Catholics in Russia and Ukraine

In the fog of mistrust and hostility that has long imobilized relations between Catholics and Orthodox in Russia, the charge of proselytism has been progressively "neutralised". However, another accusation remained, far more incisive and historically well-founded in its various interpretations: that of Uniatism in Ukraine. The history of a Church since 1596 reluctant to exalt the Moscow "third Rome".

One of the first signs that Russian politics was veering towards a rather aggressive form of nationalism was the expulsion of several Catholic missionaries from Russia in 2002. This was certainly not a striking event, but rather a common occurrence in the history of missionary works that have to settle in countries around the world that are not always well disposed towards the Catholic Church. Specifically, two years after President Vladimir Putin took office, it indicated a clear stance in defence of Orthodoxy as the "state religion", which, moreover, had already been elevated above all other confessions in the law on religious freedom reformed in 1997, at the proposal of the Communists and inspired by the patriarchate of Moscow.

The prologue to that law proclaimed that the historical religion of Russia was Orthodoxy, while four other religions were recognised as "traditional secondary": Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and... Christianity, evidently meaning Catholics and Protestants, present in Russia for centuries, but distinct from the Orthodox as another religion. It was not a slip of the tongue, and in fact that term has never been corrected: Russian Orthodoxy is in fact a distinct spiritual dimension, in which Christian dogmas are mixed with pagan residues, much more so than in the other branches of Christianity, and above all are reformulated into universalistic national ideals, which indicate Russia as a "salvific people" for the whole of humanity.

It was, in short, a sign not so much and not only of the disagreements between the Churches of East and West, but directly of an application to the politics and construction of the new (post-Soviet, but also post-Eltsinian) Russia; the construction of a framework of reference values and principles based on the distinction and rejection of the so-called "West", understood as a whole as a space dominated by the degraded spirit of the enemies of the true faith, by the Antichrist prophesied in various forms by the biblical scriptures and medieval sagas.

The anti-Catholic reaction was thus provoked by a resurgence of this post-religious ideology, meaning a wholly political interpretation of the 'religious renaissance' of post-communism, which had turned from a spontaneous search for God into a rebirth of the State Church. The accusations against missionaries and Catholic structures in Russia concerned the "ecclesiastical" version of the invasion of the enemy, Catholic "proselytism" on Orthodox canonical territory. It was evident that this accusation was specious, since Catholics were a tiny minority within the Russian population, a few hundred thousand out of 145 million, of whom only a very small percentage attended church. Nor could it be claimed that the Catholics had taken away the faithful from the Orthodox, given that the few hundred Russian Catholics who were not of Polish, Lithuanian or German origin were mostly unbaptised or did not attend the Churches of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Since the opening of the apostolic nunciature in Moscow in 1990 and the episcopal appointments in 1991, there had not been a single real case of conflict between Catholics and Orthodox in Russia over disputes over worshippers or places of worship, which were returned with great difficulty, so much so that even today many are denied. Personal relations between priests and faithful of both sides were more than cordial, in many cases downright fraternal. The expulsion of the missionaries took place under a bureaucratic pretext: the four Catholic apostolic administrations (Moscow, Saratov, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk) were elevated by the Holy See to the rank of diocese, an almost automatic decision after a certain interval of time, and this (incautious) decision was considered a "declaration of war" by the Orthodox and nationalists.

In the ten years, until the meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill in 2016, relations between Catholics and the Russian Orthodox remained frozen in a mixture of mistrust and hostility, and Catholics on the territory of Russia were forced to limit their activities as much as possible. The accusation of proselytism was progressively "neutralised", thanks also to a commission chaired by the patriarchate that made it compulsory for Catholics to ask permission for any new initiative. Another accusation remained, far more incisive and historically well-founded in its various interpretations: that of Uniatism in Ukraine.

The Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine has no direct branches in Russia, except for small communities scattered here and there in Europe and Siberia, but "Uniatism" and "proselytism" were associated in a single strategy of "Catholic invasion" in the area of the patriarchate of Moscow. The Union of Brest had been signed in 1596, as a response by the Russian Orthodox of the Kingdom of Poland to the proclamation of the Moscow Patriarchate seven years earlier, choosing to rejoin the papal 'first Rome' instead of exalting the Moscow 'third Rome'. Since then the dispute in these lands has experienced moments of stagnation and dramatic periods, such as when in 1946 Stalin decided from on high to suppress the Greek-Catholic Church by imposing its fusion with the Moscow Patriarchate, in the pseudo-Synod of Lviv organised by the then secretary of the party in Ukraine Nikita Khruščev, with the endorsement of "Stalin's Patriarch" Alexis I in Moscow.

The Uniates were harshly persecuted throughout the Soviet period, and they did not wait for the end of the empire to return to the forefront: in 1990 they came out into the open, taking back the churches they had taken away almost fifty years earlier, and expelling the "Muscovite" priests, many of whom declared themselves on the side of the Greek Catholics. The Holy See had no choice but to recognise its own Eastern-rite faithful in Ukraine, whom the saintly Pope John Paul II defended against accusations and hostilities within the Catholic Church itself. In 1991, the nuncio to the Soviet Union published the appointments of Uniate bishops in three dioceses, which became many more in the following years, covering the territory of the entire independent Ukraine. There are about 3 million Uniates, the majority of whom live in the western parts of the country, but they have churches and monasteries in every region.

While the Patriarchate of Moscow has almost completley overcome the issue of "proselytism" over time, its guard against Uniatism has never been lowered: when there was the anti-Russian Maidan uprising in 2014, from patriarchal circles the finger was pointed at the Uniates as the real inspirers of the uprisings, even attributing to them the spiritual paternity of the most vocal groups of the Ukrainian extreme right, the "neo-Nazis" who were indicated by Putin as the enemies of the "Russian world", against whom the defensive "special military operation" was necessary to free Russians and Ukrainians from Western influence. It should be added that many of the Greek Catholic priests and bishops actually come from the Ukrainian diaspora around the world, or have spent long periods in various countries, such as the same Major Archbishop Svjatoslav (Ševčuk) who met Pope Bergoglio in Argentina, and whom the Uniates explicitly call "our patriarch". His predecessor, Cardinal Ljubomyr Husar, had returned to Ukraine after long years of exile in Rome, which he spent with many compatriots in the monastery of Grottaferrata and in the Ukrainian church of Santa Sofia in Via Boccea, the Ukrainian cathedral abroad built by Cardinal Iosif Slipyj, who had come to Rome after 18 years in a Siberian lager.

Today Husar's body rests in the new Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, on the left bank of the Dnipro, the river of the Baptism of Rus' in 988. In this modern Byzantine church consecrated in 2011, Archbishop-Patriarch Svyatoslav resides, housing hundreds of people in the crypt to protect them from the Moscow bombings. He declared it "a miracle" that the capital is still standing and not occupied by Russian tanks, in a dramatic video link-up with his confreres at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome on 29 March. Svjatoslav recounted that "the invasion had been well planned, we found our parishioners, choristers and youth groups holding lists of targets to be eliminated, in which were all the leaders of our Church and of the Orthodox ones". The most violent fighting took place around the Greek-Catholic cathedral, from which the Russians thought they could cross the river and take over the historic Orthodox cathedral of St Sophia, on the heights of the right bank.

"They were apocalyptic moments, when we thought the world was collapsing, and we had to organise ourselves as best we could," says the archbishop, "the most important thing was to stay in touch with the bishops and priests, so that they could take care of our people". Svyatoslav's daily five-minute messages became everyone's only source of information and directives for action, with the phrase "it's me, Kiev is alive!", which he recounted between tears: "With you I can cry, I must give people words of hope". And so 'the moral strength of the Ukrainian people has become a miracle that surprises the world, the life of the capital is being reborn, even though only one million people, a third of the population, are left'.

The figures for Ukraine's martyrdom are impressive, as all the newspapers now testify on a daily basis, and Svyatoslav points out that "all the priests have remained in their parishes", even those in the ghost-cities of Mariupol, Černihiv and Kharkiv, razed to the ground by Chechen bombs and missiles: "1300 rockets in a month, churches and historical buildings have been destroyed". Two churches a day are demolished, knowing that people take refuge in crypts, and most of them are churches of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine.

The archbishop also tells of a great solidarity between the Churches, Greek-Catholic, autocephalous and Moscow. Representatives of all the communities are in constant contact with each other, especially in the protection of St Sophia, the cathedral-symbol of Christianity in Kiev, where a mosaic of the Praying Madonna protecting the people is still preserved, which miraculously remained intact even during the Tatar-Mongolian invasion in 1240. The apostolic nuncio, Mgr Visvaldas Kulbokas, a Lithuanian, the only ambassador who did not move to the safer Lviv, also remained heroically in Kiev, because "I am a pastor, before being a diplomat", and Svyatoslav confirms: "we are pastors, not altar boys to power".

The archbishop thanked Pope Francis, who called him immediately after the start of the hostilities and made him feel his closeness, also through the frequent calls of Cardinal Parolin. He gave thanks for "the extraordinary event of the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, because we are experiencing an apocalyptic clash between good and evil and we need a miracle from Our Lady, from the one who crushed the head of the ancient dragon, we need the supernatural strength of the Immaculate Conception that we, Catholics, Orthodox and many ordinary people, feel in our midst".

The history of Catholics in Russia and Ukraine begins a new from faith and communion in suffering, and this is the real hope for these lands. The new Baptism of Kiev regenerates humanity in need of rediscovering peace and love among Christians, among peoples and among men.

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