Head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church Cardinal Lubomyr Guzar has said that accusations from representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church of oppression of Orthodox believers in western Ukraine by the Greek-Catholic Church are groundless.
“These claims [of oppression by the Greek-Catholic Church] are made
regularly, but I haven’t heard of anyone proving this,” the Head of
Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church said in an interview with the Ukrainian
BBC service, commenting on accusations by the head of the Moscow
Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archbishop
Hilarion of Volokolamsk in his talk with Pope Benedict XVI, the
department of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church reported.
Cardinal Guzar noted that during meetings with representatives of
the Vatican the members of the Greek-Catholic Church are often accused
of “destroying three orthodox eparches” (the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and
Ternopil eparchies of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow
Patriarchate)).”
“I don’t know of any case in which we took away any orthodox church built by believers of the Russian Orthodox Church,” he said.
“I’m still waiting for objective evidence that representatives of
the Greek-Catholic Church violently seized these churches or prevented
the construction of new churches,” Cardinal Guzar said.
