Denomination

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Also Known As Ukrainian Catholic Church · UGCC · Ruthenian Uniate Church

Christianity

Origin 1596

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is an Eastern Catholic church: Byzantine in rite, Ukrainian in language and custom, and in full communion with Rome. It dates from the Union of Brest in 1596, when most of the Orthodox bishops of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth accepted papal jurisdiction while keeping their liturgy, their calendar and their married clergy. It is the largest Eastern Catholic church in the world and its centre of gravity is in Galicia, in western Ukraine.

History & Origin

Formed by the Union of Brest in 1596, when bishops of the Kyiv metropolitanate entered communion with Rome while retaining Byzantine liturgy and married clergy.

Facts

Belief

Defining Doctrinal Position

Trinitarian: one God in three persons 2

Its own record names it in full communion with Rome, matching Roman Catholicism, already carried as trinitarian.

Defining Doctrinal Position

Chalcedonian: two natures in the one person of Christ (Chalcedon, 451) 2

Its own record names it in full communion with Rome, matching Roman Catholicism, already carried as chalcedonian.

Position on Marriage

Marriage is held to be a lifelong, monogamous, indissoluble union; remarriage after divorce is not sanctioned while a spouse lives 3

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk stated on 22 December 2023 that any blessing given within the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church cannot in any way contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church about the family as a faithful, indissoluble and fruitful union of love between a man and a woman, restating the church's general teaching on marriage rather than addressing only same-sex unions.

Marriage Position Detail

In the same 22 December 2023 statement ruling the Vatican's Fiducia Supplicans declaration inapplicable to his church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk restated the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church's general teaching on marriage: that a blessing cannot in any way contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church about the family as a faithful, indissoluble and fruitful union of love between a man and a woman. The statement addresses the church's teaching on marriage generally rather than same-sex unions alone. 4

Position on Sexuality

Same-sex sexual relationships are held contrary to teaching; LGBT individuals are welcomed as members but not ordained, and same-sex unions are not blessed 3

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, ruled on 22 December 2023 that the Vatican's Fiducia Supplicans declaration permitting non-liturgical blessings of same-sex couples applies solely to the Latin Church and carries no legal force for his own church's faithful, citing canon 1492 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. He stated that any blessing cannot in any way contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church about the family as a faithful, indissoluble and fruitful union of love between a man and a woman. Neither source read addresses ordinary membership for a gay member of the church.

Sexuality Position Detail

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is sui iuris and in full communion with Rome, but its own head has ruled the Vatican's own teaching on this question inapplicable to his church. On 22 December 2023, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk stated that the Vatican's Fiducia Supplicans declaration, which permits non-liturgical blessings of same-sex couples in the Latin Church, applies solely to that church and has no legal force for the faithful of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, citing canon 1492 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. He explained that in Byzantine practice a priest's blessing carries liturgical weight the Latin tradition does not give it, and that any blessing cannot in any way contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church about the family as a faithful, indissoluble and fruitful union of love between a man and a woman, concluding that pastoral prudence requires avoiding ambiguous gestures, statements and concepts that would distort church teaching. Neither source found addresses ordinary church membership for a gay member of the church. 4

Attributions

Church Family

Eastern Catholic 1

Eastern Catholic, Byzantine rite

Practice

Liturgical Language

Church Slavonic 2

Trajectory

Membership Over Timethe subject's own account

By 2022, after the church's legalization in 1989 and decades of rebuilding, estimated worldwide membership had recovered to approximately 4.2 million, making it the second largest Eastern Catholic Church. 5

Membership Over Timethe subject's own account

In 1939 the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church counted about 3.6 million faithful across 2,387 parishes, shortly before the Soviet authorities forcibly dissolved the church at the 1946 Lviv council and absorbed its parishes into the Russian Orthodox Church. 5

Membership Figure As Ofthe subject's own account

1939-01-01 5

Membership Figure As Ofthe subject's own account

2022-01-01 5

Basis of the Membership Figurethe subject's own account

Scholarly or Demographic Estimate 5

Origins

Origin Period

1596 2

Place of Origin

Galicia, western Ukraine. 1

Founder

No single founder. Formed by the Union of Brest in 1596, when the Orthodox bishops of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth accepted papal jurisdiction while keeping their liturgy and married clergy. 1

A collective episcopal act rather than one founder, dated in its own already-cited origin-account fact.

History

Separation or Divergence

Dissolved by Soviet decree at the Lviv council of 1946; underground until 1989 1

Organisation

Governance

Episcopal: governed by bishops 2

Ordination

Married clergy permitted 1

Ordination Practice Detail

Married men may be ordained to the priesthood, as in the Byzantine tradition generally 1

Status

Status Today

Living tradition, practised today 1

In Other Languages (18 names)

Learn More

Brest 1596, and What the Union Preserved

The terms agreed at Brest are the whole of the matter. The Orthodox bishops of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who entered the union accepted the jurisdiction of the pope and the Catholic doctrinal position, and kept everything else: the Byzantine liturgy in Church Slavonic, the Julian calendar, communion under both kinds, their own hierarchy, and a married parish clergy. What they were offered in return was equality with the Latin bishops in the Commonwealth, including seats in the senate, which they did not in the event receive.

The union did not carry the whole church. Two bishops refused, a substantial part of the nobility and the lay brotherhoods opposed it, and an Orthodox hierarchy was restored in the Commonwealth within a few decades. The result was two churches using the same rite and the same language in the same towns, which made the difference between them a matter of allegiance rather than of appearance, and made the seventeenth century in those lands bitter.

The church survived because of where the border fell. When the Commonwealth was partitioned, the Greek Catholic communities that came under Russian rule were absorbed into the Orthodox Church, in stages ending in 1839 and 1875. Those in Galicia came under Austrian rule instead, where the state raised the standing of the clergy and funded their education, and the church there became the principal institution of Ukrainian national and cultural life in the nineteenth century.

Liquidation, the Catacomb Years, and the Return

After the Soviet annexation of western Ukraine the church was suppressed as an institution. Its bishops were arrested in 1945. In March 1946 an assembly convened in Lviv, without any of those bishops present, declared the Union of Brest annulled and the church reunited with the Moscow Patriarchate, and the parishes and buildings were transferred accordingly. The church itself calls that assembly a pseudo-sobor and does not recognise it; accounts of its standing differ sharply between the churches involved, and the atlas records the dispute rather than resolving it.

What followed was four decades underground. Priests were ordained in secret, liturgies were celebrated in flats and forests, and the church became one of the largest banned religious bodies in the Soviet Union. Josyf Slipyj, the metropolitan arrested in 1945, spent eighteen years in labour camps before being released to Rome, where he continued to lead the church in exile and was made a cardinal.

Legalisation came in 1989 and 1990, and the return of parishes to a church that had been erased from the register produced serious and sometimes violent disputes over buildings in Galicia, which the Moscow Patriarchate has cited in ecumenical discussions ever since. The seat of the major archbishop was moved from Lviv to Kyiv in 2005. The church today has eparchies across Ukraine and a large diaspora structure in Poland, North and South America and Australia.

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

4 entries

Origin Period Start Year

Solitary or Communal

Category of Practice

Who Performs It

Practice Status

Scholarly Standing

Cadence

Obligation

In Group

Connections

Associated With

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (Wikipedia)

This source names Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church directly: "The English Wikipedia article on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, community edited, carrying the 1939 pre-liquidation figure of 3.6 million faithful across 2,387 parishes and the current..."

Source Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Belongs To Church Family

Catholic Churches

Belongs to Tradition

Christianity

Branch Of

Christianity

Contained In

Roman Catholicism

An Eastern Catholic church in full communion with Rome, Byzantine in rite.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Governed By Polity

Episcopal Polity

Holds Element

Akathist to the Theotokos

Sung on the Saturday of the Akathist as in the Byzantine churches, and widely used as a parish devotion besides.

Byzantine Chant

Byzantine in rite while in communion with Rome, and singing the same Slavonic and Ukrainian repertory as its Orthodox neighbours.

Cardinal

Major archbishops of this church have been created cardinals, so its head sits in the college without the office belonging to the Byzantine tradition itself.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

Cherubic Hymn

Sung at the Great Entrance in Slavonic or Ukrainian, the rite being unaltered by the union.

Papacy

An Eastern church in full communion with Rome, keeping the Byzantine Rite and its own major archbishop while recognising the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome.

Pastor Aeternus

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church keeps the Byzantine rite in full communion with Rome, so it receives the council's definitions along with the rest of the Roman magisterium.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Pope

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is in full communion with the bishop of Rome and holds the office as Rome defines it, while keeping the Byzantine rite.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

The Council of Chalcedon

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church receives Chalcedon with the whole Byzantine inheritance, and with the later Roman councils besides.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

The Council of Florence

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church stands on the Florentine model of union, a church keeping the Byzantine rite and its own law while in communion with Rome.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

The First Vatican Council

Received by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which is in full communion with Rome and holds the Roman councils as well as the seven.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

The Second Vatican Council

Received by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, whose own recovery of its Byzantine liturgical practice was pressed by the council decree on the Eastern churches.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

The Third Council of Constantinople

Received with the rest of the seven councils, which the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church holds alongside the Roman councils.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

Held Differently

Priest

A Byzantine Catholic priest may be a married man, ordained under Eastern canon law while in full communion with a Latin church that ordinarily requires celibacy. It is the same order held on different terms.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

The Filioque

From the Father through the Son. The Eastern Catholic churches recite the creed without the clause while in communion with Rome, which is the standing demonstration that the formula and the communion are separable.

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Seven Sacraments

The seven mysteries are held with Rome, and administered in the Byzantine manner.

Sunday of Orthodoxy

The Anaphora

The Byzantine anaphoras are used.

The Annunciation

The Epiclesis

The epiclesis follows the institution narrative, in the Byzantine order.

The Holy Trinity

The Immaculate Conception and bodily Assumption of Mary

The Lord's Prayer

The Lord's Prayer stands where the Byzantine books put it.

The resurrection of Christ

The Transfiguration

Theophany

Veneration of icons

Icons are venerated as in the Orthodox churches, and the iconostasis stands in these churches as it does in theirs.

Veneration of saints and Mary

The saints and the Theotokos are venerated, in the Byzantine forms rather than the Latin ones.

Wisdom of Sirach

Source Canons and Decrees of the Council of TrentCouncil of Trentthe holders' own account

Wisdom of Solomon

Source Canons and Decrees of the Council of TrentCouncil of Trentthe holders' own account

Showing 51 to 65 of 65 in Objects and Practices of This Tradition, page 2 of 2.

Uses Liturgical Language

Church Slavonic

Sources

1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition

F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source

2. The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey

Ronald G. Roberson, Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1999View the Source

3. Ukrainian Archbishop Says Same-Sex Blessings Document Doesn't Apply to Eastern Churches (Catholic World Report)

Catholic World Report, 2023the stated positions on sexuality and marriage and their detailsView the Source

4. Top Ukraine Prelate Says Vatican Document on Same-Sex Blessings Applies Only to Latin Church (Crux)

Crux, 2023the stated positions on sexuality and marriage and their details, corroborating Catholic World ReportView the Source

5. Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (Wikipedia)

Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia, 2026View the Source

Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumes

Norman P. Tanner (ed.), Sheed and Ward / Georgetown University Press, 1990View the Source

The Orthodox Church

Timothy Ware (Kallistos Ware), Penguin Books, 1993the Union of Brest, the Eastern Catholic churches and the Orthodox responseView the Source

Encyclopedia of Religion

Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005entry on Uniate and Eastern Catholic churchesView the Source

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Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

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Holds Element

Held Differently

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Uses Liturgical Language

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