The Institutional Destruction of the Greek Catholic Church in the Postwar Period: Manifestation of Soviet Colonialism

Abstract

The article examines the institutional destruction of the Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine during the postwar period as a characteristic manifestation of Soviet colonialism. The focus is placed on two main structures of the Greek-Catholic tradition — Galician Metropolis (The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church) and the Mukachevo Greek-Catholic Eparchy — which, despite their different historical and canonical conditions of existence, experienced similar repressive practices imposed by the Soviet state. The study analyses the political and legal mechanisms as well as the ideological justifications employed by the Soviet authorities to eliminate Greek-Catholic institutions in 1946–1949, including the orchestration of the Lviv pseudo-council, the campaign of “reunion” with the Russian Orthodox Church, persecution of the clergy, and mass repressions against the faithful. Special attention is devoted to comparing the situation in Galicia and Transcarpathia, which highlights the differences in the forms and pace of implementing anti-Church policies. In Galicia, the emphasis was placed on public delegitimization of the UGCC through the council of 1946 controlled by Soviet security services, whereas in Transcarpathia the main pressure was directed at isolating the Mukachevo Eparchy from the Vatican and its forced subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate in 1949. The research is based on archival documents, materials of Soviet security services, ecclesiastical sources, and contemporary historiography. The article argues that the liquidation of Greek-Catholic structures was not merely a religious or confessional act but rather an integral part of the broader colonial strategy of the Soviet regime, aimed at unifying the cultural space, destroying alternative identities, and subordinating religious life to imperial policy. The elimination of the institutions of the UGCC and the Mukachevo Eparchy in the postwar years reveals the key features of Soviet colonialism: control over memory, repression of elites, destruction of traditional structures, and forced integration into the framework of a “unified Orthodox space.” Thus, the institutional liquidation of the Greek-Catholic Church appears as an important example of colonial violence that had profound consequences for the religious, national, and cultural development of Ukraine in the twentieth century.