Ukrainian Greek Catholics to establish patriarchate
The Permanent Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (PS UGCC) recently held a conclave at St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Rome. During the session, the Synod’s members visited several congregations and Pontifical Councils of the Roman Curia: the Congregation of Oriental Churches (a meeting with the Congregation Prefect Ignace Moussa), the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (a meeting with the Council President Walter Cardinal Kasper) and others. There was also an audience with Pope Benedict XVI on July 4.
The synod discussed a very important question: granting the Greek Catholic Church, which has existed for more than 400 years, the status of patriarchate. A patriarchate vests a church community with administrative independence, i.e., the resolution of the overwhelming majority of internal church problems is a prerogative of the church itself. The church is in turn headed by a hierarch holding the rank of patriarch. Today the worldwide system of Catholic churches comprises six Eastern — Rite Catholic churches, including the Armenian, Coptic, and Syrian.
The former primate of the UGCC, Metropolitan Josyf Slipyj, was the first to seek patriarchal status. (After the death of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, Slipyj became the head of the church and was then sentenced to an 18-year term in Stalin’s prison camps from which he was released thanks to the intercession of Pope John XXIII and US President John F. Kennedy.) During the last 20 years of his life, Metropolitan Slipyj did his utmost to rehabilitate, save, and strengthen the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The current primate, Lubomyr Cardinal Huzar, has also done much to raise his church’s status.
Rome seems to be convinced that a Kyivan-Galician Patriarchate of the UGCC will not only expand the church’s administrative rights but will also contribute to the unification of all Ukrainian Byzantine-rite Christians. This may in turn lead to the unification of Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholic believers. This does not sound too optimistic, at least from the present-day viewpoint.
This is a question for the future. As for today, reliable sources claim that the Apostolic Visitor, Bishop Hlib Lonchyna, who is responsible for Ukrainian Greek Catholics in the diaspora, announced that Pope Benedict XVI approves the Ukrainian Greek Catholics’ intention to have an almost independent church of their own. This is the world’s largest eastern-rite Catholic church, comprising about 5.5 million believers both in Ukraine (4 dioceses, 4,000 parishes) and abroad (the US, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and other countries). But the pope is first going to discuss this matter with the representatives of the other Ukrainian churches.
Cardinal Huzar issued several important statements at press conference in Lviv on July 10 “This issue [the UGCC patriarchate — Ed.) is still on the agenda. We continue to work on this and, thank God, we are seeing progress. We have given this problem very serious consideration, which will be to everyone’s benefit because it involves not only the internal affairs of Ukraine but also the Ecumenical Church and the role of Eastern churches in the overall system of Christianity. We were therefore very grateful to the Holy Father for the opportunity to meet him in person. I think it was a very useful meeting for him and for us because we wish to see the question of the patriarchate not only in the light of our own requirements but also against the backdrop of the requirements of the entire church.”
The Ukrainian Catholic primate said he is convinced that practically all the obstacles to naming the Apostolic See of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Patriarchate have been removed. But it is impossible to predict the exact time for recognizing the patriarchate because there are no laws that stipulate time limits. For example, the Second Vatican Council ruled that Eastern Catholic churches may proclaim themselves patriarchates in keeping with their nature. Unfortunately, it failed to explain when this can be done. For this reason, the UGCC is now a forerunner in the canonical resolution of this problem in strict observance of all legal prerequisites.
