On the night of April 12, 1945, the Soviet secret police arrested the leadership of the Ukrainian Catholic Church (now Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church) in Lviv and Stanislav (current Ivano- Frankivsk): Metropolitan Joseph Slipij and Bishops Mykyta Budka, Mykola Charnetsky, Hryhory Khomyshyn, and Ivan Liatoshynsky. Several days later, the then most influential clergymen of the Lviv and Stanislav dioceses were taken into custody, while all theological students were drafted into the Red Army. The Ukrainian Catholic Church numbered over 2,000 parishes at the time and was suddenly beheaded, left without its hierarchs. Thus began a carefully planned campaign aimed at doing away with this confession.
The signal to start the campaign was the article titled “With Cross or Sword?” carried by Vilna Ukrayina (Free Ukraine, Lviv oblast official Party organ) on April 5. For the first time since the “reunification” of the western and eastern Ukrainian territories, it hurled heaps of dirt on the late Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky (and the fact remains that Soviet party functionaries attended his funeral back in 1944). According to the newspaper article, the Metropolitan and the Church were basically guilty of adhering to the Catholic rite, thereby maintaining relations with “the hostile and treacherous Vatican.” By the time the campaign began local NKVD stations possessed exhaustive information about the church, including lists of names of the ranking clergy, monks, seminary students, church and monastic property, that of the seminaries, the works. This information was updated using archives (often of historical value that have not been returned to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church) confiscated during searches by the secret police on metropolitan and diocesan premises.
The bishops arrested in 1945 were given a court martial in camera, on charges of “activities hostile to the USSR and collaboration with the Gestapo.” The sentences were severe: ten years of penal servitude for Bishop Hryhory Khomyshyn, five for Mykola Charnetsky, and eight for Metropolitan Joseph Slipij and the other bishops. Not all would live to see their release date.
As soon as the bishops and other ranking clergy were incarcerated, the NKVD proceeded with what was termed lower-level work, setting up an initiative group to unite the Greek Catholic and Orthodox adherents. The group included three Orthodox-converted Greek Catholic priests: Havrylo Kostelnyk, Mykhailo Melnyk, and Andriy Pelvetsky. On May 28, 1945, the initiative group addressed the government of Soviet Ukraine, requesting approval and support of their idea of uniting both confessions. Then the remaining Greek Catholic clergy and believers found themselves exposed to intimidation, persecution, and a signature-collecting campaign was launched. People were forced to sign and issue declarations of their loyalty to Orthodoxy. Those resisting were arrested. The campaign reached its peak when the Church Council of Lviv was convened in 1946 (later to be referred to as the Pseudo-Council). It decided to invalidate the Church Union of Brest and return to the bosom of the Russian Orthodox Church. Numerous Greek church buildings were transferred to the Russian Church, some were turned into warehouses, clubs, etc. The Lviv Council was not attended by a single Greek Catholic bishop, as all were incarcerated at the time, awaiting sentencing (Interestingly, after the Lviv Council a 170-page book appeared in print, The Deeds of the Greek Catholic Church Council of Lviv, March 8-10, 1946, which is a priceless historical document attesting to the methods practiced by the Soviet authorities at the time).
It is common knowledge that far from all Greek Catholic adherents agreed with the Lviv Council resolutions; UGCC continued to operate underground — in the catacombs and in the Diaspora, of course. Even those of the believers forced to convert for various reasons remained Greek Catholics at heart, unable to part with their forefathers’ creed. Small wonder that the Church revived so fast after being legalized in November 1989. At the time, UGCC had 138 semilegal congregations. At present, there are a metropolitan’s see, 6 dioceses, and the Exarchate of Kyiv and Vyshhorod, totaling 3,240 parishes. It boasts 12 theological institutions and publishes 22 periodicals, ranking as Ukraine’s second largest Christian denomination. A purely regional church only a decade ago, sustained only in Western Ukraine, currently Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church communities are found all over Ukraine, except Kirovohrad oblast, although 96% of Greek Catholics are still in Halychyna and Zakarpattia.
What happened to the UGCC after World War II bears eloquent testimony that even a powerful and ruthless machine such as Stalin’s regime is not omnipotent; that there are people willing to retain their faith at all costs, sustaining the hardest of ordeals, keeping their souls clean of all ideological garbage.
