www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Ukraine: Emerging from the Catacombs

This is a marvellous series. Here are the links to it on You Tube. It is edifying to learn how Greek-Catholics have borne witness to the Gospel through many hardships. God grant them many years!

Gordo

Part 1 [youtube.com]

Part 2 [youtube.com]

Part 3 [youtube.com]

Part 4 [youtube.com]

Part 5 [youtube.com]

Part 6 [youtube.com]

Part 7 [youtube.com]

Xpucmoc Bockpece!

I have truly remembered what I experienced way back in 1970 when I was fortunate enough to go to Ukraine.

Seeing those scenes again brought such a flood of tears and I mean FLOOD!

In Ternopil oblast/region, in the villages we experienced true faith I wish that I could tell of these experiences but it is so hard to relate them.

But, there is a story told of one old man, in 1967(?), who spoke on the 50th anniversary of communism.

This true story was told to me!

All of the villagers were gathered in a community hall during the Holy season of Paskha=Easter to hear speaches on this day. For the aim was to convince the authorities from Moscow, that they were successful in eliminating religion in this Ukrainian community.

Many of the educated communist leaders from Ternopil and L'viv in western Ukraine were invited to speak.

Each in turn, doctors, lawyers,educators, scientists, and philosophers spoke of how God was not the author of laws,
science etc
They presented hours of arguments that laws came from sources such as the Code Of Humurabi, Greek and Roman sources, of how doctors have never seen a soul in the people on whom they had operated, how philosophers could argue of the non-existence of God in creation and on and on.......These men, after four hours, were convinced that they had succeeded in finally eliminating religion and that no person could argue against them.....but...... if one did wish to speak he/she was welcome to do so.

One old crippled man stood up and climbed the stairs with great pain to the stage and in typical Ukrainian fashion bowed to these great minds and turned to the gathering and spoke just 2 words!.... "Xpucmoc Bockpece"...... (Khristos Voskrese=Christ Is Risen)

Dead silence followed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and then, one little old baba replied in her weak voice Voistenu Voskrese ( Truly He Is Risen). Gradually, one by one each person responded "Voistenu Voskrece"over and over and finally broke int to the singing of the Easter Troparion: " Khristos Voskrese iz mertvyxk smertiu smert popraw i sushchim vo hrobyk zevot druvow"= Christ is Risen from the dead trampling down death by death and to those in the tombs bestowing life." The triumphant troparion was sung over and over and louder and louder!

To which, the stage was emptied of these learned gentlemen who realilzed that 50 years of oppression, murder the mass starvation of the 30's had not been successful.

That old man is right!

To-day I write to family there and hear of the growth of the Church and its great difficulty still ahead

Needless to say, the Faith had not died....

Shcher Podjaka/ Heartfelt Thanks for these scenes.

Xpucmoc Bockpece
Khristos Voskrese
Christ Is Risen
Truly He Is Risen

Nycholaij

Please excuse any typing and grammatical errors I have made for I amd sure there are many.

I believe this is going to be on EWTN shortly.

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Western Orthodoxy Blog [westernorthodox.blogspot.com]

Dear Nikolay I know perfectly a lot of stories like you told one and my family went thru it ,
God is Great !!
Slava Bohu !!!

Amazing ,it is so sad how many years our brothers and sisters in Christ were suffering

Yes. I copied this from EWTN's website:

So the treaty of Brest Litovsk was signed because the Kyivan Church needed Rome to stop the corruption and prevent the reformation in the Ukraine?

Thats an original way to look at it...

Dear Gordo,

Thanks for posting the video's. It shows that unity can never be imposed on others. Except maybe in England, and at the cost of 70,000 being beheaded by King Henry VIII...if one should wonder. Unity can only be achieved through the Holy Spirit, and the love that emanates from each person's heart.

One has to truly feel for the Ukrainian people. They not only sufferred the persecution from the Soviet Union, but also the expansionist desires of an over populated Germany. Of course on both accounts, genocide was the only answer. How sorrowful!

God Bless,

Zenovia

While I agree that the Soviet Persecution on the Greek Catholics was horrible, but let us not forget that the Soviets also killed an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 Orthodox Bishops, Priests, Monks, Nuns and faithful because of their religion.

Further while this video makes some valid points to say that the Union took place because of some kind of corruption and to go one step further and suggest that the Orthodox Church in Kiev was threatened by PROTESTANTISM is plain dishonest.

The Gentleman in the video also makes a claim that The Greek Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church had never been united before Stalin forced this..... Come on.... They were the same Church for hundreds of years... What is he talking about?

The Clergy that wanted to unite with the Orthodox Church are called traitors while the Clergy that signed the treaty of Brest Litovsk is portrait as heroes.

Yes the communists closed Greek Catholic Churches. Yes it was horrible. Yes some Orthodox took part in this.

One thing people forget is that the Orthodox Church took the Greek Catholic faithful under her wing, and fed them spiritually for decades.

Where is one kind word about Orthodoxy? Where is one kind word about Orthodox Priests that confessed, and communed Greek Catholic faithful.

The only thanks they got was the heel of the boot when the Greek Catholics came back to West Ukraine.

Also, please don't forget that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was very strongly Nationalistic and anti Russian. There were very many Greek Catholics in the Ukraine that were very happy when Nazis came. As such this nationalistic movement was seen as a threat by the Communist party. Thus the closing of Churches.

Even till today I still hear things like <IF YOU'RE NOT A CATHOLIC YOU ARE NOT UKRAINIAN> from Ukrainian Catholics.

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One can 'hear' all sorts of things. This pales in comparison to what I've heard from some Orthodox and other Catholics. So what? We will always have to contend with the deluded and narrow-minded. We can but pray for them.

As for the situation in Western Ukraine after WW2, perhaps you expected that the UGCC should have sent the following letter?

To: Patriarch of the ROC
Cc: The Kremlin
From: UGCC

Your Holiness,

Now that we have emerged from the catacombs, we can finally address you officially.

With your co-operation, in 1946 the Soviet authorities staged a mock synod and liquidated our Church in Ukraine. Bishops, priests, religious and laity were imprisoned, tortured and killed. Many were forced to operate underground, always in fear of persecution.

But that's OK! You took control of our property, and let those who wanted to express their faith in your foreign Church. You even let our men study in your seminaries. THANK YOU! Never mind that we continued to exist underground, trained and ordained clergy, ministered to the faithful - the real saving grace was your dominance, in alliance with the atheistic authorities. Go ahead, keep everything you took from us - it's the least we can offer! Maybe you can also send us a bill for our investment in us, buildings and clergy. We'll gladly spend a few generations paying back the great debt we owe you!

Grovelling before the might and right of the symphonia reigning in Moscow,

The ever-grateful faithful of the UGCC

Reminds me of a passage from Shevchenko (?) where he describes the foreign enemy saying 'We will beat you - go fetch us sticks' and they went running to fulfil the command.

I think it was Solzhenitsyn who said that if you cannot stop the Communists from burying us, at least do not supply them with shovels!

I own this Church in the Catacombs video, and it is excellent. We showed this video in our Church on a giant screen as part of our 100th anniversary series of events.

The Communist era was no doubt a great tribulation for all believers- Greek Catholics and Orthodox, and people of many other faiths.

As a Greek Catholic, it has been a very nice thing to note the sympathy expressed by Bishop Kallistos for our Church under communism in his book the Orthodox Church. I think many Orthodox do feel compunction for what transpired in Eastern Europe during the Soviet era.

I think it is important to move forward. We cannot be pointing fingers at this stage of the game. Rather, as followers of Christ, we must find ways for Catholics and Orthodox to cooperate for the kingdom, as much as possible.

It is very important to note that in the video Cardinal Husar, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop sounds a very conciliatory note to the Orthodox, insisting that there is very little in matters of faith to divide us.

The Orthodox may have been co-opted by the regime, and used by the Communists in liquidating the Greek Catholics. But Orthodox believers suffered too. I just finished reading the History of the Church in Carpathian Rus' by A. Pekar, and he notes that as soon as the liquidation of our Mother Church in Carpathia was accomplished, the Soviets began turning on the Orthodox.

There is no doubt many Greek Catholic and Orthodox martyr-saints from the Soviet era are in heaven now, enjoying that perfect unity that they were not able to enjoy on earth, and they are cheering us all on, praying for us.

Many of my fellow Byzantine Catholics have formed friendships with Orthodox believers here locally, and we are looking forward to projects and worship we can do together, short of sacramental unity. For instance, I have joined the local chapter of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, and I am enjoying getting involved in their projects and presentations.

Through the intercessions of our holy Martyrs, Theodore, Paul, Basil, Aleksandr, and many others, may our Lord grant us the unity He so earnestly prayed for (John 17.21). Amen.

I am part Jewish myself, so when there is dislike towards me because I am not 100% Ukrainian I understand... Frankly I could care less about what people say, but when my friend who is cradle Orthodox Ukrainian gets told that "Hey, you're a nice person considering the fact that you're a an Orthodox Rusophile", its completely ridiculous.

First of all to deny me my country, my homeland, the place where I was born and grew up because I know Russian and have Jewish blood is rather cruel, but the attitude towards my friend borders on Nazism.

My question for my Catholic Ukrainian Brothers and sisters is this.

Why is there such strong nationalism in the UCC?

BTW, I also think there is strong nationalism in ROC also, but from my experience it is more evident in the UCC.

mISTER or brother Borislaw said about ukrainian nationalizm , we do not use this word ,in our ukrainian language it is translated as love to our church and our beloved Motherland that is all ,
Soviet authorithy also called our love to our Ukraine and theirs people as nationalizm , we do not know this word we call it just love to our beloved nation

Dear Borislaw , how could you call my love to My Mom as ukrainian nationalism

it is so very stupid my darling