'Church within the Church' as a Local Strategy of Survival: 'Reunited' Greek Catholics in Soviet Ukraine, 1940s–1960s

• In Event: Forced Conversion Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the "Reunification" of Ukrainian Greek Catholics with the Russian Orthodox Church: 1940s – 1980s

Abstract

The “reunification” with the Russian Orthodox Church was required by the Stalinist regime and is conventionally viewed as an instrument of the destruction of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. I argue however that “reunited” Greek Catholics managed to preserve their distinctiveness/otherness and formed the “Church within the Church” and thereby did not become “true Orthodox.” Towards this end, I address the following issues: 1) motivations for “reunification”; 2) self-construction of a “reunited community” as “our own” “Galician” Church; 3) preservation of Greek Catholic ritual patterns and local religious and cultural traditions within the official church structure.

Author

• Natalia Shlikhta, National U of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy" (Ukraine)