METROPOLITAN Hilarion of Volokolamsk, a bishop of the Russian
Orthodox Church, recently expressed hope that the new pope, Francis,
will continue the policy of rapprochement with the Orthodox Church and
will not support, what he calls the expansion of the Ukrainian Greek
Catholics.
“The union is the most painful topic in the Orthodox-Catholic
dialogue, in relations between the Orthodox and the Catholics. If the
pope will support the union, then, of course, it will bring no good," he
said
The metropolitan is worried: it is said that the new pope
has an affinity for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC).
So much
so that one Russian commentator claimed that in Francis, “we have a Ukrainian pope”.
This may worsen relations between the Orthodox and Catholic Church Greek Catholics.
The
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church confuses most outsiders. It is an
Eastern rite church that is in communion with Vatican.
Drawing on the
Christian legacy of medieval Kievan-Rus', it was officially founded
through the 1696 Union of Brest (hence the church’s other widespread
name, Uniate). “Greek” was added later to distinguish it from the Roman
Catholic Church.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the new pope, had a
Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest as his mentor and is familiar with the
Church's rites, says Sviatoslav
Shevchuk, the head of the UGCC. Mr Shevchuk previously served in Buenos
Aires and got to know the future pope there. Many in the Ukrainian
Greek Catholic Church hope that Francis will elevate it to a
patriarchate, from its current status as a Major Archbishopate.
Today
Greek Catholics make up about 15% of Ukraine's population. Most of them
live in the west of the country, including the city of Lviv. (They also
have a strong presence in the Ukrainian diaspora.) After almost half a
century of persecution under Soviet rule, the Church resurfaced as one
of the pillars of national identity in western Ukraine. It is an
influential force here, though it has kept its distance from politics.
Someone
once quipped: in the rest of Ukraine, religious people go to church; in
Lviv, everyone goes to church. The city is famous for its panoply of
churches, most of them now Greek Catholic, though it still has both a
Roman Catholic and an Armenian cathedral. (Up until 1941, Lviv was also
an important centre of the Jewish religion.) In the mornings the sound
of the liturgy, sung in Ukrainian, spills out into the cobbled streets.
Lviv Business School,
part of the Ukrainian Catholic University that is affiliated to the
[Ukrainian Greek Catholic] Church, has become known for combining
business education with ethics. Encouraging “trust, openness and ethics”
in the new generation of business leaders can help change negative
trends in Ukraine, says Sophia Opatska, the School's chief executive.
This is especially important in Ukraine, where “business often takes on
social and economic responsibilities that belong to government in
democratic countries”, she adds.
On April 7th crowds of Greek
Catholics joined a procession through Lviv representing the way of the
cross, slowing down the traffic. The Church's leaders have already
invited pope Francis to visit Ukraine.
The new pope himself has made no
special mention of Ukraine since his election as the Ukrainian media
has pointed out. All the same, many of Ukraine's Greek Catholics eagerly
await the visit of pope Francis, the closest they have had to a
Ukrainian pope.