%O Thesis digitised by British Library EThOS. Third party copyright material has been removed.
%D 1991
%X Between 1900 and 1939 the Greek-Catholic parish clergy in
Galicia underwent a transformation of its social, national, political
and cultural consciousness. In part this was the result of the
political changes taking place in the province, as its Ruthenian
population developed a Ukrainian national consciousness expressed
during the interregnum between Austrian and Polish rule by the
creation of the Western Ukrainian Popular Republic, and later, in the
increasingly restrictive atmosphere of inter-war Poland, by the
activity of both moderate and radical nationalist groups. In part this
transformation was conditioned by the decline of the priestly caste
and the rise of a new type of priest, usually a celibate of village origin.
The transformation was also the result of a conscious programme
initiated by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts'kyi to raise the moral and
educational level of the clergy. To this end he reformed the L'viv
seminary, established a theological academy, and organised full
seminaries in Stanyslaviv and Peremyshl'. This prepared the parish
priest to deal with a growingly nationalistic and often anti-clerical
intelligentsia, and a village coming increasingly under its influence.
At the same time, the parish clergy evolved a new sense of its
identity, gradually abandoning the Russophile orientation of the Old
Ruthenians and adopting first Ruthenian populism, then Ukrainian
nationalism. Thus they found common cause with the secular
intelligentsia. However, the Ukrainian orientation forced them to
redefine the Eastern Ukrainian tradition in a manner compatible
with Catholicism, and to formulate their stance towards Orthodoxy
and the Kievan Byzantine tradition. Though split between
Byzantinists and Westernisers, the clergy developed a strong sense of
their place as leaders of Galician Ukrainian society, albeit in
occasional competition with the nationalist intelligentsia, and of
their mission as bearers of Catholicism in the East.
%L discovery1318022
%I University of London
%A A.D. Sorokowski
%T The Greek-Catholic parish clergy in Galicia, 1900-1939