The Catholic Church and the Real History of Ukraine
By Siobhan Heekin-Canedy, Fletcher Alum and freelance writer on topics including international affairs, religion, sports, and feminism
Last year, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin. To Carlson’s surprise, rather than launching into complaints about NATO expansion, Putin began his justification of Russia’s war on Ukraine with a thirty-minute foray into the last 1,200 years of Russian and Ukrainian history. In his version, however, there was no “Ukrainian” history. According to Putin, the Ukrainian nation does not, and never has, existed, and the modern Ukrainian state is the result of anti-Russian forces and Soviet incompetence.
The interview was one in a long line of Russian efforts at undermining American support for Ukraine and labeling Ukrainian national identity as fake, fascist, or both. This propaganda has been aimed largely at conservative Christians, including Catholics, and has enjoyed marked success in sowing suspicion of Ukraine among this audience. In the interests of justice and truth, as well as sound foreign policy, all Americans, and particularly conservative Christians, must learn the real history of Ukraine and reject Putin’s twisted arguments. For Catholics, there is an additional reason to reject the claim that Ukraine is not a real nation: accepting this narrative erases the Catholic Church’s substantial contribution to Ukrainian identity formation.
According to historian Paul Robert Magosci:
The term nationality . . . refers to a group of people . . . who may have one or more of the following observable characteristics in common: a distinct territory (possibly but not necessarily statehood), language, historical tradition, religion, cultural values, and ethnographic features. . . . The primary distinguishing feature is not the presence or absence of all or some of the characteristics listed above, but the awareness among members of a given group of people that they have such common characteristics and that it is these characteristics which distinguish them from neighboring peoples or nationalities.
Thus, as Magosci goes on to explain, nationality is defined both by the presence of “certain objective elements” and, more importantly, by the “self-perception” of a people.
Considering this definition, it is not surprising that nationality generally evolves over time in a messy, non-linear process (an admission conspicuously lacking in Putin’s narrative). The changing, subjective element of nationality does not make it less real or important. As Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “The cultural and historical identity of any society is preserved and nourished by all that is contained within this concept of nation . . . Catholic social doctrine holds that the family and the nation are both natural societies. Therefore, in human history they cannot be replaced by anything else.”
Ukraine’s location at the crossroads of geopolitical forces has both hastened and complicated the evolution of Ukrainian national identity. “Ukraine” literally translates to “borderland.” Samuel Huntington graphically expressed this idea with Europe’s civilizational dividing line slashing through the heart of Ukraine. Is Ukraine a part of Europe? Can an independent Ukraine survive with geopolitical superpowers to its east and west? Does Ukraine belong to a Western civilization or a Russian civilization? Such questions have plagued Ukrainian identity since its inception and, in seeking answers, Ukrainians have discovered who they are. Throughout this process, at times inadvertently, at times enthusiastically, the Catholic Church has helped Ukraine forge a distinctive national identity.
The Catholic Church in Early Ukraine: 989–1772
Before the nineteenth century, the Catholic influence on Ukrainian identity was largely unintended. To the extent that a Ukrainian collective identity existed, it was primarily associated with the Orthodox Church. Ukraine, along with Russia, traces its roots to Kyivan Rus’, which lasted from the ninth through the thirteenth century and was the earliest East Slavic state. In 988, Prince Vladimir converted his people to Orthodox Christianity with the “Baptism of the Rus’.” The Mongols would conquer Kyiv in 1240, but by then power and identity had already begun to decentralize, coalescing around multiple Rus’ principalities. According to historian Serhii Plokhy, “Historians look to these principality-based identities for the origins of the modern East Slavic nations . . . and Ukrainian historians study the principality of Galicia-Volhynia to uncover the foundations of Ukrainian nation-building projects.” While it began in the west of present-day Ukraine, “under the rule of (Prince) Danylo and his successors, the Galician-Volhynian principality gathered within its boundaries most of the Ukrainian lands settled at that time.” (Notably, Galicia-Volhynia is absent from Putin’s interview, reinforcing his narrative that Moscow is the sole legitimate heir of the Baptism of the Rus’.)
While the Orthodox-Rus’ alignment limited the Catholic influence on Ukraine for centuries, some significant interactions occurred in Galicia-Volhynia during this era. At one point, the Prince of Galicia-Volhynia sought military aid from the pope, and while this alliance never came to fruition, it led to a perception that Galicia-Volhynia had become tainted by Catholic influence. As a result, the Metropolitanate was transferred to Vladimir-Suzdal and, later, to Muscovy (Moscow). This in turn contributed to the rise of Muscovy (Moscow) and led to the establishment of the Metropolitanate of Little Rus’ in Galicia.
The Catholic Church gained a more direct role in Ukrainian affairs under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the fourteenth century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania annexed nearly all the former Ukrainian Rus’ lands. In 1569, the Union of Lublin merged Poland and Lithuania into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, incorporating the Orthodox Ukrainian Rus’ into the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Poland. The Catholic Church was closely identified with the Polish nationality, while the Rus’—or Ruthenian—Orthodox became a religious minority in the state, with limited minority rights.
This situation contributed to the creation of the Uniate Church in 1595 with the Union of Brest. (Although today considered derogatory, “Uniate” was the prevalent term at the time of the Church’s formation.) Some Ruthenian Orthodox bishops acknowledged the authority of the pope, uniting part of the Ruthenian Orthodox Church with the Roman Catholic Church while retaining many of its Byzantine traditions. The importance of this union for the development of Ukrainian identity cannot be overstated. With the birth of the Uniate Church, there existed for the first time an institution that transcended the Polish-Catholic/Ruthenian-Orthodox dichotomy. This would become increasingly important as the Orthodox Church drew closer to Muscovy, nearly subsuming Ruthenian identity into a larger Russian identity.
The era of the Cossack Hetmanate—the period between the 1648 Khmelnytsky uprising and the erasure of the Hetmanate at the end of the eighteenth century—saw the continued rise of collective identity among the Ruthenians, briefly coalescing in an independent or semi-autonomous state. During this time, the role of the Uniate and Roman Catholic Churches was again unwitting. The Orthodox, Ruthenian identity that the Cossacks and their peasant supporters espoused was largely defined in opposition to Polish, Catholic identity. Not surprisingly, the Cossacks turned to their coreligionists in Muscovy for protection. This does not, as Putin would have it, indicate that the Ruthenian Cossacks were simply Russians, or that they sought to be subsumed into the Russian state; rather, they viewed the arrangement as a security alliance. Notably, the Ukrainian and Russian languages already differed to the point that the negotiations required interpreters. This alliance would have profound consequences; for hundreds of years, most of Ukraine would be dominated by Russia politically and culturally, and, following the subordination of the Kyiv Metropolitanate to Muscovy in 1685–86, the Orthodox Church would reinforce this dominance. By the nineteenth century, the geopolitical tug of war over Ukraine would create a cultural space between Russian/Orthodox and Polish/Roman Catholic identities, and two entities emerged to fill that void: the Ukrainian national movement and the Greek Catholic Church.
Pivot to Nationalism: The Greek Catholic Church, 1772–1899
By 1782, Russia had suppressed the last vestiges of the independent Cossack state. Furthermore, the Partitions of Poland, which occurred between 1772 and 1795, erased Poland from the map. Ethnic Ukrainians were divided between the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires; western Ukraine went to Austria, while eastern (or Dnieper) Ukraine was controlled by Russia.
The role of the Catholic Church differed significantly for these two populations. In the Russian Empire, the Roman Catholic and Uniate Churches were suppressed under Catherine the Great, and the Uniate Church all but disappeared through forced conversions to the Orthodox faith. The Uniate Church was dissolved in 1835, and the last Uniate eparchy in the Russian Empire was abolished in 1875.
In Austrian-ruled Galicia, most ethnic Ukrainians were Uniate, and the imperial government treated the Church with respect. In 1774, Emperor Joseph II changed the Church’s name to “Greek Catholic Church.” Greek Catholic priests were at the forefront of Ukrainian heritage-gathering efforts in the early 1800s. In fact, to the extent that a national movement existed in Galicia prior to 1848, it was due to the efforts of Greek Catholic clergy.
Until the revolution of 1848, East Slavic identity in Galicia was expressed in two main political and cultural tendencies: Ruthenian and Polish. After 1848, the Ruthenian national movement divided into factions. Some Ruthenian nationalists (Russophiles) believed that the Ruthenians of Galicia were Russians, or Little Russians, and hoped for eventual unification with Russia. In contrast, others (Ukrainophiles) posited that the Ruthenians of Galicia were part of a larger Ukrainian nation, including the Ukrainians of the Russian Empire, as well those of Transcarpathia and Bukovina.
The fracturing of the Ruthenian national movement divided the loyalties of Greek Catholics. From the 1860s until the beginning of the twentieth century, the Church hierarchy opposed the dominant form of nationalism: first Russophilism, due to its apparent leanings toward Russian Orthodoxy, and later the Ukrainophiles for their increasingly radical, secular, and anti-clerical tendencies. (At one point the Vatican, fearing the defection of the Greek Catholic Church, even intervened to help quell Russophilism.) Nonetheless, for most of this period, Greek Catholic clergy and laity continued to play an important role in both factions of the national movement.
In the 1890s, however, the relationship between the Church and the increasingly secular Ukrainophiles became more strained, with the Church hierarchy even limiting the clergy’s involvement in the national movement. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Ukrainophiles had become the standard bearers of Ruthenian nationalism. The Galician-Ruthenian cause had become part of a broader Ukrainian cause, and the Greek Catholic Church found itself largely in opposition to the mainstream Ukrainian national movement.
It was not back where it started, though. Through the actions of lay faithful and clergy, as well as the hierarchy, the Greek Catholic Church had irreversibly and intentionally entered the world of Ukrainian national identity formation. Although these developments took place in Galicia, their effect stretched far beyond, to the Ukrainian lands ruled by Russia. As Magosci has put it, “During the seven decades between 1848 and 1914, more and more Ukrainian activists in the Russian as well as the Austrian empires felt that Galicia had become a Piedmont from which a future independent state on all-Ukrainian territory would grow.”
The Age of Sheptyts’kyi: 1900–1944
When Andrei Sheptyts’kyi became the head of the Greek Catholic Church in 1900, Ruthenians were understandably skeptical. He was a Polonized Ruthenian on his father’s side, and his mother was Polish. Despite his Polish ties, Sheptyts’kyi would become a strong supporter of the Ukrainian national cause, although at times clashing with its more radical elements. From his ascension to the foremost position in the Greek Catholic Church until his death in 1944, Sheptyts’kyi would define the Greek Catholic Church and, in many ways, the Ukrainian national movement.
During Sheptyts’kyi’s tenure, Galicia changed hands multiple times. Sheptyts’kyi just lived to see Galicia reincorporated into the Soviet Union, where it would remain until 1991. Throughout these political upheavals, Sheptyts’kyi remained a staunch supporter of Ukrainian national identity and made the Greek Catholic Church a bastion of the Ukrainian national movement, largely reversing the church hierarchy’s previous policy.
Nonetheless, Sheptyts’kyi never allowed the Greek Catholic Church to be fully identified with the radical nationalist movement that gained prominence in Galician society in the 1930’s. This movement, embodied in the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), was devoted to independent statehood and was willing to use terrorist tactics to achieve this goal. Sheptyts’kyi supported the Ukrainian national movement, to a point, but forcefully opposed it when it transgressed Christian values. He saw the future of Galicia and the Greek Catholic Church as lying with a strong and independent (or semi-independent) Ukraine, but he respected the identities of Polish and Russophile members of his flock. He opposed the policies of the Polish, Nazi, and Soviet regimes, yet he encouraged his flock to avoid aggravating these regimes (where morally permissible) in order to ensure their safety. Sheptyts’kyi’s Ukrainian nationalism was based in a distinctively Christian understanding of national identity, which had no room for violence, ethnic hatred, or placing the nation above God.
Thus, while Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi and the Greek Catholic Church had an enormous impact on the Ukrainian national movement in the first half of the twentieth century, the Church was not an instrument of nationalism. Rather, the Church and the secular national movement influenced and challenged one another, often through the mediation of Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi. Although Ukraine would not gain independence until nearly fifty years after Sheptyts’kyi’s death, his embrace of the Ukrainian national cause would have long-lasting effects.
The Church Underground: 1946–1989
The fate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) post-WWII mirrored that of Ukrainian national identity: both were suppressed under the Soviet regime. In 1946, the UGCC was forcibly united with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). All its bishops were arrested, along with many clergy and laypeople; many were sent to gulags or went into exile. Most Ukrainian Greek Catholics did not recognize the union as legitimate; some ostensibly joined the ROC while remaining loyal to the UGCC, while others went underground. Meanwhile, the Soviet regime was also suppressing Ukrainian national identity. With Kruschev’s accession to power in the 1950’s, the persecution of the UGCC and of Ukrainian nationalism ebbed slightly, but both continued to suffer until the Soviet Union began to unravel in the late 1980s.
During these decades of suppression, the UGCC played an indispensable role in maintaining Ukrainian national consciousness. Underground seminaries taught Ukrainian history, keeping alive the memory of a distinct national identity. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan had fled Ukraine, but continued to lead the Church while in exile. The underground church became “the most important cultural and institutional preserve of national identity in Western Ukraine” and was the “biggest and best-organized institution of social life which was independent of Soviet power, not only in Ukraine, but also in the whole of the USSR.”
The UGCC received little encouragement from Rome in the early years of the Cold War, as the Vatican’s Ostpolitik prioritized dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church over support of the UGCC. This changed dramatically with the election of Pope John Paul II in 1978. The Polish pope “was free of a ‘Russian complex’ and aware of the needs of non-Russian nationalities” in the Soviet bloc. He used the Ukrainian language, acknowledged the importance of the Union of Brest, and called a synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic hierarchy. John Paul II’s efforts inspired the Ukrainian Greek Catholic faithful to intensify their resistance to the Soviet regime; it would be a mistake, however, to view this Ukrainian Greek Catholic “revival” as externally imposed. The Slavic pope’s efforts were effective because they resonated with the tradition and national identity that Ukrainian Greek Catholics had maintained throughout the Soviet persecution.
Legalization and Renewal: 1987–2014
The strength of the underground Church became evident in the late 1980’s during glasnost and perestroika. Although the UGCC had never stopped fighting for legal recognition, it redoubled its efforts. The tipping point came when Pope John Paul II interceded for the UGCC with Mikhail Gorbachev; suddenly, efforts at registering UGCC churches were successful. The UGCC’s battle for legalization had weakened the Soviet regime, though. The Church was “strongly connected with Ukraine’s independence movement” and “her crucial element was anti-communism.” University of Notre Dame professor Yury Avvakumov has argued that “Greek Catholic priests and laity played a noticeable role in the downfall of the Soviet Union—a role comparable, to a certain degree, to the contribution made by Pope John Paul II to the collapse of the Eastern bloc.”
In the post–Cold War period, the UGCC continued to revive and even flourish. In 1994, the L’viv Theological Academy was formed, and in 2002, it became the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU). In 2001, the Roman and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Churches again contributed to a pivotal event in Ukrainian identity formation. Attempting to shore up support among Ukrainian Greek Catholic voters, President Leonid Kuchma invited Pope John Paul II to visit Ukraine. Ukrainian studies scholar Michal Wawrzonek has argued that “the Pope’s pilgrimage in 2001 was a major catalyst for the process of social awakening in Ukraine, which culminated in the so-called ‘Orange Revolution.’” As Wawrzonek recounts, one Ukrainian observer wrote that the Pope’s visit created a “unique atmosphere” characterized by “a state of rapture among Catholics of both rites, systemic opposition by the Moscow Patriarchate, caution among state officials and curiosity among ordinary citizens, open dissatisfaction of the Russian state and inarticulated societal expectations.” A Ukrainian journalist who witnessed the visit summarized its impact: “During the pope’s visit to Ukraine . . . people felt their own dignity, and the inhabitants for at least a decade will realize that they are a nation.”
Martyr Nation, Martyr Church: 2013–present
Perhaps the “John Paul II effect” lasted over a decade, for in 2013 the Ukrainian people rose up in defense of their dignity and nation. The Maidan Revolution, or Revolution of Dignity, began in November 2013 as a protest against Ukrainian President Yanukovych’s decision to cave to pressure from Putin and halt an association agreement with the European Union. By March 2014, the protests had toppled the Yanukovych regime, and Russia responded by invading Crimea. Most proximately, the Maidan protests were about European integration, but as George Weigel has put it, they were also about “the moral and cultural renewal of Ukraine” that is “essential to free politics and free economics in the future.”
The UGCC was heavily involved in the Revolution and the renewal of Ukrainian civic life that had begun as the Cold War ended. Although Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk emphasized that the Church took no official stance on political matters, UGCC members and institutions were overwhelmingly supportive of the Revolution of Dignity. Students from the Ukrainian Catholic University were some of the earliest participants in the 2013 Maidan protests, and the school itself was the first to declare civil disobedience against the Yanukovych regime after its forces shot at protesters on December 11, 2013. UGCC clergy were often to be found on the Maidan, offering spiritual encouragement to protesters.
In the face of Russian aggression in Crimea and the Donbas beginning in 2014, the UGCC upheld Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, the UCGG has remained a vocal supporter of Ukraine’s right to self-defense and has striven to raise international awareness of Putin’s genocidal aims. The Church leadership and clergy have remained close to their flock, and the entire Ukrainian people, both spiritually and physically. Countless Ukrainian Catholics have defended their country through military service and volunteer efforts, and many have paid the ultimate price in service to their nation.
Throughout these upheavals, the UGCC has stressed the theme of dignity. The now-widespread term “Revolution of Dignity” originated with Major Archbishop Shevchuk. (This is a perfect example of the UGCC’s ability to influence culture and politics throughout Ukraine, despite comprising just 8 percent of the population and remaining strongest in the West of the country.) The UGCC has emphasized the inviolable dignity of every human person as the basis of Ukrainian civic and political life and has urged Ukrainians to ground their political action in the idea that the intrinsic dignity of the human person calls for, in the words of Yury Avvakumov, a “society free from cronyism, corruption, and violence, a society ruled by law and respect for every human person.”
On the second anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion, the UGCC bishops released a letter laying out an understanding of the conflict that is deeply rooted in history, Scripture, and the Catholic just war tradition. Once again, they highlighted the theme of dignity, warning that “the new Russian tyranny of the twenty-first century is similar to the totalitarianism of the twentieth century, primarily because it is a ruthless enemy of human freedom and dignity.” Through its “theology of dignity,” the UGCC has continued to influence the development of Ukrainian national identity.
The story of Ukrainian identity formation is not just history; it is ongoing. Even after Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence in 1991, deep cultural, religious, and linguistic divisions remained, roughly coalescing into “pro-Western” or “pro-Russian” orientations. When Russia invaded in February 2022, both Putin and the international community were surprised by Ukrainians’ unified resistance to the onslaught. Putin’s historical narrative is clearly rife with half-truths and outright falsehoods; ironically, however, his decision to invade Ukraine has exposed the hollowness of his narrative better than any historical analysis. Ukrainians have resisted because they have a real sense of Ukrainian identity – an identity galvanized by their awareness of their own dignity. To the extent that this identity was previously amorphous or ambivalent, Russia’s attacks have only strengthened it. As Archbishop Borys Gudziak has written, “The world comes to know Ukraine as Ukrainians come to recognize themselves.”
Over the past thousand years, the Catholic Church has played an important, and often surprising, role in Ukrainian identity formation. This is not to ignore the immense contributions of other churches (particularly the Orthodox church), groups, and individuals throughout this process; however, as large portions of Ukrainian history are being twisted or purged, it is important to tell the whole story of Ukrainian identity formation. The Catholic Church is a significant, and easily overlooked, part of that story.
Furthermore, the Church’s role has been largely positive. Throughout history, Ukraine has been caught between conflicting geopolitical forces. The fact that the Catholic Church considers itself to be universal, while allowing for the kind of local inculturation and diversity exhibited in the UGCC, has helped Ukraine to transcend these forces time and again. Over the past 100 years, the UGCC’s influence has helped to ensure that Ukrainian national identity would not be subsumed by its more radical interpretations, has bolstered Ukrainians’ faith and sense of dignity in the face of Soviet oppression, has helped to rebuild Ukrainian society post-independence, and has sought to root Ukrainians’ resistance to Russia’s invasion in an authentic understanding of peace, justice, and human dignity.
Ukraine is again torn in two directions. The most obvious and urgent threat is from Russia, but even if Ukraine achieves victory, she will have to grapple with the ideologies prevalent in the West. Ukraine has chosen European values and a European future even as Europe has increasingly turned away from Christian values. Major Archbishop Shevchuk aptly summarized the situation when he said, “there is no Europe without Christian values . . . and I think that Ukraine has a special mission . . . to help Western Europe . . . to rediscover its own Christian roots.”
The traditional opening of the Ukrainian national anthem is “Ukraine is not yet dead.” Against the odds, the Ukrainian spirit has survived through the centuries. The world saw this spirit when Ukrainians rose to the defense of their homeland as Russian tanks rolled toward Kyiv. If Ukraine is not yet dead, it is in part thanks to the Catholic Church and her faithful, both past and present; if Ukraine is to live on, neither conquered by Russia nor ideologically colonized by the secular West, overcome neither by despair nor by bitterness, she needs the support of the Catholic Church. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic faithful, both lay and religious, are already hard at work helping their country to forge a future worthy of human dignity. Catholics, both in the United States and globally, should acknowledge their Church’s contributions and reject Putin’s narrative, a narrative that writes both the Catholic Church and the Ukrainian nation out of history.
(This post is republished from The Public Discourse.)