70th anniversary of the “Pseudo-Synod of Lviv” and the violent suppression of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

On March 10, 1946, a so-called Synod in Lviv, under pressure from the Soviet government, declared the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church part of the Russian Orthodox Church and under its jurisdiction. No Ukrainian Catholic Bishops were present, since they had already been arrested and were in prison. The Synod was followed by the forced deportation of more than a million Ukrainian Catholic faithful, and death for those who refused to disavow the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church which had been forced to go underground.

Following the February 12 meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, and the Pope’s March 5 audience with the Permanent Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a number of well-known Orthodox clergy and leading lay scholars from the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church have issued an appeal that the 1946 “Pseudo- Synod” be recognized as “a sham”.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Canada includes five Eparchies across the country with 130,000 faithful. The Most Reverend Lawrence Huculak, O.S.B.M., Eparchial Archbishop of Winnipeg, is their Metropolitan.

Link to the text of the appeal on the website of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship