WOMEN’S MONASTIC COMMUNITIES OF THE GREEK-CATHOLIC CHURCH IN UKRAINIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT IN HALYCHYN IN THE 1940-s ‒ 1950-s.
Journal Title: Науковий і культурно-просвітній краєзнавчий часопис Галичина - Year 2017, Vol 29, Issue
Abstract
The article deals with the analysis of the participation of women’s monastic communities (Greek Catholic Church) in the Ukrainian national movement of Galicia in the 1940-s ‒ 1950-s. It was found that the struggle of the Soviet repressive-punitive system with the Ukrainian liberation movement was closely linked to the elimination of the GCC and its constituents institutions that was a hindrance for the Sovietization of the region, and became part of the resistance movement. In modern historical science, Ivan Bilas, Victor Voynalovych, Vasyl Illnytsky, Bogdan Zraiko and some others have published separate issues on collaboration of the GCC with the Ukrainian National Liberation Movement. However, there is no separate study devoted to women’s monastic communities of the GCC in the Ukrainian national movement of Galicia in the 1940s ‒ 1950s. The aim of the article was to reveal the significance of the female monastic “branch” of the GCC in the Ukrainian national movement of Galicia in the 1940s ‒ 1950s, in particular to find out the attitude of the representatives of monasticism to the Ukrainian nationalist underground, to analyze the mechanism of colaboration as well as the consequences for the nuns for helping Ukrainian insurgents – persecutions from the Soviet authorities. During 1944 – 1950, nine women’s monastic communities of the GCC ceased their activities in conditions of severe repressions of the party-totalitarian regime against the Greek Catholics, the nuns were expelled from the monasteries, deprived of their means of residence, subjected to interrogation and imprisonment. In the concentration camps of Siberia and Central Asia, after the official prohibition of the GCC in 1946, 26 sisters of the Orden of St. Basil the Great, 30 nuns of the Congregation of Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate, eight nuns of the Studitus Statute, nine sisters of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Joseph and four nuns of the Congregation of the Sisters of Blessed Family were sent as prisoners. The nuns of the GCC have traditionally been accused of “communicating with the underground of the OUN and the bandits’ UIA groups”. At the time of Metropolitan A. Sheptytsky, the Church publicly proclaimed its non-interference in the political process, but it was a national Church expressing the liberation aspirations of the Ukrainian people. Therefore, during the wartime Greek-Catholic clergy effectively helped the underground structures associated with the activities of the OUN and the UIA. The monasteries provided medical and material assistance to the wounded UIA fighters, and the pastoral service for believers in UIA chaplain priests performed at the place of combat operations of the UIA units. It is clear that the nuns did not directly engage in armed struggle, but did not stand aside the tragedy of the Ukrainian people during the Second World War, fulfilling their Christian duty ‒ to help people in need, which became the reason for their imprisonment. In the article, on the examples of trials over the sisters Yosifa Olena Witer, Monika Polyanska, Vasyliya Berezyuk, Dariya Svirska, Stephaniya Mlynska, Miriam Voloshyna etc., the accusations that the Soviet authorities accused the nuns of were shown. The GCC’s nuns were persecuted for supporting the Ukrainian national movement not only from the side of Soviet power. It is known that hostile to Greek Catholic nuns, under the influence of pro-communist atheistic propaganda, were also representatives of the Polish Committee for National Liberation. Far from politics, Greco-Catholic nuns Elena Login, Evdokia Shurma became innocent victims of the Polish nationalist forces, who saw the West Ukrainian lands of the former Second Polish Republic as an integral part of the Polish state restored after the liberation of Central and Eastern Europe from the fascist occupation. On the basis of archival materials it was established that women’s Greek Catholic monasteries were not directly engaged in the activities of the Ukrainian nationalist underground, but they provided assistance to people in need: the hungry, the sick, the persecuted, etc. For the support of the Ukrainian national movement, the nuns with together the priests and bishops of the GCC, were imprisoned and exiled by the Stalinist regime.
Authors and Affiliations
Olha MASLIJ
Keywords
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