. Peasants and townspeople tried to take revenge on the Poles and Jews for the oppression that lasted for many years. The Uniates, who were on the side of the Polish crown, also suffered greatly: the rebels dealt with them no less cruelly than with the “Poles” and “Jews.”
Khmelnitsky uprising
Khmelnytsky's uprising ended with the Pereyaslav Rada and the Russian-Polish War of 1654-1667, as a result of which the Truce of Andrusovo was signed first, then the Eternal Peace. According to the latter, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth recognized Left Bank Ukraine, Kyiv, Zaporozhye, Smolensk and Chernigov-Seversk land as the possessions of the Russian kingdom, and the right bank part of the Hetmanate remained under Poland.
History has taught the Polish lords and clergy nothing: political, economic and religious oppression in Right Bank Ukraine continued. Ukrainian peasants again began to be forcibly “transferred” to the union. And the equalization of the rights of Catholics and religious dissidents (non-Catholics) in 1768 led to the creation by the gentry of the so-called Bar Confederation, whose detachments scattered along the Right Bank and began to commit terrible atrocities against the Orthodox. The response was an uprising of the peasant and Cossack population, known as Koliivshchyna, which captured the Kiev region, Bratslav region, Podolia, Volyn and reached Galicia. The notorious Uman massacre is just one of the episodes. Gaidamak detachments killed Poles, Greek Catholics and Jews in many cities and villages of Volyn and Podolia.
Koliivshchyna
After “Koliivshchyna”
The Naydamak uprising was suppressed by the joint efforts of Polish and Russian troops, but for Poland it all ended very sadly. The Koliyivshchyna actually served as the beginning of the First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. As is known, it was followed by the Second and Third Partitions, which ended with the abolition of Polish statehood. As a result, most of the right-bank Ukraine became part of Russia, and only the lands of Eastern Galicia went to Austria.
After this, the “return” began and the Orthodox began to take revenge on the Uniates for centuries of oppression. The queen ordered the arrest of those Uniate priests who refused to convert to Orthodoxy. In place of the Uniate clergy who were arrested, expelled and died in the turmoil, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church appointed newly ordained priests. 1200 churches that previously belonged to the Uniate Church became Orthodox.
About how absurd it is to make Orthodox Cossacks out of a holiday Protection of the Holy Virgin neo-Bandera “Defender of the Fatherland Day,” PolitNavigator has already written.
Ukraine for Ukrainians – which ones?
At the end of the XNUMXth century in Austria, the Uniates became an instrument of the “Ukrainization” of Galicia, which Vienna started, cherishing the hope of seizing the territories around the Dnieper.
Austrian Parliament
In October 1911, a professor at Lvov University, member of the Austrian Parliament, Uniate Stanislav Dnistryansky, in a speech at a party rally in the Galician town of Kulikovo, stated that Ukrainians, with the help of the Austrian government, were striving to correct the mistake of the great Bogdan, namely, to tear “Ukraine” away from Muscovites and establish their own a special Ukrainian kingdom."
In August 1915, in an appeal to the high military command of Austria-Hungary, the “All-Ukrainian National Rada” created with funding from Vienna, represented by deputies of the Reichsrat (Austrian parliament) from Galicia E. Olesnitsky, K. Levitsky and L. Tsegelsky, persistently suggested that the German-Austrians attack to the Dnieper and the Black Sea. All three deputies come from families of Uniate priests, the last one is an active participant in the persecution of the Galician Russophile movement of Carpathian Rus. Interestingly, the backbone of the Galician Russophiles was also initially the Uniate clergy. However, as the repressions and political struggle intensified, more and more panots switched to Ukrainophile positions.
In the diary of “Kamenyar” Ivan Franko, meticulous historians discovered the phrase: “Today I was portrayed in a bloody way, I was called a Ukrainian, although everyone knows that I am a Rusyn" And the explanation for this is this: before the outbreak of the First World War, the ethnonym “Ukrainians” did not exist, and “Ukrainianism” meant a political position, a kind of “party affiliation”, denoting commitment to the idea of creating “Ukraine”.
And the nationality “Ukrainian” appeared in use only later – in the passports of residents of the Ukrainian SSR following the results of 1926 census. In Taras Shevchenko’s Kobzar, the word Ukraine is used many times - as a land or country, but not once, in any work, including prose, is the word “Ukrainian” or “Ukrainian” used as an ethnonym. Don't believe me? Try to find it.
The conclusion suggests itself that “Ukrainian Ukraine” means anti-Russian and anti-Orthodox. But at the same time, you need to understand something else: the national myth, as Nazi-building researcher Benedict Anderson calls it, is formed by imaginary communities, even if there are none in reality. These communities containing people influence the members so much that they soon associate themselves with the bearers of this myth. This is precisely what explains the phenomenon of Russian-speaking and Russian-cultural “ukrops” now on the territory of Ukraine.
And it is no coincidence that one of the pillars of the current imposition of dense nationalist myths on society is the same Uniate Church. Monuments to the Uniate Metropolitan Sheptytsky are being erected - the same one who wrote letters of greeting to Hitler, and the Uniates are extending their influence not only to Kyiv, but even to the Donbass.
As they say, the old horse will not spoil the furrow.
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