UOC of Moscow Patriarchate opposes UGCC center's move

Religious Information Service of Ukraine

LVIV - The announcement by the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (UGCC) that it plans to move its center from Lviv to Kyiv has been met with opposition by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).

The statements of Archbishop Auhustyn of Lviv and Halych (UOC-MP), Andrii Derkatch, a national deputy in Ukraine's Parliament, and Kateryna Samoilyk, head of the Ukrainian branch of the International Fund for Unity Among the Orthodox People, were released on March 1 and 4.

"Moving the office of the head of the UGCC from Lviv to Kyiv and creating Catholic eparchies in Russia show that the masks have been finally thrown off. This means returning to the East, about which the Roman Catholics have always spoken" declared Archbishop Auhustyn. "They do not consider us true Christians and perceive the world as their canonical territory."

The archbishop said the UGCC's plan "is real religious expansionism" and drew an analogy between the acts of Catholics in Ukraine and the behavior of the United States. "At first, the U.S. tried to gain our confidence by declaring that it fought against the Soviet threat, and now it introduces its own rules and establishes it own orders," said the Orthodox archbishop. "In such conditions," he continued, "the Orthodox Church must realize its role of a mother-Church in Ukraine and develop its own conception of service."

According to Archbishop Auhustyn, his parishioners are discriminated against by "Uniate pressure in western Ukraine." The archbishop called upon the general public to protest against the erection of Catholic churches in Kyiv.

National Deputy Derkach, who heads the association of national deputies called "Towards Europe Together with Russia," said he believes that moving the residence of the UGCC head to Kyiv will introduce more tension into the religious sphere. "Most Greek-Catholic Ukrainians live in western Ukraine, so it is logical that the center of the UGCC is in Lviv. This transfer to Kyiv de facto means proselytism among the Orthodox population in central, eastern and southern Ukraine."

"We shouldn't forget that Ukraine has traditionally been an Orthodox country and canonical Orthodoxy has always been its religion, largely contributing to state formation," he said. According to Mr. Derkatch, missionary activities conducted by the UGCC in eastern Ukraine will infringe upon the rights of the Orthodox.

Ms. Samoilyk assessed the move of the Greek-Catholic religious center from Lviv to the capital as, "an open challenge to canonical Orthodoxy." According to Ms. Samoilyk, not only Ukraine but Orthodoxy on the whole will be affected by this move. "If the state authorities, in particular the State Committee on Religious Affairs, do consider Ukraine an Orthodox state, then they should take a definitive stand concerning the latest acts of the Uniates," she stated.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 2, 2002, No. 22, Vol. LXX

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