The Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes “Territory of Terror” in Lviv is hosting an exhibition about the fate of clergy and their families who remained loyal to the UGCC after the Lviv pseudo-council.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the notorious event that entered history as the Lviv Pseudo-Council and left its mark on the lives of thousands of faithful and hundreds of clergy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. On March 8–10, 1946, Soviet authorities convened the so-called Lviv Church Council at St. George's Cathedral to declare the dissolution of the Union of Brest of 1596 and, having liquidated the UGCC, to "unite" it with the Russian Orthodox Church.
By that time, all UGCC bishops — except those who were outside the USSR — had already been arrested. Not a single hierarch participated in this "council," so its decisions had no canonical force. Yet the Soviet state, in which the Church was legally placed outside it, mobilized all its coercive and propaganda mechanisms to implement those decisions. The clergy was faced with a merciless choice: sign the transition to Orthodoxy or face repression. Some priests agreed — often under pressure, out of fear for their families or parishioners. Others refused.
Refusal meant arrests, interrogations, convictions for "anti-Soviet activity," and years-long exile to remote regions of the Soviet Union — to special settlements or camps. Hundreds of priests from Galician villages, towns, and cities, after a long and grueling journey into exile, became "special settlers" — stripped of civic rights, freedom of movement, and the ability to practice their ministry openly. Moreover, the authorities punished not only the priest himself for his loyalty, but also often the entire family: the priest's wife and children were likewise deemed unreliable.
It is precisely the fates of these priests that the exhibition "This Loyalty Cost Them Dearly" is devoted to, which opened on March 13 at the Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes, "Territory of Terror". Materials for the exhibition were gathered from the collections of the Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes "Territory of Terror" and the Archive of the Institute of Church History of the Ukrainian Catholic University.
RISU had the opportunity to visit the exhibition and to speak with one of its curators, historian and senior research fellow at the Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes "Territory of Terror", Yuriy Kodenko.
He told us, among other things, that today their museum focuses not on heroes of the liberation struggle or prominent figures — as stipulated by the original concept — but on ordinary people who lived under totalitarian regimes, both Nazi and Communist, who are now at the center of their attention.
— We are interested in the fates of ordinary people, and we show how these totalitarian regimes affected their lives. When we were reviewing our collections, we discovered photographs of Greek Catholic priests who were punished for their loyalty, for refusing to accept the decisions of the pseudo-council and convert to Orthodoxy. Such priests began to face persecution and repression: they were arrested, convicted, sent to special settlements, and sometimes deported together with their families. These were, for the most part, ordinary parish priests.
— We liked the idea of showing the fates of ordinary priests specifically. Much has been written about prominent UGCC figures — bishops and other church leaders. Ordinary parish priests, however, who remained faithful to the Church and their calling, are almost unknown to anyone, even though their fates were no less difficult. We therefore focused on lesser-known and unknown figures. Sometimes the captions beneath the photographs give only a first name or surname, and on some it simply says "unknown priest." We decided to tell their stories.
The core of the exhibition consists of 28 photographs supplemented by short texts and video fragments of memoirs from the repressed themselves or their relatives. From the prepared biographical materials, one can learn more about the fates of specific individuals and compare photographs taken before and during exile.
The exhibition is divided into two sections. The first section tells of labor and everyday life in the special settlement.
— Life in exile was very hard. Priests were the same deported people as everyone else. Survival came first, as they found themselves in extremely harsh climatic, natural, and economic conditions.
In the photographs, they appear in ordinary work clothes, holding work tools, performing the same labor as everyone else. With their own hands, they built the barracks where several families would live together. There is also a very striking photograph of a priest in work clothes — a padded jacket and an earflap hat. He looks nothing like a priest.
All deportees were assigned to various large enterprises. Depending on the region they ended up in, the main work was logging. Deportees there felled trees, trimmed branches, worked on skidding, and log-floating. It was very grueling labor. Some worked in mines — where conditions were even worse — and those who were luckier ended up in agriculture. The long, hard hours of work damaged people's health, all the more so in difficult climatic conditions. Workers' safety was frequently disregarded, and priests — like everyone else — often sustained injuries or became disabled. Many returned from exile with their health ruined.
Yet despite the prohibitions, many priests continued to exercise their ministry — for they remained shepherds and sought to serve God and the people who came to them in need or asked for spiritual support. The second section is therefore dedicated to the pastoral activity they carried out in secret, even knowing it could have grave consequences for themselves and their families.
— Of course, conditions were very restricted: many priests lacked the necessary objects to celebrate the Liturgy — an antimension, a chalice, a Gospel book. Many also had no liturgical vestments. But they could pray together with people, perform baptisms, and read prayers for the deceased.
Above all, despite the prohibitions, they tried to support people spiritually. There is much testimony in deportees' memoirs that the very presence of their own priest among them was a great source of support. When no priest was nearby, Ukrainians were sometimes compelled to attend the Russian Orthodox Church to have some form of spiritual care. But many recalled feeling out of place there, because it was entirely different from the Greek Catholic tradition. Services sometimes took place in barracks, one of which could be temporarily designated for prayer.
Yet the exhibition includes even a few photographs showing priests in liturgical vestments.
— In remote special settlements, the further from civilization, the lower the risk. Sometimes there were no commandants or other representatives of the authorities. Then there was less need to hide. Even so, sentries were posted — often children of priests or other special settlers — who kept watch to ensure no outsider approached and informed on them.
There are also photographs recording Easter celebrations, quite crowded ones. One can only imagine what it meant in those days to have the chance to celebrate this feast of liberation and hope.
— There was always danger, but in those conditions, people had a great need to celebrate Easter. A narrow passage was made through which the priest walked, sprinkling holy water on what people had brought in their baskets or bags. Bags, incidentally, were often used precisely because they could be quickly closed if danger arose, and everyone could scatter in an instant so as not to endanger either the priest or the people.
In children's memoirs, it is recalled how they helped their priest-fathers — keeping watch around the perimeter, for instance, to ensure no outsider came near. If a threat appeared, they gave the signal to stop the gathering.
There are also photographs showing a priest at work with his children. From the photograph itself, one cannot tell he is a priest, since his clothing is ordinary — we learn this from the caption. Nor do we know which books they are bent over. But this prompts the question to Mr. Yuriy about catechesis and the transmission of faith in exile.
— As for teaching children, priests, where possible, worked with them even without textbooks — passing on knowledge from memory. In memoirs by survivors of deportation, it is frequently noted that it was precisely thanks to priests that they were able to preserve their faith and national identity. Even if these were small groups — three, five, or ten children — they received knowledge and spiritual support.
The very title of the exhibition — "This Loyalty Cost Them Dearly" — is itself meaningful. It prompts reflection on the fates of those who bore witness to that loyalty through their choices, as well as on the fates of their families. For even after returning from exile, a difficult life awaited them, as they were branded "unreliable." The price of loyalty has always been high. It is therefore important that, with the passage of time, we do not forget those who remained faithful to the end — that we are able, at least occasionally, at least on certain occasions, such as the anniversary of the Lviv pseudo-council, to remind our children of this, for example, at an exhibition like this one.
— We made this exhibition for a broad general audience — we did not define a specific target group. We invite everyone interested; we will be glad to welcome representatives of the Church as well. But above all, perhaps, we would like to see young people — schoolchildren and students — for whom it is important today, amid the climate of propaganda, to be shown that the Greek Catholic Church suffered persecution. We wanted to show that in those times it was no simple matter to remain faithful to one's Church. One could suffer for it, receive a harsh sentence, and end up in very harsh places of exile.
At the same time, the exhibition moves beyond a purely historical narrative and compels reflection on its relevance to the present.
— Today, many people are under the influence of propaganda emanating from the Russian Orthodox Church, which tries to present itself as a victim. We want to show that the Greek Catholic Church was a national church, and it was precisely for this reason that it was persecuted. Priests suffered because they helped preserve Ukrainian national identity. One could say that this exhibition is also part of counter-propaganda. Many people are already beginning to forget how the Russian Orthodox Church operated on the territory of Ukraine, including in western Ukraine.
In addition to photographs, the exhibition includes short videos — memoirs of relatives, including children of priests who were repressed. I think young people will find it interesting to hear about the conditions they found themselves in and the hardships they endured. This is a fragment of our history that is beginning to be forgotten, and we want to bring it back to mind. We want contemporaries to remember what priests and their families endured, and that being Ukrainian often came at a very high price.
The history revealed by this exhibition is also a reminder of what may threaten us today and in the future, and it compels us to ask whether a similar scenario is possible under the conditions of the current war.
— Russia operates according to the same templates, using the same methods as the Soviet empire. We see this in eastern Ukraine on the occupied territories, where assimilation is taking place, and the practices of deportation are once again being employed to facilitate the assimilation of Ukrainians. We also see aggressive actions against the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the occupied territories. There, the number one enemy is precisely those churches that preserve Ukrainian identity. Even in territories where the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate dominates — which is in effect an ideological ally of the Russian Orthodox Church — Ukrainian churches, the OCU or the UGCC, come under pressure.
And so immense gratitude is due to all who, at the cost of their lives and health, hold back the onslaught and protect us. Yet, for all the weight of historical facts and parallels with the present, the exhibition speaks to the viewer not only in the language of facts or warnings. For all of this can also be read in a book, an exhibition, however, offers a personal encounter in a particular space, where one can see moments of life in exile as they were captured, hear the voices of those who lived through it, and learn a little more about the lives of those pictured.
— Working on the exhibition, I — as a historian — will be honest: I did not discover anything fundamentally new for myself, as these events are well known to me. But I was deeply struck by the priests' faces in these photographs. I would like people to come and simply look them in the eyes, notes one of the exhibition's co-authors, Yuriy Kodenko.
— I was once struck by a photo exhibition about the current war, which showed ordinary people in difficult circumstances — with bags, frightened, bewildered. In such photographs, the faces and eyes are very eloquent. In the same way, the priests in these photographs look very striking. I would like visitors to the exhibition to look at them in just that way — eye to eye.
The exhibition can be visited in Lviv at 45H Vyacheslav Chornovil Avenue, Wednesday through Friday from 9:00 to 18:00, and on Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 19:00. Monday and Tuesday are days off. One can also view not only this exhibition but also the museum's permanent collection.