1989: A LOOK BACK: Our Churches (12/31/89)

1989: A LOOK BACK

Our Churches

Although the Millennium year, 1988, made headlines as Ukrainian Christians celebrated 1,000 years of the Christiani7ation of Rus'-Ukraine, it was 1989 that was a landmark year for believers in the Soviet Union, as the government relaxed its reins on religious freedom for believers.

The Church that perhaps won most media attention and made the most progress in its demands was the Ukrainian Catholic, which is also known as the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic (referring to the Eastern rite) and Uniate (a pejorative referring to the 1596 Union Of Brest, when Ukrainians signed allegiance to Rome).

After the emergence of some of its underground hierarchs in August 1987, the Church's believers became more vocal, signing petitions marching through streets of western Ukrainian cities, staging hunger strikes and demanding the return of Ukrainian Catholic churches and the rehabilitation of the Church that was liquidated in a staged synod inspired by Stalinist terror in March 1946.

At one point, local Soviet authorities and the KGB in Ukraine approached Ukrainian Catholic bishops with an offer that they would be allowed to hold religious services without interference if they were held in Latin rite churches in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Catholic Press Bureau in Rome reported on March 15 that Church sources in Ukraine dismissed the offers as a maneuver to divert serious discussion of the UCC's legalization.

By the end of 1989, Ukrainian Catholics were registering their congregations with local councils for religious affairs, in compliance with a decree by the republican Council for Religious Affairs issued on November 28 and proclaimed on December 1, which coincided with the meeting of Pope John Paul II and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at the Vatican, also on the first day of December. Now, as the new decade unfolds, Ukrainian Catholics continue to press for the legalization of their Church, a legal, not administrative step, which may be granted, according to Western authorities on Church matters, with the passage of the Soviet law on freedom of conscience in early 1990.

Ukrainian Catholic bishops in Ukraine drew attention to the plight of their Church in May, when they decided to meet with the newly appointed chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs in the Soviet Union, Yuriy Khristoradnov, who replaced longtime chairman Konstantin Kharchev.

They staged a hunger strike in the reception area of the building of the Supreme Soviet until they were granted a meeting with the chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs. Although they did not come to any definite agreements after their meeting with the Soviet chairman, they did bring up their Concerns in regard to the Ukrainian Catholic Church. The hierarchs went back to western Ukraine, but a delegation of 400 Ukrainian Catholic faithful gathered in Moscow to hold a moleben in front of the Moskva Hotel. As newly elected members of the Congress of People's Deputies filed past them to their sessions, the faithful asked them to bring up the legalization of the Church during their meetings.

Ukrainian Catholic hunger strikers continued staging protests in front of the Ukrainskaya Kniga bookstore on Moscow's Arbat through the summer months, calling attention to their Church during a World Council of Churches session in Moscow in July. Their strike continued from mid-May through mid-September until they were arrested on Monday, September 18, and ordered back to western Ukraine.

Ukrainian Catholics marched en masse along the streets of western Ukrainian cities on a number of occasions over the year to call attention to the plight of their church, most notably on June 18 when 100,000 faithful participated in public services in Ivano-Frankivske, responding to Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky's call for an international day of prayer; and on September 17 when between 150,000 and 250,000 faithful marched in Lviv to demand restoration of their Church's legal status. This demonstration was, reportedly, to date, the largest demonstration of Ukrainian Catholics since World War II.

On October 29, the congregation of the Church of the Transfiguration in Lviv, following its priest, became a Ukrainian Catholic Church, changing allegiance from the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). For weeks afterwards, the congregation was accused of taking the church by force; the ROC hierarchs, including Archbishop Kirill, who was appointed the chairman of the ROC's foreign relations department, spread the news in the media, however, Canadian and French broadcast crews present at the events of October 29, as well as Lviv Mayor Bohdan Kotyk acknowledged that no violence was displayed at the Church of the Transfiguration.

Since that time thousands of Ukrainian Catholic faithful attend services at the church daily. The Rev. Myroslav Tataryn of St. Catharines, Ontario, holds the distinction of having served liturgy there in late November, the first of Western clergy to do so.

On November 26, a day of prayer and fasting proclaimed by Cardinal Lubachivsky, once again thousands of faithful in western Ukraine took part in liturgies and molebens on the eve of the summit between Pope John Paul II and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at the Vatican.

Just five days later they received news that, indeed, congregations would be allowed to register as Ukrainian Catholic. Ukrainian Catholics, members of the Committee in Defense of the Rights of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, headed by former political prisoner Ivan Gel, rejoiced at the news and began urging that congregations register. More than 600 reportedly registered by the end of 1989.

In a true spirit of ecumenism, in Lviv more than 25,000 Ukrainian Catholics and Ukrainian Orthodox, as well as Russian Orthodox believers, gathered in late February in the city center of Lviv to hold a requiem service on the occasion of the 128th anniversary of the death of Taras Shevchenko.

Both Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches found many good friends, public figures both in the West and in the Soviet Union who spoke out in support of the legalization of both Churches. Among those were the late dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov who, on a number of occasions, including during visits to Italy and Canada, and an audience with Cardinal Lubachivsky, called for the legalization of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

The U.S. State Department spoke out for religious freedom in Ukraine, as did the Helsinki Commission, which supported the right to freedom of worship on a number of occasions. At the Conference on the Human Dimension in Paris this past June U.S. Ambassador Morris Abram said:

"And even when a faith is forced to accept the requirement of registration, why must some denominations be denied recognition, in violation of the Vienna Concluding Document? For example, the Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church continue not to be recognized by Soviet authorities."

He concluded: "We hope that the new laws and regulations regarding religious practices promised by the Soviet authorities - which we will carefully look at in Copenhagen - will eliminate the requirement for registration and other restrictive practices. We also hope that the Soviet authorities will incorporate into these laws and practices their commitment in the Vienna Concluding Document regarding the right to give and receive religious education for all ages, including the liberty of parents to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in the language they choose..."

In a letter dated August 2, the full membership of the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) called upon Soviet President Gorbachev to allow unrestricted freedom of worship for Ukrainian Catholic and Orthodox believers.

The U.S. Congress responded to an appeal by U.S. Catholic Bishop Basil Losten, who argued for the legalization of the UCC. Since September 15, more than 100 members of Congress have written individual letters to President Gorbachev.

Even Soviet publications brought up the issue of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, as Ogonyok and Moscow News acknowledged in late 1989 the right to existence for the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Sixteen prominent academics, writers and cultural leaders from western Ukraine, including four deputies from the Supreme Soviet, wrote a letter to President Gorbachev in September, urging legalization of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church also began making headway for its legalization in mid-February, announcing the formation of the Initiative Committee for the Renewal of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which included as members the Rev. Bohdan Mykhailechko, Taras Antoniuk, Anatoliy Bytchenko, Mykola Budnyk and Larysa Lokhvytska.

By August one Russian Orthodox parish in Lviv, Ss. Peter and Paul, had announced that it was switching to Ukrainian autocephaly, with parish priest Volodymyr Yarema leading the way. He also said that a number of UAOC communities had formed in cities and villages around Ukraine.

On October 20, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church's faithful and clergy participated in a sobor in Lviv, the first of that Church since its forced liquidation in 1930s. During this sobor a hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Ioann Bodnarchuk of Zhytomyr, renounced his position as a member of the ROC and became the spiritual leader of UAOC faithful in Ukraine. He was later excommunicated from the ROC.

The sobor allowed the UAOC faithful to form brotherhoods. This sobor was followed by a meeting of UAOC representatives in Kiev on December 9, which discussed future steps for the renewal of the UAOC in Ukraine, as the conference's main objective was to discuss how to spread the concept of a Ukrainian variant of Orthodoxy in Ukraine.

Probably the biggest roadblock for the Ukrainian Churches was the Russian Orthodox Church, which, to date has not undergone any kind of perebudova, as evidenced by statements made throughout the year by Metropolitan Filaret of Kiev, Russian Orthodox exarch of Ukraine. Whereas, the state has been prepared to make concessions to the Ukrainian Catholic Church, hierarchs of the ROC, among them Filaret and Nikodim, as late as December wrote that "there is no such Church as the Ukrainian Catholic Church."

The Ukrainian Churches were also active in the diaspora, as their leaders and faithful spoke out for the rights of the faithful in Ukraine. Such committees as the Committee for the Defense of Religious Freedom in Ukraine and the Campaign for Legalization of Ukrainian Churches, based in Simsbury, Conn., wrote letters to U.S. government officials demanding that rights be restored to Ukrainian Churches in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Catholic Press Bureau, based in Rome, opened in February, keeping close contact with Archbishop Volodymyr Sterniuk, metropolitan locum tenens of Lviv, and tracking events for the western media in regard to the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

NKM Associates, a Washington-based lobbying group, was also hired by Bishop Basil Losten of Stamford to lobby U.S. senators and representatives on behalf of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Ukrainian Catholic hierarchs made headlines in The Weekly this year, as a controversy developed surrounding Bishop Isidore Borecky of the Toronto eparchy, who was asked to resign, supposedly because he had reached retirement age (75). The controversy, which reportedly also developed because the bishop of Toronto had sent married candidates for priesthood to be ordained in Ukraine, saw the bishop holding his own, as he reported he would not resign because the age issue did not affect bishops of the Eastern-rite, although he did add that he would step down if he were to receive a co-adjutor to take his place as the hierarch of Toronto. (In May, he celebrated 40 years as bishop of Toronto and 50 years as a priest.)

The issue was to be resolved at the synod of Ukrainian Catholic bishops in Rome. However, to date Bishop Borecky still heads the Toronto eparchy; he has no named co-adjutor. (According to Bishop Losten, Ukrainian Catholic bishops did decide at their synod to make 75 the mandatory retirement age for bishops). The Ukrainian Catholic bishops in diaspora held their two-week sixth synod in Rome from late September through October 8. Their sessions were closed and, as a result, little was reported in the press about their meetings. However, according to Bishop Losten, who acted as spokesperson for the synod, the Ukrainian Catholic hierarchs discussed the situation in Ukraine and hoped to hold eucharistic congresses in Winnipeg in 1992, 1994 in Poland and 1996 in Lviv. (If the Church is indeed legalized and the planning for the eucharistic congress can be moved up, it is indeed possible that Ukrainian Catholic hierarchs will visit Lviv as part of the eucharistic congress at an earlier date.)

According to Bishop Losten, the hierarchs discussed at length the situation of Ukrainian Catholics in Poland, as well as the beatification process for Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, which has been unnecessarily prolonged.

It was in 1989 that Ukrainian Catholics in Poland got their first hierarch, when Pope John Paul II on July 20 named the Rt. Rev. Ivan Martyniak auxiliary bishop for Ukrainian Catholics in Poland.

Also, Bishop Michael Kuchmiak, auxiliary to Archbishop-Metropolitan Stephen Sulyk, was named the new apostolic exarch for Ukrainian Catholics in Great Britain in July.

Also in 1989, Bishop Vsevolod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of Constantinople called for ecumenism between Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches during a historic conference in Toronto in early December which coincided with the pontiff's historic meeting with Mr. Gorbachev.

Probably the book that most often crossed the border into the Soviet Union this year was the Bible, as Soviet authorities relaxed restrictions on sending religious literature to believers. And many of the Bibles sent were Ukrainian-language Bibles, thanks to the diligent efforts of such organizations as the Ukrainian Family Bible Association, the Ukrainian Catholic eparchy of Stamford, the Philadelphia Ukrainian Catholic diocese, the St. Sophia Religious Association of Ukrainian Catholics in Canada and the Ukrainian Catholic eparchy of Toronto, as well as the Ukrainian Evangelical Baptist Fellowship.

Dr. Mark Elliott, the director of the Institute for the Study of Christianity and Marxism from Wheaton College, spoke at a seminar sponsored by Keston College in April. Giving a brief historical review of the availability of Bibles on the territory that is now the Soviet Union, he noted, that from the beginning of this century through 1917, only 1 million copies of the Scriptures were available to a population that exceeded 190 million. From 1917 to 1986, he noted, 4.1 million Bibles were made available in the Soviet Union, but most of these were either smuggled into the country, printed clandestinely, or secretly imported. Only about 450,000 were government-sanctioned via the Russian Orthodox Church. Prof. Elliott "guestimated" that between 1987 and 1988 about 1.3 million Bibles were imported to the USSR by legal means, and his projections for 1989 based on reports from various Western-based Bible societies, Churches, mission groups and religious organizations amount to anywhere between 5.5 million and 6 million Bibles for the Soviet Union.

It is such spiritual hunger that inspired a 59-year-old resident of the Dnipropetrovske Oblast in Ukraine to write: "For the first time in my life I am reading the holy scriptures... People come every day to me to take a look at the Bible and today there is already a line of 30 persons. Some ask to borrow it for one night in order to copy down a passage. Here (especially in eastern Ukraine) there has been a constant hunger for religious literature."