The spirit of petlura lives on! The poles are back... This is why we need to restore the monarchy.
Orthodoxia I Thanatos!
Rostislav Mikhailovich Malleev-Pokrovsky
http://www.byzcath.org/bboard/ultimateb ... 1;t=001326
Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, the Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, announced that he is moving his archepiscopal see from Lviv to Kiev within the next few weeks. If you think that's a minor story-- just relocating the headquarters-- you are very much mistaken. This move could have enormous implications for the future of ecumenical relations: both for the Eastern churches in union with Rome, and for the Vatican's efforts to draw closer to the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, you see, is the largest of all the Byzantine-rite churches in full union with the Holy See. Brutally persecuted during the Stalin era, the Byzantine Church re-emerged with remarkable vigor after the fall of Communism, and soon the Russian Orthodox Church, which views itself as a sponsor of the neighboring Ukrainian Orthodox, was complaining about the muscular new Catholic presence. (To complicate matters, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is split into three factions, fighting among themselves.) The Ukrainian Catholic hierarchy is not apologizing for the growth of their Church. On the contrary, by moving to Kiev (the nation's capital), they are plunging into the heart of what has been historically Orthodox territory, and staking a claim to represent the true religious heritage of the Ukrainian people.
Moscow won't swallow that claim easily. And the Ukrainian Catholic leadership is also causing a good deal of nervousness at the Vatican, where many prelates are doing their best to ease the current tensions that separate Rome from Moscow.
And that's still not the whole story. For generations, Ukrainian Catholics have asked the Vatican to recognize their Church as a patriarchate-- like the patriarchates of several other smaller Eastern-rite churches: Maronite,
Melkite, Chaldean, etc. Cardinal Husar raised the stakes a bit in his most recent statement, asserting that the Ukrainian Church is a patriarchate, and calling upon the Vatican "to recognize this historical reality."
