Bishops on Red Square in Moscow demand the legalization of the UGCC.
“We demand the legalization of the Ukrainian Catholic Church!”
Faithful of the UGCC during a hunger strike in Moscow on the Arbat, June 1989.
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From the second half of 1950s, the faithful and priests repeatedly demanded the official registration of the Greek-Catholic communities as one of the grounds for recognition of UGCC by state power. Especially many petitions were submitted at late 1970s and early 1980s. In the years 1987_1989 the demand ``legalization of UGCC'' was one of the main appeals in the period of ``perestroika'', the motion for the democratization of the society. To this goal promoted the activity of the Initiative group for defense of the rights of believed and the Church (1982_1984) and its successor, the Committee for defense of the UGCC (1987_1989). An open letter about the exit from underground, written at the beginning of August, 1987, by a small group of Greek-Catholic clergy, monastics, and laity under the leadership of Bishop Pawlo Wasylyk, marking the Millennium of Christianity in Ukraine, journeys of bishops to Moscow and numerous meetings, the hunger-strike on Rabat, undisguised liturgies at the court of the church of the Barefooted Carmelite Monastery, the two crowded marches to the church of St. George in Aviv, passing to the UGCC of the parish priest of the church of Transfiguration together with its faithful, and obtaining the right of registration of greek-catholics as religious community (20.11.1989) _ all this led to the exit from the underground and the start of a new period in the life of the Church. It is the period of renewal and development of the structure and administration, organizing of the church life under the condition of revival Ukrainian State. |
