Head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church Cardinal Lubomyr Guzar has said that accusations from representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church of oppression of Orthodox believers in western Ukraine by the Greek-Catholic Church are groundless."These claims [of oppression by the Greek-Catholic Church] are made regularly, but I haven't heard of anyone proving this," the Head of Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church said in an interview with the Ukrainian BBC service, commenting on accusations by the head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk in his talk with Pope Benedict XVI, the department of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church reported.
Cardinal Guzar noted that during meetings with representatives of the Vatican the members of the Greek-Catholic Church are often accused of "destroying three orthodox eparches" (the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil eparchies of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate))."
"I don't know of any case in which we took away any orthodox church built by believers of the Russian Orthodox Church," he said.
"I'm still waiting for objective evidence that representatives of the Greek-Catholic Church violently seized these churches or prevented the construction of new churches," Cardinal Guzar said.
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