No Ukraine without Ukrainian Catholic Church, says major archbishop

Ukrainian Catholics now account for around 12 per cent of the Ukraine’s population, with numbers increasing as Ukrainians distance themselves from Orthodoxy’s associations with Moscow.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is essential to Ukraine’s national identity, according to the head of the Church.

“Our history is an integral part of national memory, and without the role of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church [UGCC] there is no process of Ukrainian national formation,” said Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk.

He was speaking at a conference held at the Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv on 12 March.

“At times we were left out of Ukrainian historiography, as if we were some kind of regional church,” Archbishop Shevchuk said, but he insisted there can be “no Ukrainian national identity” without the UGCC.

Like others in Ukraine and Russia, the Church dates its foundation to the metropolis established in Kyiv in 988 under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. It came into communion with Rome in 1596 under the terms of the Union of Brest while retaining its Eastern liturgy.

Now one of 23 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches, it has endured difficult relations with Orthodox Churches – who refer to its members as “Uniates” – and suffered numerous periods of persecution, particularly under the Soviet Union.

The conference Shevchuk addressed was on the “Lviv Pseudo-Council”, a purported synod of UGCC leaders in 1946 which annulled the Union of Brest and declared unity with the Russian Orthodox Church, which was allowed some rights under Soviet rule.

Widely rejected by Ukrainian Catholics, the council rendered the UGCC the largest illegal religious organisation in the world until it was legalised in 1989.

Shevchuk, who began his studies for the priesthood before legalisation, told the conference that “there was no freedom of conscience in the Soviet Union”, contrary to claims that Ukrainian Catholics “voluntarily reunited with the Russian Orthodox Church”.

“Therefore, one cannot speak of any free activity, especially of a religious nature,” he said. “It was a propaganda special operation by the Soviet secret services, aimed at eliminating the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. We have no right to evade the word ‘elimination’, because that was precisely its goal.”

Ukrainian Catholics now account for around 12 per cent of the Ukrainian population, according to a survey in October 2024, with numbers increasing as Ukrainians distance themselves from Orthodoxy’s associations with Moscow.

Authorities in Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia have banned the UGCC.

Shevchuk claimed that the Russian Orthodox Church was intent on eliminating Ukrainian identity, “especially when it comes to any manifestation of church life”.

The previous day, Shevchuk discussed the “pseudo-council” and the Church’s history of persecution during a meeting with Kyrylo Budanov, the recently-appointed head of the Office of the President of Ukraine.

Shevchuk told Budanov that the UGCC is “state-minded and state-building, but has never been a state Church”, according to a report from the UGCC news agency.

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