Word: ukrainians
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...possible papal visit to the Soviet Union sometime in the future. John Paul hedged on that, making his acceptance conditional upon some evidence of real improvement in the situation of Soviet Catholics. But the Pope did offer his endorsement of perestroika, all the while pressing home his "expectation" that Ukrainian Catholics would be allowed to exercise their faith fully and openly. The Ukrainian Church, which follows the Eastern liturgy but claims the Pope as its spiritual leader, was banned and driven underground by Stalin...
...Catholics in the western Ukraine, whose plight is a key agenda item in this week's talks between Gorbachev and the Pope. Friendlier contacts, and a papal visit to the U.S.S.R., cannot occur unless this, the world's largest underground religious community, is restored. Under Stalin, all Ukrainian Catholic bishops were imprisoned and a fraudulent 1946 synod dissolved their jurisdictions, handing over 4,100 churches to Russian Orthodoxy. The majority of the Catholic priests rejected the takeover and either were arrested or went into hiding...
Rebirth of the Ukrainian churches may stir the sort of nationalist fervor that is inextricably linked with religion. Along with economic failure, this unrest poses the gravest of threats to Gorbachev's regime. Yet Gorbachev apparently calculates that the movement will be safer aboveground and in contact with a Pope who preaches against political violence. The major reason that Gorbachev has not done more for the Ukrainian Catholics has been pressure from the Russian Orthodoxy, which stands to lose half its flock in some regions...
...Once the Ukrainian problem is resolved, assuming the Gorbachev-inspired liberalization continues, the Roman Pontiff can pursue his overarching vision of reunion with the whole of Eastern Orthodoxy. The churches of the East and West are like "two lungs of a single body," John Paul is fond of saying. Religious negotiations have made surprisingly brisk progress on the ecclesiastical and theological bases for union...
...From railways to power lines, the Soviet Union's infrastructure is crumbling because of lack of maintenance. In the Ukrainian city of Lvov (pop. 830,000), citizens get running water only twice a day, for a total of six hours...