The MP against Catholic efforts to expand influence over Orthodox

[Orthodoc]

From Interfax:


The Moscow Patriarchate against Catholic efforts to expand influence over Orthodox



Moscow, September 18, Interfax – The Russian Church points out to great potential for cooperation with Catholics, but warns against their unfriendly steps.

“We have much in common with Catholics not only in teaching, but also in morals,” the Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said on air of the Soyuz Orthodox TV channel.

According to him, today “Catholic hierarchs and laymen actively opposes the problems actual for modern Russia: aborts, dilution of family, cult of permissiveness in private life, in sexual relations, in media, in education and so on.”

“We fight against the same enemies and must at least coordinate our efforts,” Fr. Vsevolod stressed.

Though, he noted, the Moscow Patriarchate saw “there are people in the Catholic Church who try to expand the area of its influence in Orthodox countries and nations.”

“It happens in Ukraine where the Greek Catholic Church was a local phenomenon of three regions of Western Ukraine and now pretends to have some national status, to be a Church of the whole Ukraine and claims it can unite Orthodox as well,” the priest stated.

He pointed out the Russian Church did not agree to it.

“We don’t understand those Catholic missionaries who come to various regions of Russia, Ukraine, and Central Asia and act as though these lands have never been enlightened with the light of Christ. It not fraternal actions, to put it mildly,” Fr. Vsevolod said.

According to him, those Catholics, who try to act like this, “should remember that their small benefits greatly limit possibilities for joint work and opposing the challenges both Catholic and Orthodox Churches face.”

===============

Orthodoc
   
   

[AMM]

Complete hypocrisy.

[Heracleides]

Complete hypocrisy.

In what way? Please, enlighten us.

[Stanislav]

Well, I'm not sure about "hypocrisy". But such a position is not logically defensible, and I would think Russian Bishops know that. "Orthodox land"? Isn't all of Universe an "Orthodox land"? And surely they realize Catholics see it in exact opposite way (just look at, I dunno, their name or something.

Besides from what I've heard, Roman Catholic missionary efforts in mainland Russia are virtually nonexistent. ROC is mad about re-emergence of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, that's true, but you can hardly blame Rome for that one. My guess that the real goal of these complaints is to allow the Russian Church to be "in dialog" with Rome indefinitely. They avoid agreeing with Rome on something (and being guilty of undue ecumenism), and they avoid breaking "the dialog" as obviously fruitless (so they can keep people in their "External Church Relations" department occupied and on abroad trips, often on Catholic dime). Plus, they get to blame the EP for "pandering to Rome".

[Heracleides]

They avoid agreeing with Rome on something (and being guilty of undue ecumenism), and they avoid breaking "the dialog" as obviously fruitless (so they can keep people in their "External Church Relations" department occupied and on abroad trips, often on Catholic dime). Plus, they get to blame the EP for "pandering to Rome".

Ah... those devious Russians...  sounds like an excellent plan. 

[Orthodoc]

They avoid agreeing with Rome on something (and being guilty of undue ecumenism), and they avoid breaking "the dialog" as obviously fruitless (so they can keep people in their "External Church Relations" department occupied and on abroad trips, often on Catholic dime). Plus, they get to blame the EP for "pandering to Rome".

Ah... those devious Russians...  sounds like an excellent plan. 

Or could it possibility be that after so many years they have become wise to the way the RCC plays the western media.  Especially the previous pope who was so fond of agreeing with an agreed upon agenda for discussion that the meeting would be based on.  And then, once the proposed meeting is announced, changing the agenda or taking of items that the ROC considered as important to be discussed before things could go further.  Example:  the Quadripartite Agreement (or Commission depending on how you want to label it).  This Agreement/Comission had set it up that each former Greek Catholic parish would get to vote on whether they wanted to remain within Orthodoxy or revent back to Greek Catholicism.    And the UGC's pulling out and taking the churches over by force.  And, Rome's silence while this was going on.  This is just one of the situations the ROC demands before any discussions take any step forward.  Rome consistly agrees to discuss it but then takes it off the agenda forcing the ROC to cancel and look bad in the western press.

-------------------

Quadripartite Agreement/Comission:

Excerpt:

Now, at the end of 1980s, under the influence of the nationalist movement in Western Ukraine, the Greek Catholics began to re-establish their presence in the region. What may have become a restoration of justice, however, turned out to be a crying injustice, since the revival of the Greek Catholic Church took place at the expense of the Orthodox Church. On 29 October 1989, the Greek Catholics seized the Transfiguration Cathedral of Lvov, after expelling the Orthodox from it. Shortly thereafter, many similar acts occurred in other parts of the country.

January 1990 saw the creation of the so-called Quadrennial Commission, which comprised representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Roman Catholic Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Eastern Rite Catholics from Western Ukraine. The Commission began to discuss concrete cases of human rights violations during the campaign launched by the Uniates. In March 1990, the Commission developed basic principles for the distribution of the property between the Greek Catholics and the Orthodox. It was agreed that, where there are two churches, one should be given to the Greek Catholics and another one remain Orthodox; where there is only one church, it should belong to the majority group, which must in this case help the minority find or build a suitable place of worship. However, on 13 March 1990, the Greek Catholics unilaterally left the Commission. From then on the seizure of the Orthodox churches (some of them had belonged to the Orthodox even before the Union of 1596) assumed an avalanche-like character. In many places violent methods were employed by the Greek Catholics as they seized Orthodox churches and expelled parishioners from their places of worship. Tensions between the Orthodox and the Greek Catholics led to clashes and mass disorders. By the end of 1990, most churches in Lvov, Ternopol and Ivano-Frankovsk had been captured and by the end of 1991, 597 churches had been taken from the Orthodox.

Commenting on these events, the Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church stated in 1997:

In such a situation it was important to do the utmost to bring home to public opinion, to international organizations, to Christian Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, that beating Orthodoxy in Western Ukraine was not only an act of violation of human rights and religious freedom, but also an annihilation of whatever progress the dialogue between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches had made in the previous years. It was essential to show that Uniatism was a dangerous and unacceptable way for achieving unity.

The Unia has brought about new divisions, tearing the One Body of the Orthodox Church. The four centuries of its maintenance have revealed it as a dangerous form of proselytism against Orthodoxy. Human suffering and even bloodshed were the sad aftermath of the divisions it had caused.

At the same time, it is important to emphasize that, while repudiating Unia as a method, the Churches do not abjure people. The Greek Catholic communities existing today, with a legal right to exist, like any other religious organization or association, should cease to be the source of divisions and conflicts between the Orthodox and Catholics. To serve this purpose, rules should be worked out to regulate co-existence and relations in places where there is tension causing suffering among the people of God.

The revival of the Greek Catholic Church in Western Ukraine, accompanied as it was by violence, together with other, similar events in the Transcarpathian region, brought the Joint Catholic-Orthodox Commission to decide on suspending the discussion of purely theological topics and to turn to the burning issue of Uniatism. In 1990, the sixth plenary session of the Commission in Freising (Munich) set out to discuss the matter. The Statement that ensued said, among other things, that 'Unia, as a method, failed-where it was introduced-to bring the Churches closer. On the contrary, it caused further disunity. The situation, as a whole, gave occasion to confrontation and pain which became imprinted in the historical memory of both Churches. Ecclesiological motives, too, call for some other methods to be found'. Both sides of the Commission were resolute in their denunciation of Uniatism: 'We reject it as a method for the search for unity because it is opposed to the common tradition of our Churches'. The Freising Statement was accepted with satisfaction by most Orthodox Churches. The Roman Catholic Church, however, did not ratify it.

In 1993, the seventh plenary session of the Joint Commission took place in Balamand, Lebanon. The representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and those of the Orthodox Churches (excluding the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian and Czechoslovak Churches) agreed on the theological principles and practical recommendations with regard to Uniatism. Once again, it was stated that Uniatism is not a method for achieving unity between the Catholics and the Orthodox:

Because of the way in which Catholics and Orthodox once again consider each other in relationship to the mystery of the Church and discover each other once again as Sister Churches, this form of 'missionary apostolate' described above, and which has been called 'uniatism', can no longer be accepted either as a method to be followed or as a model of the unity our Churches are seeking.

All forms of proselytism were strongly condemned, and a call to mutual collaboration was made:

While the inviolable freedom of persons and their obligation to follow the requirements of their conscience remain secure, in the search for re-establishing unity there is no question of conversion of people from one Church to the other in order to ensure their salvation.

The Eastern Catholic Churches... should be inserted, on both local and universal levels, into the dialogue of love, in mutual respect and reciprocal trust found once again, and enter into the theological dialogue, with all its practical implications.

Pastoral activity in the Catholic Church, Latin as well as Eastern, no longer aims at having the faithful of one Church pass over to the other; that is to say, it no longer aims at proselytizing among the Orthodox. It aims at answering the spiritual needs of its own faithful and it has no desire for expansion at the expense of the Orthodox Church.

Religious freedom would be violated when, under the cover of financial assistance, the faithful of one Church would be attracted to the other, by promises, for example, of education and material benefits that may be lacking in their own Church. In this context, it will be necessary that social assistance, as well as every form of philanthropic activity, be organized with common agreement so as to avoid creating new suspicions.

Furthermore, the necessary respect for Christian freedom - one of the most precious gifts received from Christ - should not become an occasion for undertaking a pastoral project which may also involve the faithful of other Churches, without previous consultation with the pastors of these Churches.

Those in charge of the communities concerned should create joint local commissions or make effective those which already exist, for finding solutions to concrete problems and seeing that these solutions are applied in truth and love, in justice and peace. If agreement cannot be reached on the local level, the question should be brought to mixed commissions established by higher authorities.

Suspicion would disappear more easily if the two parties were to condemn violence wherever communities of one Church use it against communities of a Sister Church.

-------------------

Orthodoc

[Stanislav]

They avoid agreeing with Rome on something (and being guilty of undue ecumenism), and they avoid breaking "the dialog" as obviously fruitless (so they can keep people in their "External Church Relations" department occupied and on abroad trips, often on Catholic dime). Plus, they get to blame the EP for "pandering to Rome".

Ah... those devious Russians...  sounds like an excellent plan. 

Or could it possibility be that after so many years they have become wise to the way the RCC plays the western media.  Especially the previous pope who was so fond of agreeing with an agreed upon agenda for discussion that the meeting would be based on.  And then, once the proposed meeting is announced, changing the agenda or taking of items that the ROC considered as important to be discussed before things could go further.

Well, maybe a bit of both. I have no way of proving anything, since that would involve doing independent research. But, again, I heard that the reports of UGCC violence were greatly overstated. Most of it was either done by professional provocateurs of the ultra-nationalist kind (eg., UNA-UNSO lead by the infamous Kortschynski - btw, he apparently belongs to UOC-MP now and plays ultra-internationalist instead) or were conflicts with autocephalist groups (mostly UOC-KP). Observe how the ROC does not complain about this anymore. They complain about Uniates building a cathedral in Kyiv and moving their Archbishop's (or "Patriarch"'s, as SOME of GCs like to say) to Kyiv. Which is sort of valid complain, but hard to argue. The whole argument sort of pretends that ROC and RCC are still part of the same church, without actually saying it.

Not that the Greek Catholics are completely blameless. They do try to insert themselves to the whole Ukrainian schism debate, making these weird proposals of creating this "soborna pomisna" national church recognized by both Rome and the Orthodox. Even if every bishop in Ukraine will go mad and such hybrid would be created, surely no self-respecting church would recognize it (not even Rome). Surely Abp. ("Patriarch") Lyubomyr is enough of a theologian to realize that. There are vagante groups that recognize both the Pope and orthodox Patriarch - which is one of reasons they remain vagante.

[SteveK]

What is the source for the quote from the Quadripartite Agreement/Comission?

Is it online or from a book?

I would like to follow this up and read more about.

[Orthodoc]

What is the source for the quote from the Quadripartite Agreement/Comission?

Is it online or from a book?

I would like to follow this up and read more about.

From my files -

Quadrapartite Agreement/Comission Part 1:

STATEMENT:  by the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate in Connection with the
Leaving by the Catholics of the Eastern Rite of the Quadripartite Commission
for Normalizing Relations Between the Orthodox and the Catholics of the Eastern
Rite in the Western Regions of the Ukraine and Concerning the Decision Adopted
by the Lvov City Soviet of the People's Deputies on April 6, 1990


In August 1989, the Russian Orthodox Church, acting through fraternal contacts
with the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, and his
representatives, and prompted by pastoral concern, displayed initiative on the
settlement of te position of the Catholics of the Eastern Rite in the Western
Ukraine.
In accordance with the plans for settling the said problems, approved by both
sides, a quadripartie Commission, consisting of representatives of the Holy
See, the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and the Catholics
of the Eastern Rite, was working in Lvov on March 8-13, 1990.
As a result of the work, carried out by the Commission, involving trips,
on-the-spot inspection of churches by its members and meetings with believers,
the Commission unanimously adopted a number of practical decisions:  churches
in the towns of Nestrov, Zoochev, Nikolaev, Yavorov, Stryj, and Borislav were
distributed between the Orthodox and the Uniates.
On the last  day of the Commissions work, Archbishop Vladimir Sternyuk, one of
the representatives of the Catholics of the Eastern Rite, suddenly left the
commission, BUT THE CATHOLIC SIDE THE DECLARED THAT WORK COULD BE CONTINUED,
SINCE THEIR OTHER REPRESENTATIVE WAS PRESENT, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF
REPRESENTATION BY THE FOUR SIDES WAS THUS OBSERVED.
On March 13th, the Commission approved the statement on the results of the
first meeting, stressing that this was only the beginning of the process of
settlement, after which representatives of the Churches would go over to
considering other outstanding questions.  To prevent acts of extremism,
Commission members, acting on behalf of their respective churches, PLEDGED TO
EXCLUDE ANY POSSIBILITY OF FORCIBLE SEIZURES OF CHURCHES.
The Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate approved the results of the
Commissions work and declared that our Church is ready to continue her efforts
to settle this problem.
However, on Mrach 22nd, the Lvov newspaper, Leninska molodj, published a
"Statement of the Episcopate of the Greek Catholic Church in the Ukraine
Concerning the Talks of the Quadripartite Commission on Relations Between the
Orthodox and the Catholics", announcing the invalidity of the documents issued
by the Commission in the process of these talks,  "including all documents on
the transfer of churches.  MOREOVER, THE SAME STATEMENT SAYS THAT EVERYTHING
PRESENTED BY VLADYKAS FROM THE UKRAINE HAS BEEN AGREED  UPON WITH POPE JOHN
PAUL II.
Following this statement, the seizures of Orthodox churches, involving acts of
violence and lawlessness, became frequent.  Uniate leaders call for banishing
the Orthodox Church from the territory of the Western Ukraine.  It is
noteworthy that in its Statement the episcopate of the Ukrainian Catholics
declares that 'THE UKRAINIAN GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH IS THE ONLY CHURCH IN THE
UKRAINE."

================

Part II:


In many towns and villages the Orthodox are compelled to pray right in the
street.  The life of the Orthodox people in Galicia is clouded by tears and
suffering.
Instead of observing the law and ensuring their citizens' security, the local
authorities take a one sided anti-Orthodox stand  The most striking
illustration of this is the recent decision of the Lvov City Soviet to take St
Yur Cathedral and the bishops residence away from the Orthodox believers and
turn them over to the Catholics of the Eastern Rite.  On the eve of the feast
of  Holy Pascha the Orthodox may find themselves in the street!
Lawlessness has reached the limit in the Western Ukraine, and the inimical
tension in relations to believers of the two communities is fraught with
unpredictable complications.  While it is not to late, the Holy Synod once
again calls for an end to the brother-hating relations and for finding, in the
spirit of Christ's love, a just and legitimate way of settling the problem.
We believe that the Ukrainian consanguineous brothers and sisters and their
religious pastors are capable of reaching agreements restoring conditions for a
peaceful and quiet life in ther native land.
The Holy Synod hopes that the Holy See will pay attention to the complicated
situation with regard to the settlement of the problems of the Catholics of the
Eastern Rite in the Western Ukraine and will not allow these events to affect
the developement of the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue.  IN THIS CONNECTION WE CALL
IN QUESTION THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE UNIATE EPISCOPATE'S  ALLEGATION THAT
THEIR PRONOUNCEMENTS HAVE BEEN AGREED UPON  WITH POPE JOHN PAUL II, BECAUSE
THIS ALLEGATION IS  AT VARIANCE WITH THE VATICAN'S OFFICIAL STATEMENT, WHICH
SAYS:  "THE HOLY SEE IS HIGHLY SATISFIED WITH THE AGREEMENT REACHED BY ITS
ENVOYS IN COOPERATION WITH ORTHODOX REPRESENTATIVES."
The Church calls upon all  her faithful children to pray for the persecuted and
suffering brothers and sisters in Galicia, to raise their voice in their
defense and to give them all possible assistance.
We ask for the personal interference of President of the Soviet Union M.
Gorbachev  and the highest authorities of the Ukrainian SSR in order to
establish law and order, pu an end to violence, annul the Lvov City Soviets's
decision concerning St Yur Cathedral and the bishop's residence in Livov
return the forcibly seized churches, ensure a normal church life and help
overcome the difficult problems inherited from the past.
Resolutely protesting against the stand taken by the local authorities in the
Western Ukraine, particulary in Lvov, the Holy Synod declares that the path
they have chosen further aggravates the inter-religious situation and enmity
amidst the Ukrainian people rather than promotes the settlement of conflicts.
We pray to God, Who vanquished all evil forces on earth by His Ressurection,
also to resurrect our souls for love, fraternity, and peace!

================

You might want to do a search on Quadrapartite Agreement or Comission

Orthodox

[Orthodoc]

http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2004/370422.shtml

Excerpts worth noting -

The "Quadripartite Commission" was another 1990 "ecumenical" endeavor aimed at undermining the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church, characterized by disregard for the recently de-criminalized UGCC. Indeed, the commission never allowed itself to use the term "Church" for the Ukrainian Greco-Catholics, substituting instead "communities of Catholics of the Byzantine Rite" with the understood subtext that these communities would be placed under the jurisdiction of Roman (Latin-rite) bishops in an effort to either Romanize them completely or drive them into the Russian Orthodox Church.

In fact, the Church - decriminalized just two months earlier - was saved from such "execution by ecumenism" due only to the resolute action of the UGCC's locum tenens Archbishop Volodymyr Sterniuk, who walked out of the final session of this devious commission, declaring all of its decisions null and void, and without any binding effect upon the UGCC. This frustrated the attempts of professional ecumenists such as those who authored the Freising Declaration to deal conclusively with the "uniates."

Not understanding the agenda of the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches, Ukrainian Catholics and those Ukrainian Orthodox who were not under the Moscow Patriarchate often ignored the commission's activity. Cumulatively, however, the events outlined above unequivocally pressed the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church to enter into ecumenical dialogue. This was not an easy task, given that the official dialogue had by-passed the Ukrainians for decades. In fact, the International Joint Commission actually included one Catholic member who was ethnically Ukrainian, but who was not delegated for this task by the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC, and who identified himself with the Roman Curia rather than the Synod of Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Bishops. The same man had headed the Vatican delegation of the ill-conceived Quadripartite Commission. Thus, if Ukrainian Greco-Catholics demanded representation in the International Joint Commission, they were cynically told that they had it already!

At approximately this time Archimandrite Keleher was associated with Keston College, an Oxford-based center studying religious freedom in totalitarian states. He facilitated the growing friendship of Bishop Basil Losten (UGCC) and Bishop Vsevolod (UOC). Simultaneously, Bishop Kallistos (Ware) [Ecumenical Patriarchate] and the Rev. Dr. Andriy Chirovsky [UGCC] met at a Patristics Conference at Oxford and began discussing the possibility of an ecumenical forum in which Ukrainian Greco-Catholics could meet with representatives of their historic Mother Church, the Patriarchate of Constantinople. From these initial encounters there arose the Kyivan Church Study Group, which brought together bishops and learned theologians from these two constituencies

======

http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1990/529008.shtml

The hierarchs in Ukraine also began working together during their first synod since the liquidation of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in 1946, on January 23. The council declared the 1946 synod invalid and uncanonical and stated that the Church will now function as a fully legal entity within the Soviet Union.But the relationship between the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Ukraine, the Vatican, the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in western Ukraine remains ambiguous.The four parties, called together to form a "Quadripartite Commission for the Normalization of Relations Between the Orthodox and the Catholics of the Eastern Rite in Western Ukraine in View of the Legalization of the Ukrainian Catholic Church," began meeting in Ukraine in March but broke off talks when the ROC refused to recognize the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church as a Church.Metropolitan Sterniuk, who represented the Ukrainian Catholic Church in these negotiations, called the commission a body that has perpetuated the repression of the Church. The Vatican, which was represented by Archbishop Miroslav Marusyn and Ukrainian Catholic Metropolitan Stephen Sulyk of the United States, seemed willing to "give away our churches," he said.Although representatives of the quadripartite commission continued meeting throughout the year, in mid-September the representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate broke off talks, stating that it was impossible to hold discussions with the Catholics.

===============

Orthodoc

[Orthodoc]

More info on the Quadrapartite Agreement/Comission from my files -

Re: Greek Catholics attempt to seize an Orthodox church in the Lvov diocese
There are two sides to the question of the Orthodox-Greek Catholic struggle in the Ukraine. One major part of the problem has been the withdrawal of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholics from the Quadrennial Commission which was set up in 1990 to address the issues of tensions between Orthodox and Catholics and specifically to look at the vexed question of the ownership of churches.

Unfortunately the Ukrainian Greek Catholics soon withdrew from the Commission, being persuaded by the ultra-nationalists of RUKH (Popular Movement of Ukraine) that the Western Ukraine would be cleansed of Orthodoxy and all the churches would be in their possession. This stymied the Commission in its work of restoring churches, either to their former owners or, as in the cases where the religious demographics of the town or village has changed from majority Orthodox to majority Catholic (or vice versa), to whichever group will use and maintain the building, with provision for worship for the minority group. This last provision works in favour of the
Catholics in many areas.

Below is a small extract from a longer article by Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev with whom some members of this august forum may be familiar, either through his theological works or through his labours in the ecumenical world in Europe.

The extract is from a paper delivered on 7 October 2002 at the University of St Thomas (St Paul, Minessota, USA), and repeated on 9 October 2002 at the Catholic University of America (Washington D.C).

The complete article is located at
http://www.orthodoxeurope.org/ecurel/000001.php

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev: Prospects for Catholic-Orthodox Relations

'However, the end of 1980s was marked by a rapid deterioration in the relations between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches. The main reason for this was the emergence of the Greek Catholic Church in Western Ukraine. Its presence, which was created after the 1596 Union of Brest, was strong in Western Ukraine until 1946, when it was banned by Stalin. After 1946, many members of this Church were imprisoned and killed and some went into exile. The Greek Catholic Church was declared to be illegal and many church
buildings that belonged to it were given to the Orthodox. A similar process took place in 1948 in Communist Romania, where the Uniate Church was also declared to be illegal and its buildings were either closed or transferred to the Orthodox.

'Now, at the end of 1980s, under the influence of the nationalist movement in Western Ukraine, the Greek Catholics began to re-establish their presence in the region. What may have become a restoration of justice, however, turned out to be a crying injustice, since the revival of the Greek Catholic Church took place at the expense of the Orthodox Church. On 29 October 1989, the Greek Catholics seized the Transfiguration Cathedral of Lvov, after
expelling the Orthodox from it. Shortly thereafter, many similar acts occurred in other parts of the country.

'January 1990 saw the creation of the so-called Quadrennial Commission, which comprised representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Roman Catholic Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Eastern Rite Catholics from Western Ukraine. The Commission began to discuss concrete cases of human rights violations during the campaign launched by the Uniates. In March 1990, the Commission developed basic principles for the distribution of the property between the Greek Catholics and the Orthodox. It was agreed that, where there are two churches, one should be given to the Greek Catholics and another one remain Orthodox; where there is only one church, it should belong to the majority group, which must in this case help the minority find or build a suitable place of worship. However, on 13 March 1990, the Greek Catholics unilaterally left the Commission.

From then on the seizure of the Orthodox churches (some of them had belonged to the Orthodox even before the Union of 1596) assumed an avalanche-like character. In many places violent methods were employed by the Greek Catholics as they seized
Orthodox churches and expelled parishioners from their places of worship. Tensions between the Orthodox and the Greek Catholics led to clashes and mass disorders.

By the end of 1990, most churches in Lvov, Ternopol and Ivano-Frankovsk had been captured and by the end of 1991, 597 churches had been taken from the Orthodox...............'

====================

Orthodoc

[SteveK]

Thank you so much.  I will save this info to my computer.

Steve

[BrotherAidan]

A jurisdiction headed by former KGB has no place to intervene in the Ukraine. The historical position of the Eastern rite Catholics there has more credibility than a stooge for Putin.

[Orthodoc]

A jurisdiction headed by former KGB has no place to intervene in the Ukraine. The historical position of the Eastern rite Catholics there has more credibility than a stooge for Putin.

Yeh right!  A history of human rights violations and deception -

The formation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Church is nothing to brag about!

===============

The Orthodox Church In The History Of Russia - by * Professor Dimitry Pospielovsky

(*)  Dimitry Pospielovsky is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Western Ontario.  He is the author of The Russian Church Under The Soviet Regime, 1917-1982v (SVS Press, 1984) and is one of the foremost authorities on Russian Church History.

Page 93

The laity, the parish clergy, and particularly the brotherhoods refused to accept the union with Rome.  The protest movement developed and spread quickly, joined at first by a single bishop, Gideon (Bolodan) of Lvov.  The Polish King gave in to these pressures and authorized the convening of a local council of those bishops, clergy and laity of the Roman and Greek Church who accepted the papacy --i.e. those who did not accept the Unia were not invited.

The Council met in the city of Brest on October 6, 1596.  In order to prevent a parallel Orthodox council in any of the numerious Orthodox Churches in the city, the now Uniate Metropolitan of Kiev sealed all Orthodox Churches  on the day before the Council was to begin, except for the cathedral where the Council was to take place.   The Orthodox, nevertheless, converged on Brest as well, with prince Ostrozhskii and his private  army at the head.  Failing to find an open church, and after waiting in vain for an invitation from the Uniates, they accepted an offer of a Protestant church school for a separate Orthodox  Council.  The Uniate Council passed a resolution excommunicating all the Orthodox clergy and laity participating in the Orthodox Council.  The Orthodox in turn suspended all the clergy and lay participants in the Uniate Council and addressed a petition to the King, asking him to deprive "the traitors" of their dioceses and parishes.  But the Polish  King decided otherwise:  his edict of October 15, LEGALIZED ONLY THOSE BYZANTINE RITE CHRISTIANS WHO JOINED THE UNIA;  IT DECREED THE ORTHODOX CHURCH NULL AND VOID AND ALL ITS CLERGY EXCOMMUNICATED; WHILE CONTINUING MEMBERSHIP IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH WAS DECLARED TO BE AN ACT OF TREASON AGAINST THE STATE.Page 96

The Polish government could ill afford continuous persecutions of the Orthodox. A war with Turkey loomed on the horizon, and in 1621 the Cossacks presented an ultimatum to the Polish Crown, stating that unless all persecutions of the Orthodox Church ceased, they would refuse to fight the Turks.  In response, the 1623 Sejm declared toleration of the Orthodox Church and permitted the legitimization of Orthodox bishops and the restoration of their dioceses.

========

But the joy of the Orthodox was short-lived.  The legalization of the Orthodox Church resulted in mass return to Orthodoxy especially in Eastern Belorussia.  This resulted in mass attacks on Orthodox households  and Churches led by bishop Josaphat (Kuntsevish).  The citizens revolted which resulted in Josaphat's death. 

Roman Catholic revenge was immediate and brutal.  All Orthodox Churches were once again confiscated or closed.  Everywhere in the commonwealth the Orthodox lost the right not only to build but to  repair churches; Pope Urban VII proclaimed that any Roman Catholic who dared to oppose the use of the sword against the Orthodox would be excommunicated.
=======

If you want to mix religion and politics we Orthodox can reply using the same tactics.

Orthodoc

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