Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Spas, Ukraine. Photo: KLARQA

Peer-reviewed articles Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church as an agent of the social life in Ukraine

Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (UGCC) is only one of several Eastern-Christian communities which actively take part in the Ukrainian social life. Moreover, statistical data and results of the social surveys show that the members of UGCC are not numerous and that structures of this church are strongly geographically limited. However, during the events related to the Euromaidan, it turned out that UGCC was able to make an important influence on the social developments referred to as the all-Ukrainian social level. This was possible due to the relevant social and symbolic capital which UGCC has on its disposal. This article aims to characterize the elements of the social and symbolic capital that enabled UGCC to become such important agent in the contemporary social transformations in Ukraine.

Published in the printed edition of Baltic Worlds BW 2020:2-3, pp 113-124
Published on balticworlds.com on October 8, 2020

abstract

Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (UGCC) is only one of several Eastern-Christian communities which actively take part in the Ukrainian social life. Moreover, statistical data and results of the social surveys show that the members of UGCC are not numerous and that structures of this church are strongly geographically limited. However, during the events related to the Euromaidan, it turned out that UGCC was able to make an important influence on the social developments referred to as the all-Ukrainian social level. This was possible due to the relevant social and symbolic capital which UGCC has on its disposal. This article aims to characterize the elements of the social and symbolic capital that enabled UGCC to become such important agent in the contemporary social transformations in Ukraine.

KEY WORDS: The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church; social capital; patronalistic society; religion and politics in Ukraine

Social life: between state-power and political community

In the case of this paper, the term “social life” refers to the conceptualization of society as an “interpersonal space”. This is a space shaped by “the relations interrelating members of collectivities — groups, communities, organizations (at present as well as in the past and in their aspirations for the future). Some of these relations might be considered to be “positive”. In particular it concerns “moral relations” like “trust, loyalty, reciprocity, solidarity, respect and justice”. On the basis of these relations, social capital is created. Social capital determines “efficiency of individuals and collectivities” and a level of “satisfaction from the social life”. Therefore, it has a pivotal impact on the quality of social life.

The above-mentioned “positive relations” may be expressed in two different layouts: in “horizontal networks of exchange relations” or in “particularistic and vertical exchange relations” based on clientelism. Each of these layouts affects social customs referring to the given “positive relation”. Therefore, real meaning of such notions like “trust”, “reciprocity” or “justice” may differ depending on the layout in which they are referred to. Thus, two kinds of social capital might be distinguished: communitarian and non-communitarian.

As a result of the post-Soviet social transformation, the “interpersonal space” (social customs) in Ukraine is shaped by the patterns of a patronalistic society. According to Henry Hale its main features are “strong personal friendships and family ties, weak rule of law, pervasive corruption, low social capital, extensive patron-client relationships, widespread nepotism, and what sociologists would recognize as “patrimonial” or “neopatrimonial” forms of domination”.

In particular, this kind of domination highlights the relations between society (political community) and the political elites (agents controlling the state power structures). A basic purpose of such domination (governing in the post-Soviet mode) is “rent extraction”. It is “the major goal and substantive purpose of governing the state at all levels of authority”. This authority has to handle the issue of its legitimization. This is quite complicated problem because the process of the creation of the power structures as well as the patterns of recruiting their staff are not transparent. Implementation of the electoral procedures have not supplied a credible means of legal legitimization of the state’s power. Thus, the other patterns for gaining credibility are strongly needed. The ability to generate “growth and development” might be one of them. Obviously, if the representatives of the state power were willing to produce growth and development, or at least to give the impression of generating it, it would facilitate their legitimatization on the internal and international stage. However, looking back on the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is quite evident that economic efficiency of the post-Soviet ruling groups is very limited and quite problematic. Therefore, such post-Soviet neopatrimonial regimes like the Ukrainian one seems to be strongly attached to the quasi-charismatic model of domination. Its patterns may fill a gap stemming from the lack or inefficiency of the other more “rational” (communitarian) ways of legitimization, such as “growth and development”. They seem to be useful especially when ruling elites are not able or are not interested in coping with the economic problems which affect people outside of this elite.

It seems that such quasi-charismatic and neopatrimonial model of domination is appropriate to the layout based on “particularistic and vertical exchange relations”. Therefore, it generates and exploits mostly a non-communitarian type of the social capital. One of its sources is symbolic violence based on the relevant symbolic capital. This enables the suppression of social frustration and the protection of access to rent extraction. However, post-Soviet, neopatrimonial elites suffer a lack of this symbolic capital. One of its potential sources are churches, especially Eastern-Christian communities. First of all, it concerns the Orthodox churches in Ukraine, although this article will be focused on a very interesting case of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.

Specific features of secularization on the post-Soviet space

The position of the religious communities in Ukrainian social life has been determined by the features and consequences of the secularization process in the post-Soviet period. Soviet communism became a kind of political religion and did not sever itself from the eschatological patterns of legitimizing the “new” social order. Thus, the Leninist version of Marxism perpetuated demand for the eschatological justification of social reality — or rather the presence of eschatological phraseology in the manner of describing and the method of justifying this reality. This was a favorable precondition for the future involvement of religion in political issues after the collapse of the USSR and the “Leninist extinction”.

It can be assumed that this demand, after several years of intense Marxist-Leninist indoctrination, was inherited by the post-Soviet mentality. In this context, it is worth noting together with Larisa Andreieva that dechristianization, which was the communists’ objective, does not have to be identical with secularization. Abandoning Christianity (or any other religion) does not necessarily have to mean the end of eschatology as such. The need for it is inscribed in the human subconscious. Marxism responded to this need and created a new religion which “deified man.” Bolshevism created the new order (or rather tried to create its beginnings) with its own religion. It was “the official denomination” of the Soviet state, which spread its “gospel” in a particularly ruthless manner.

Therefore, if we want to use the term “secularization” in relation to Ukraine and generally to the post-Soviet area, we ought to apply its specific meaning. It is slightly different from the one which is commonly considered to be relevant to West European societies. In this respect, Nonka Bogomilova’s view seems extremely inspiring. According to her, secularization has two consequences: “the erosion of the image of God as an absolute, as a transcendent reality” and “the inclusion of religious faith and experience in the complex social texture of needs, passions, community identities pertaining to particular empires, states, nations, ethnic groups, civilizations, classes”. As a result of this process, religion does not disappear, and it does not become excluded from the public space. On the contrary — it merges into it. The scholar illustratively states that as a result of this process, God was “divided” and became “a collaborator and participant in various human enterprises, strivings, yearnings”. Secularization occurs when great religious systems lose their universal qualities by the fact that particular religious communities become entangled in the local, social and cultural circumstances. As a consequence, the real message of religion is determined not only by some general, universal principles or truths but also by a particular way of understanding them, which results from local circumstances. Under such circumstances, these messages and symbols may be applied in the current political processes as very useful symbolic capital.

The UGCC – paths to the present

In order to better understand the sources and character of the social and symbolic capital of the UGCC, a brief summary of origin and history of this church is necessary. The archeparchy in Kyiv was erected after baptism in the Eastern rite in 988. The new church community was canonically subordinate to the patriarchate in Constantinople. Its territory included lands which afterwards were incorporated to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 15^th and 16^th centuries. Nowadays, this is the general area of contemporary Belarus and Ukraine. In practice, the Kyiv archeparchy acquired broad autonomy, although its hierarchs still recognized the superiority of the patriarch in Constantinople. However, at the end of 16^th century majority of them decided to break their canonical ties with Constantinople and placed themselves under the authority of the pope in Rome. Finally, it happened after signing the Act of the Union in Brest in 1596. In that way, the Uniate Church emerged. Its clergy and believers belonged to the Catholic Church, but they preserved an organizational autonomy and the Eastern rite. The union from 1596 met serious internal opposition. Some part of the clergy and believers had rejected the act of joining the Catholic Church and started the struggle for the legal restitution of the Orthodox Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Frank Sysyn pointed out that in the first fifty years, the Uniate Church was more successful in Belarus than in Ukraine. Especially the Khmelnytskyi Uprising “placed the very existence of the Uniate Church in doubt”. The Uniate Church secured its position in the second half of the 17^th century. According to F. Sysyn “the retention of all Belorussia, Galicia and Right-Bank Ukraine by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after 1667 ensured the victory of the Union in these lands by the early eighteenth century”.

Although the argument between adherents and opponents of the Brest Union was very ardent and sometimes violent, it resulted in the revitalization of the ties between the Eastern Christianity in the Ukrainian lands and the All-European cultural and civilizational processes. After the final partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, the structures of the Uniate Church started to function in two states: the Russian Empire and the Habsburg Empire.

The majority of the Uniate Church’s structures in the Romanov dynasty were liquidated in 1839. Its clergy and faithful were forced to “come back” to the Orthodox Church. The last Uniate eparchy in the Russian state lasted till 1875 (eparchy of Chełm). Finally, it was formally converted to Orthodoxy under pressure from state authorities.

The Uniate Church survived in the Habsburg monarchy in Galicia. It was renamed to the Greek-Catholic Church, and it gained a new separate, organizational framework based on the archeparchy of Halych that was formally restored in 1807. With time, the UGCC became a pivotal institution of Ukrainian national life in Galicia. Official political representation of the Galician Ukrainians was first acknowledged during the period of the Revolutions of 1848. It was headed by the UGCC bishop of Peremyshl Hryhoriy Yakymovych. A huge part of the Greek-catholic clergy remained influenced by the idea of the cultural and national unity of all the Eastern Slavic peoples under the aegis of the Russian tsar. The so-called Moskalophiles were quite strong in the second half of the 19^th century. However, starting in the 1980s, a new, competing, national Ukrainian orientation emerged among the Greek-catholic clergy. As John-Paul Himka pointed out, “from the very end of the nineteenth century onward, the division over political orientation in the clergy was largely generational, with older priests being Russophile and younger ones being national populist”.

The formation of the new elites of the UGCC was strongly affected by the reform of the Order of Saint Basil the Great which started in 1882. It was the only Greek-Catholic monastic community at that time. The reformed Basilian order was “the most far-reaching response to the national movement from a Christian perspective”. J.-P. Himka asserted, that the Basilian monks “borrowed and improved upon the methods of the national movement in order to initiate a religious revival among the spiritually endangered Ruthenian peasantry”. However, it was quite a difficult challenge. The UGCC’s position in Ukrainian social life in Galicia was questioned at that time by an increasing wave of anti-clericalism among the lay representatives of the Ukrainian elites. This Church restored at least part of its social leadership under the Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky. He actively supported Ukrainian ambitions in political, economic and cultural spheres, including the issue of state-building in Eastern Galicia at the end of the World War I.

During the interwar period, Ukrainian national life in Galicia was strongly influenced by the underground nationalist movement. Some of the Greek-Catholic clergy sympathized with the nationalists and supported their activities. One of the leaders of the Organization of the Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Andriy Melnyk, had very close relations with A. Sheptytsky. On the other hand, Sheptytsky outrightly rejected and condemned some key parts of the nationalist’s ideology and the acts of political terror launched by the OUN. He tried to mobilize the UGCC to fight the nationalist movement “for the souls” of the Ukrainian youth. Although ties between the Greek-catholic clergy and the Ukrainian nationalist movement were numerous and sometimes very close, the UGCC was able to preserve its autonomy in Ukrainian national life during the entire interwar period, as well as facing the dramatic wartime challenges after 1939.

After former Eastern Galicia had been incorporated into the Soviet Union, the UGCC became one of the main obstacles to the process of Sovietization. Therefore, the Soviet authorities decided to smooth it out and they held a so called “council” in 1946. Its participants were strictly supervised by the NKVD. This gathering “decided” on liquidation of the UGCC and declared a “reunion” with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). As a result, the UGCC was formally eliminated. The Russian Orthodox Church not only discussed (as it finally seemed) the consequences of the events in 1596, but also “consumed” the ecclesial structure and infrastructure, which it would never be able to rebuild after the period of Bolshevik repression and would not be in a position to compete with. It was no accident that during the entire Soviet period, the densest network of the ROC’s parishes existed in the L’viv, Stanislaviv (Ivano-Frankivs’k) and Ternopil’ oblasts, meaning in the former “Uniates” areas.

In subsequent years, the liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and its consequences has become — especially from the perspective of the Moscow Patriarchate, a constitutive element of an official Soviet order. However, the UGCC survived on the underground. The “catacomb church” was supported by the UGCC structures in exile (in Western Europe, North and South America).

The “catacomb church” consisted of two wings. The first one might be described as a radical. It was based on “a few Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests together with a small number of believers” who chose “exclusion from socialist society and suffering persecution for ‘anti-Soviet activity’”. However, Natalia Shlikhta asserts, “that the vast majority of Ukrainian Greek Catholics opted for another solution”. They formally joined the officially ROC, although, in fact, they created an informal “church within the church”, a ‘crypto-uniate community’”. Therefore, a new kind of “lived identity” emerged among those “formally converted”. It allowed adherents “to preserve their religious and national distinctiveness”. There was some friction between representatives of these two wings of the “catacomb church”. “Involuntary converts” suffered “the accusations of ‘apostasy’ and ‘corruption’ from the Catholics and many catacomb priests”.

As Natalia Shlikhta pointed out, the path they chose, “on the one hand, offered them a less threatened existence and some possibility for the legal exercise of their faith. On the other hand (as did the clandestine activities of the ‘catacomb’ church, albeit in a quite different way), it also contributed to ensuring conditions for the revival of the UGCC after the collapse of the Soviet Union”. For example, at the end of February and beginning of March of 1989, a solemn mass took place in Lviv in connection with the 175^th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko’s birth. Between 25.000 and 30.000 followers gathered, and the mass was concelebrated by two clergymen: ROC member Fr. Mykhailo Nyskohuz and Mykhailo Voloshyn from the still-underground Greek Catholic Church. At the end of the mass, both priests gave each other a sign of Christ’s peace and declared that both churches “always strived for coexistence in peace and mutual respect,” which, as they said, met with counteractions from the state authorities. In the view of both clergymen, it was the outer-Orthodox factors that were responsible for the ongoing divisions. Two months later, Fr Mykhailo Nyzkohuz and his “crypto-uniate community” in village Stara Sil officially joined the UGCC. Representatives of the local party nomenklatura “accompanied by no fewer than eighteen Russian Orthodox priests” took the measures in order to counter the revival of the Greek-catholic parish. They tried “to confiscate the church keys and expel Fr Nyzkohuz, but about 1,500 people formed a phalanx to keep out the intruders. The next day, May 14^th, perhaps the biggest congregation ever seen assembled to participate in the liturgy, which Fr Nyzkohuz celebrated”.

On September 17, 1989, on the streets of Lviv, a demonstration took place which, according to various estimates, consisted of 250.000 to 300.000 people. The participants of the march demanded religious freedom for Greek Catholics. It seems that local Soviet authorities were not able to carry out an independent, coordinated and far-reaching policy towards the UGCC. Practically until the last moment, they were mentally unable to cope with the problem of normalizing the position of the Greek Catholic Church. The UGCC was one of few elements of Soviet social life that was independent from the operative nomenklatura system.

Finally, the UGCC was legalized in December, 1989. This event not only called into question further activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in the territory of former Galicia. The catacomb Uniate Church became a symbol of the fight for freedom and was one of the few elements of Ukrainian identity which were not Sovietized.

Allegedly, “the voluntary return” of the Greek Catholic Church to the bosom of the Orthodox Church, which was to take place as a result of the so called “council” in Lviv 1946, was one of the fundamental, foundation myths, which was used to legitimize Soviet power in the territory of the former Galicia. Therefore, permission to legalize the UGCC again called into question the legal validity of the communist party’s monopoly, not only in the ideological sphere, but also in terms of existing power structures and public life.

Although legalization of UGCC resulted from Gorbachev’s policy of “new thinking” (Perestroika), this issue extended beyond the limits of the freedom that the majority of the executors of the reforms from nomenklatura structures might have imagined. Yosyp Terelya — one of the best-known Greek Catholic dissidents — claimed that the decision to legalize the Greek Catholic Church was made in 1988 in practice. By his account, and also based on information leaks that reached the West, it became clear that in return, representatives of the legalized Greek Catholic structures were expected to break off their relations with the Vatican and the formal leader, Metropolitan Myroslav Lubachivskyi — who at that time was in exile. From the viewpoint of the Catholic Church, such plans were obviously meaningless, and it has never happened.  However, looking from the perspective of the then party-state structures, they were in a way understandable. It may be supposed that based on their original assumptions, the Soviet authorities were willing to permit the liberalization of social life, although the entire process was to be strictly controlled. Meanwhile, the Greek Catholic Church was too independent and might pose a threat in that its representatives would be “disloyal,” that is, they would be unwilling to limit their activities to clearly marked boundaries. The sources of this independence were rightly detected in the links between the Greek Catholic Church and outside elements: the Vatican and the Ukrainian Diaspora. As long as the structures of this community reached outside — beyond the Soviet system of relations between the authorities and society and between the State and the Church — it was impossible to control. That is why it had to be perceived as a potential threat to the planned, “controlled liberalization.”

When the era of the Ukrainian independence had begun, the UGCC was of few well institutionalized structures of the social life with non-Sovietized and non-Russified identity. The underground clergy had to appreciate the significance of close ties to the faithful, leading to the development of a sense of community. The UGCC was able to survive this difficult period due to such virtues as the ability to self-organise, responsibility, and willingness to cooperate and sacrifice for the common good. It seems that due to the heritage of the ”period of catacombs”, the clergy of the UGCC accustomed quite well the behaviors appropriate to “the horizontal networks of exchange relations”.

UGCC – quantitative and geographical limitations

In light of available statistical data, UGCC, in comparison with other Eastern-Christian denominations, does not seem to be a relatively large religious community. According to the social surveys published in 2000, “Eight per cent of the population of Ukraine said they supported the UGCC. This is 3.800.000 people: considerably fewer than the UGCC officially claims”. Similar results were seen in social surveys systematically conducted by Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Studies (UCEPS). According a study by this group in 2000, a total of 7.6 % respondents in the whole Ukraine identified themselves with UGCC. In 2013, this number decreased to 5.7% but subsequently increased to 9.5% in 2018. For comparison, during the same period, the percentage of respondents declared as “Orthodox” fluctuated between 66.6% (2000), 70.6 (2013) and 67.3% (2018).

Moreover, territory where UGCC has strong and real structures and where the majority of Greek- Catholics live seems to be strongly geographically limited to the boundaries of the former Galicia, i.e. to the space, which before 1918, had belonged to the Habsburg Empire, and during the interwar period was part of Poland. In compliance with the contemporary administrative division of lands, the former Galicia covers L’viv and Ivano-Frankivs’k oblast, and partially in Ternopil’ oblast. These three regions are commonly considered as a UGCC heartland, fully dominated by the Greek Catholics. However, this conviction does not reflect reality. Few years ago, Andrii Yurash examined this oversimplification. In his reasonable estimation, no more than 45—50 percent of the population of Galicia were active members of the UGCC (although as many as 60 percent may claim formal allegiance). Yurash underlined that his estimations related to the proportion of people who identify as Greek- Catholic or Orthodox should be verified by deeper research at the lower-level administrative units.

It seems that these estimations may also be scrutinized with another type of data. It is worth using official reports on the number of temples belonging to the Greek Catholic communities in the above-mentioned regions, either on their own or as property transferred to them without ownership rights. Such an approach provides better opportunity to evaluate the real level of institutionalization of UGCC. Thus, it should be easier to assess the presence of this church in current everyday social life in Ukraine.

According to available data from 2015, Greek-Catholic communities in Ivano-Frankivs’k oblast held 657 of the 1249 religious buildings. In L’viv and Ternopil oblast, they respectively held 1497 of 2177 buildings and 698 of 1535 buildings. In other words, they occupied an average of 55 % of religious buildings in these three regions (52% in Ivano-frankivsk oblast, 68% in L’viv oblast and 45% in Ternopil oblast). These statistics show that UGCC has a slightly more believers than Yurash originally estimated. However, at the same time, it is obvious that domination of UGCC in the religious sphere in former Galicia is not as evident as in the case of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, for example.

UGCC as an agent of the social life in Ukraine – three case studies

In order to better understand features of the UGCC’s agency in Ukrainian social life three case studies will be examined. The first one relates to the visit of Pope John Paul II in Ukraine in 2001. This case illustrates the value of the ties between the UGCC and the external world (out of the domestic neopatrimonial order). The second case refers to the approach of the UGCC leadership to the issue of fundraising during the construction of the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv. This is an example of how the UGCC (at least, its leaders) handle the patronalistic rules of social life in Ukraine. The third case sheds a little bit of light on the participation of the UGCC in the events related to the Euromaidan. This is an opportunity to look at the UGCC as an important actor in the political and social processes at the All-Ukrainian level.

John Paul II in Ukraine

Significance of the structural connection between UGCC and the Vatican was very apparent during visit of Pope John Paul II to Ukraine in 2001. A lot of important events happened then. Of course, key events included the public religious services celebrated in Kyiv and Lviv. There were two services in each town — one in the Latin rite and the second in the Byzantine rite. In this second case, UGCC appeared in the role of a host. In Kyiv, 70.000 people attended a holy mass. It was the largest mass event in the Ukrainian capital, apart from previous events related to the Orange Revolution and Dignity Revolution. Religious service in the Eastern rite in Lviv attracted around 1.2 million people.

The visit of John Paul II, assisted by the UGCC, was an event that occurred on a national scale. For the first time in a long time, the people did not take part in it as passive spectators, or as participants in a previously planned scenario. Pope John Paul II did not come to meet President Kuchma or to visit one of the Churches or its hierarchs but approached the Ukrainian people directly. The authorities could only assist in this meeting. Moreover, John Paul II came to Ukraine at a very specific moment. A huge political and social action “Ukraine without Kuchma” had started few months before. The struggle of the Ukrainian social and political community to gain agency in its relationships with the state power authorities underwent a new dynamic. The Pope’s visit to Ukraine likely helped the UGCC became an influential participant in this process.

It seems that in the social consciousness of Ukrainian people a pope is permanently associated as a symbolic capital, which potentially might be useful for different activities in the public sphere. Such a conclusion stems from the results of social surveys related to public trust of  the “leaders of global churches”. In 2018 in Ukraine, 42% of respondents trusted Pope Francis. He quite noticeably exceeded the level of trust of leaders of the Orthodox hierarchy. Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew might count on the trust of 31% respondents. Only 16% of participants in the survey declared their trust in Moscow Patriarch Kirill. Such a ranking of public trust in the papal leadership is likely to be favorable to UGCC and its social mission, since this community acts as the main native connector between Ukraine (Ukrainians) and Vatican.

Dealing with the domestic neo-patrimonial order

It seems that the autonomy of the UGCC from the neopatrimonial rules stems not only from the strong ties with the “external” agent like the pope or diaspora. It is also based on the symbolic and social capital that the UGCC has at its disposal. The leaders of the UGCC learned how to protect it from devaluation. The statement by the former superior of UGCC, Liubomyr Huzar, from 2002 proved it quite well. On the eve of the parliamentary elections in 2002 he declared, “In a fever of the electoral campaign more and more often we witness different actions of candidates who attempt to make impression among the voters that they have some extraordinary blessing or support from UGCC. This phenomenon is visible mostly on the printed materials, photos, promotional gadgets or it even comes up in propositions to make donations to the Church, sometimes even very valuable donations.” Cardinal Huzar referred to the attempts to abuse the UGCC’s authority or some elements of its public image for particular political goals i.e. for the purposes of the neopatrimonial order. It might happen directly by exploiting the symbols related to the UGCC during the parliamentary election campaign. At the same time, there are more sophisticated ways of exploiting the symbolic and social capital of the UGCC. For example, some opportunities for gaining support from the UGCC might occur (mainly material and financial). Apparently, they would seem very attractive. However, if such support was accepted, the “beneficiary” would enter into a patron-client dependency. It seems that the UGCC’s leadership has been aware of this threat. For example, it was quite evident in the case of the construction of the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv. It was one of the most important investments by the UGCC after 1991. At same time, it became an enormous challenge for this community from the financial point of view.

Construction of this large sacral building by UGCC started in 2002. It might be considered as an element in the strategy of getting out beyond the limits of the borders of the former Galicia. Implementation of this investment would prove the ability of UGCC to become a real All-Ukrainian agent of social life. Thus, it is worth turning our attention to one very characteristic element of the fundraising strategy launched by the coordinators of the construction of the Greek-catholic cathedral in Kyiv. Cardinal Husar summarized it briefly as: “Our point is that we do not want to accept any donations from the official organs. Because it is always intertwined with some kind, I would say, “gratitude”.  We want to be a free Church and we do not want that donations we accepted would put us off telling truth when it will be necessary”.

Such projects provide an opportunity for various agents in the political system through their formal and informal structures to provide financial “support”. Actually, it is nothing but a reciprocal transaction: money in exchange for symbolic capital which stems from a public affirmation of the generosity of the backer made by the endowed community. In other words, under the Ukrainian conditions, acceptance of such kind of support means de facto joining a neopatrimonial network of relationships based on a patron-client pattern. Apparently, at least the UGCC leadership recognizes the challenges which an actor struggling for its agency in a patronalist order has to face. The strategy applied to the task of fundraising for the construction of the cathedral in Kyiv seems to confirm this hypothesis. Huzar’s successor, Metropolitan Shevchuk, stated during the electoral campaign in 2012 that, “Our church has always been active in social developments. However, we never tell anyone to vote for anyone, and we do not allow our clergy to participate in the election campaign.” A few weeks later, on August 20, 2012, the superior of the UGCC emphasized during his sermon in Kolomyia that, “once the Church interferes in politics, it always loses. Because any political party which attempts to bestow favor from the Church won’t let it be free”. However, despite the Metropolitan Shevchuk’s claims, some representatives of the lower Greek-Catholic clergy were openly involved in electoral agitation in favor of some candidates. As a rule, these candidates were presented as “backers” and “benefactors” of the local church communities. Thus, it would be very interesting to examine how efficiently the UGCC was able to protect its autonomy against clientelist layouts at the local level.   

UGCC and the Euromaidan

A lot of different religious communities were involved in Euromaidan. Some of them participated in these turbulent events quite actively. This extremely interesting phenomenon attracted the attention of numerous researchers of Ukrainian society. During the events related to Euromaidan “churches acted like civic organizations. They had similar strategic goals and were in search of leadership. /…/ For church authorities Maidan became a way to increase their presence in public space”. This article is focused only on the activity of the UGCC. Therefore, it is not a comprehensive analysis of the interrelations between all Ukrainian religious communities and the protestors and main agents of the Euromaidan.

At the beginning of this publication, the most important events related to the involvement of religious institutions in the emerging political crisis in Ukraine were juxtaposed. This review starts with the public statement of the Ukrainian Catholic University, which is closely connected with UGCC. Their statement referred to the collapse of the Ukrainian eurointegration process by the government from November 22, 2013. It proves that from the very beginning, the Greek-Catholic community was well prepared to react to the changing social and political situation.

It is also worth to turning our attention to the genesis of the notion of a “Revolution of Dignity”, as the protests came to be referred to. “At first, in the context of ’Theology of Maidan‘, an Orthodox theologian Cyril Hovorun mentioned dignity as “embedded by God into human nature”. However, it was one of the most prominent representatives of the UGCC, bishop Borys Gudziak, who directly linked this expression to the events on Maidan. Then the notion of “Revolution of Dignity” became a “slogan”, which “helped to explain and legitimize the mass protests, to articulate their purpose”.

Undoubtedly, the most important and dramatic events during Euromaidan, such as student demonstrations, clashes with police forces, consultations and negotiations, and shooting the protesters took place at Independence Square and the surrounding area, (which gave a name to the protests as “maidan”, meaning a square). However, it is worth recalling another episode that is directly linked with UGCC, and which became an additional catalyst for the confrontation between a large part of Ukrainian society and the government of President Viktor Yanukovych. On January 3, 2014, the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture submitted the superior of UGCC Metropolitan Sviatoslav Shevchuk with an official statement that included the threat of “ the termination of the respective religious organizations.” The reason for such a reaction of the government was religious activity, which was allegedly being conducted by “the representatives of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, in particular, at Independence Square in Kyiv during December of last year and in the new year — 2014”,  violated “the law of Ukraine regarding freedom of conscience and religious organization.” On January 13, 2014, Metropolitan Shevchuk made the contents of this statement public. This triggered public outcry and an additional wave of criticism of the government. The Committee on Culture and Spirituality of the Ukrainian Supreme Council examined the activities of the Ministry of Culture. It turned out that the statement originated with the Security Service of Ukraine. The entire event mobilized new groups to resist the state-power that was associated with President Yanukovych. Olena Panych wisely pointed out that “the authority of UGCC in Ukrainian society and the support of international community were so high, that any attempts of governmental persecution were doomed to failure.” It is worth recalling that priests from different religious communities were also present at the Independence Square. However, the government considered activity by representatives of UGCC especially dangerous.

In order to better understand the role played by UGCC in Ukrainian social life, it is worth referencing to the available knowledge of the participants in the mass protests in Kyiv. Research conducted by Olga Onuch and Gwendolyn Sasse collected a lot of very interesting material related to this issue. One of its pivotal research questions was, “Who was the Maidan”. Onuch and Sasse aimed at answering that question with data collected from “the EuroMaidan Protest Participant Survey, brief, on-site interviews with protesters, interviews with politicians, activists and journalists, and focus groups with ordinary citizens and activists”. It turned out that the majority of protestors hailed from Kyiv or the Kyiv region. (57%). At the same time, according to the research results from Onuch and Sasse, around 25% of the active participants in protests on Independence Square declared that they belong to UGCC. The Razumkov Center has conducted systematic research on religiosity and interrelations between the religious sphere and social sphere in Ukraine since 2000. Unfortunately, Kyiv oblast is counted together with other central oblasts of Ukraine — Vinnytsa, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Sumy, Khmelnytskyi and Chernihiv. In 2013, only 1.2% of respondents from central Ukraine that is defined in that way declared themselves as Greek-Catholics. According to the official data UGCC had only 8 of 681 religious buildings in the Kyiv region.

Thus, a very interesting question arises: how to explain such big percentage of the Greek-Catholic believers among the participants of the Euromaidan? Partially this stemmed from the fact that a huge group of them came from the “Galician” region of Ukraine. Referring to the survey results from Onuch and Sasse, residents from Western Ukraine, mostly from Lviv and Ternopil oblasts, accounted for about 14% of protestors on Independence Square. However, in light of the previous conclusions related to the religious situation in the territory of the former Galicia, it would be hard to expect that everyone who came to Kyiv from this region to join the protests was Greek-Catholic. Thus, the data collected on the identity of participants in the protests on Independence Square likely indicate that associating with UGCC strongly influences social and political behaviors. In this case, it was intertwined with motivation for active participation in the actions of civil disobedience within the framework of Euromaidan.

Soon after overthrowing of President Yanukovych, leaders of the Ukrainian religious communities gathered on February 25, 2014 for a special meeting with Oleksandr Turchynov, who took over as provisional head of state. He thanked them that “at a difficult time they stayed with the people and supported them.”

A spokesman for the Ukrainian parliament, Oleksandr Turchynov, became an acting president after the overthrow of Yanukovych. His acknowledgment addressed all churches and religious organizations in Ukraine. He did not favor any of them. However, it soon turned out that a new political configuration took shape after the Revolution of Dignity, in which the UGCC obtained a specific privileged position, at least for a while. This was demonstrated by an initiative to launch a state level celebration of 150^th anniversary of the birth of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky.

Sheptytsky was a superior of UGCC between 1901—1944. He is object of a special worship among the Greek-Catholics. A process of his beatification started in 1960s. However, the significance and legacy of Sheptytsky goes far beyond the purely religious or ecclesiastical sphere. He was one of the most influential personalities in Ukrainian social and political life in Galicia and in interwar Poland. Addressing social issues became a very important part of his pastoral activity. Among other things, Sheptytsky tried to formulate in his writings a vision of the future independent Ukrainian state.

This issue was exploited soon after the Euromaidan as a reason for developing an image of Sheptytsky as one of the ”state builders” (derzhavotvorets) of a contemporary independent Ukraine. On the June 17, 2014, the Ukrainian Supreme Court passed a resolution honoring the 150^th anniversary of Sheptytsky’s birth at the official state level in 2015. Authors of the draft of the bill argued that such a resolution “will enable Ukraine to celebrate at the state level” the anniversary “of person who became a bridge between Western and Eastern churches, who supported restoration of the Ukrainian state and who fostered the development of the Ukrainian culture and spirituality”.

The initiative to involve state institutions in the commemoration of the 150^th anniversary of the birth of Sheptytsky might be interpreted as an attempt to legitimize the post-Maidan elite who took control of the state. Its representatives tried to use the symbolic capital related to UGCC to achieve their own purposes. The UGCC took this chance. As a result of this kind of exchange transaction, rather non-communitarian social capital was generated. The question whether such a result aligned with the previous aims of the UGCC leaders is of secondary importance. What is really interesting is the fact that, although the UGCC accepted the exchange with the neopatrimonial agents, it did not adopt a typical client’s position.

UGCC during the Dignity Revolution proved that it had relevant institutional and human resources, as well as the social and symbolic capital to secure a position as an important agent in Ukrainian social life. Moreover, the UGCC was able to go beyond its own geographical limitations and become a specific, soft-power actor to influence the political system at the All-Ukrainian level.

Conclusion

As a rule, the majority of the agents in social life in Ukraine — media, political parties, NGOs and religious communities, are at risk of being subordinated to and dependent on the patronalistic rules. If agents reject them, they are at risk of being marginalized. The UGCC very significantly differentiates from the other Eastern Christian religious communities in Ukraine. This church as an institution in Ukrainian social life has maintained relatively broad autonomy from these patronalistic rules.

Moreover, the UGCC, as an agent in Ukrainian social and political life, is able to handle one more characteristic feature of the neopatrimonial order: the conditionality of the autonomy of “domestic political and economic actors vis-à-vis the political center”. As Gelman pointed out, this autonomy can be reduced and/or abolished at any given moment. It seems that for the time being this rule has not yet applied to the UGCC.

Some important elements of the UGCC’s structure are active outside of Ukraine, in North and the South America, and in Western and Central Europe. Moreover, from the point of view of symbolic capital, it is extraordinarily important that UGCC is a part of the Catholic Church and has strong organizational and spiritual ties with the Vatican. It seems that these are the pivotal factors which determine the above-mentioned autonomy.

In addition, the UGCC inherited from the Roman Catholic Church the requirement to shape basic doctrinal principles, rules, and theses into both abstract and formal definitions. Thus, the general Catechism of the Catholic Church provides a great deal of guidance on how to handle modern social developments. In 2011, the UGCC formulated its own catechism. This document contains a brief and relatively clear definition of a civil society that accommodates Christian ethics: “Church is a life-giving environment for sanctifying human nature and for personal development. In Church, a human can also develop himself in his social dimension /…/. A desire for sanctity itself opens Christians to serve their fellow man and society. For that reason, Christians are creative participants in civil society”. The authors of the catechism further wrote, “Civil society is marked by the proclivity of its members towards internal self-organization, openness, and autonomous activity for the common good. The Church in its social dimension is a pattern of civil society as long as it raises Christian citizens who are able to be sympathetic to the needs of their fellow man and react to them”.

These statements provide a good background for the participation by and development of the “horizontal networks of exchange relations”. It is worth noting that they stemmed not only from abstract theological reflection, but they were also based on practical experience. The sophisticated phrases of the catechism are also based on broad experience acquired during the church’s underground “catacomb” period, for example, through the UGCC’s involvement in the development of civil society in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution and Revolution of Dignity.

The UGCC, more than the other Eastern-Christian communities, builds its social position mostly on the basis of its relations with people and not with the structures of the state-power. The unconditional autonomy of the UGCC towards these structures was inherited from the Soviet “catacomb” period. It also stems from sensitivity of the church hierarchy to the different kinds of threats which might undermine this autonomy.

The process of shaping a new identity of the political community in Ukraine gained new dynamics due to the events of Euromaidan and to its consequences (the overthrow of President Yanukovych, hybrid warfare with Russia, intensification of the tension between neopatrimonial and civil models of social life, decommunization of the public sphere). The UGCC has some important assets which allow this church to go actively engage with these processes. First of all, it is one of the best, institutionalized, non-governmental agents in current Ukrainian social life. Secondly, this community acquired a habit of protecting and maintaining essential independence towards formal and informal structures of neopatrimonial power. This is a crucial challenge for all agents who attempt to influence social life in contemporary Ukraine.

Ukrainian social life is shaped by two networks of relations of exchange: vertical and horizontal. They cross each other. The first one still dominates everyday life in Ukraine. Horizontal relations, in turn, are to some extent unspoken, and they have been put in motion as a byproduct of the clashes between the main agents of the neopatrimonial order. These clashes resulted directly or indirectly in such events as the proclamation of the state independence, the visit of the John Paul II, the Orange and Dignity Revolutions. The UGCC was an active participant in these events. It seems that the UGCC has at its disposal the symbolic capital which may be profitably exchanged both via the vertical relations with the state power and neopatrimonial structures and via the horizontal relations with the agents of the growing civil society. ≈

References

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85. Ibid.

Michał Wawrzonek