www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Young people and integrity in oppressed Church in Ukraine

To the asnine assertation that the UGCC collaborated with the Soviets I don't even feel the need to respond as the members of forum know this claim to be patently false. To the equally asnine assertation that the Moscow Patriarchate did not benefit from compromise with the Soviets under Stalin the members know the same. You expose yourself as either ignorant, deluded, or dishonest.

Protopresbyter Havryil Kostelnyk (I understand he is being glorified, like St. Alexis Kabaliuk), Bp. Mykhail Melnyk and Bp. Joseph Pelvetsky Kostelnik. All Met. Sheptytsky's Ruthenians, like thousands/millions of others. Or do you dispute that, Fr. Deacon?

Has St. Sophia Cathedral and the Kievan Caves, St. Volodymyr's, the Pochaiv Lavra etc...been returned to the Moscow Patriarchate? I hadn't heard.

When is Lvov and the rest of Galicia scheduled to be returned to Poland? The Ruthenian rite thrived so much under Polish rule. As Met. Sheptytsky wrote Stalin, after the Soviet army had occupied Galicia and Stalin had orchestrated through collaborators its annexation to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic:
Morality and Reality: The Life and Times of Andrei Sheptytsḱyi
By Paul Robert Magocsi, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies p. 65, 410.
followed up with a collection taken up amongst his flock for the Soviet Red Cross, that his coadjutor Met. Slipij was destined to deliver in Moscow, though Stalin spurned meeting with the delegation in person.

Another view by Rev. Fr. Serge of blessed memory:
https://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/300018/Gabriel_Kostelnik_to_be_canoni

Interesting that in your twisted reasoning Metopolitan Isidore of Kiev upon union becomes a heretic, apostate and Greek Catholic, yet when the tables are turned you want to claim Fr. Gabriel for the Greek Catholics even as he was assisting the Soviets and the MP in their liquidation.

And you conveniently provide your own refutation.

Go peddle your poison elsewere nobody here is drinking.

Well, we all can't drink the pre-approved Kool Aid, Fr. Deacon.

Prof. Bohdan Budurowycz (disciple of Halecki of "From Florence to Brest" fame) http://www.utoronto.ca/ceres/news/spring07/Budurowycz.pdf was no apologist for the Soviets, from whom he fled. He saw the sources, I didn't, but I trust he could filter out the "poison" the Soviets added to the truth serum. If he couldn't, I'm sure Prof. Paul Robert Magocsi and the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies could catch any stray gnats.

That still would leave bitter dregs the size of camels that might catch in the throat: the collection for the Soviet Red Cross and Met. Slipij's delivery of it to Moscow doesn't depend on Soviet sources for corroboration. Neither does Met. Sheptytsky's (and Met. Slipij's) support for the formation of the SS Galizien Division, which was celebrated in St. George Cathedral in Lviv, something which comprised all involved when the Bolsheviks returned victorious.

I don't know of any condemnation by Met. Sheptytsky (or Met. Slipij) on Stalin's sham elections for annexing Galicia to the U.S.S.R. (the "U" being for "Ukrainian"), and the Bolsheviks forming Soviets and national assemblies to assist in the liquidation of the Polish administration of the "Kresy." Do you, Fr. Deacon? We do know-aside from Soviet sources-that Met. Sheptytsky took advantage of Stalin's border drawn by Molotov and Ribbentrop, the Metropolitan writing to the Vatican just over two weeks after Stalin's occupation of Galicia (even before the Bolsheviks could stage the election of the People's Assembly and have Kyryl Studynsky, one of the Metropolitan's flock, lead it to ask Stalin for annexation, putting the "U" in "UGCC") requesting that his "special powers" be returned to him-his supreme pontiff had taken them from the Ruthenian primate as soon as the Metropolitan might have the opportunity to exercise them in the Vatican's Most Faithful Daughter, the Polish Second Republic. We know-outside of Soviet sources-that his supreme pontiff refused the request, but since the Vatican, unlike in Warsaw, couldn't help Met. Sheptytsky in Moscow, the "supreme authority in the church" looked the other way. So Met. Sheptytsky claimed jurisdiction beyond Galicia and appointed Met. Slipij as his exarch over the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic to which Galicia, under Stalin's auspices, was now annexed. The contrast of when the Ruthenian primate could exercise jurisdiction was epitomized by his giving to Exarch Slipij the same emblems of the episcopate Met. Sheptytsky-then in custody of the Imperial Russian authorities-used when he ordained Iosyf Botsian as bishop of Lutsk and Volhynia for a Chelm eparchy he declared restored, when the Czar took Galicia in WWI. Met. Sheptytsky's correspondence with the returned Austrian Hungarians (who occupied Volhynia as well) and then the succeeding Poles, and the Vatican-outside of Soviet sources-informing them of the appointment, show us that the Vatican and her faithful daughters slapped the Metropolitan's hand reaching out of Galicia: the ordination was held a nullity, the jurisdiction of the Latin ordinaries over Met. Sheptytsky's Ruthenian flock outside of Galicia was re-affirmed. Met. Sheptytski had made the appointment as part of a program of proselytizing the Orthodox-Volhynia, the most Ukrainian province in West Ukraine, having an Orthodox majority. That program was hijacked by the Vatican and given to the Jesuits. Met. Sheptytski's powers in Galicia and elsewhere were held on a leash the Vatican gave to the Polish Second Republic.

In contrast-in and outside Soviet sources-Stalin didn't bother about Met. Slipyj's appointment. Met. Sheptytski's death, after the return of the Soviets, was announced in the communist organs-Soviet sources-as the death of "the head of the Greek Catholic Church in the USSR," recognizing the very jurisdiction that the Vatican refused to confirm him in. As said primate, Stalin sent Khrushchev, as leader of the Ukr.S.S.R. to the Metrpolitan's funeral to lay a wreath. Met. Slipyj succeeded in that jurisdiction without a question. Indeed in UGCC sources-but not in Soviet sources-we are told that Stalin offered Met. Slipyj the see of Kiev, an offer that the All Ukraine Sobor in the wake of WWI turned down Met. Sheptytski's feelers for (as he specified it would mean "re-union" and submission to the Vatican).

We know-from Soviet and non-Soviet sources-that Met. Slipyj's overtures to Stalin and his regime for cooperation met the response suggesting reunion with the Patriarchate of Moscow, a path that nearly all in Chernivtsi, the majority in Volhynia, a third to half of Transcarpathia, and many in Galicia had already trod before the Soviets set foot in West Ukraine.

As for peddling Soviet documents, it seems someone here has a thirst:
https://www.byzcath.org/index.php/n...f-pseudo-synod-of-ugcc-of-1946-presented

There's your refutation of Soviet involvement in the Synod of Lviv. Conveniently provided.

Such garbage you spew!

Pavloosh - are you in the Great Fast? This doesn't seem very Lenten language, regardless of the rightness or wrongness of arguments.

Garbage is garbage, in and out of season.