UNDERSTANDING THE UNIAT CHURCH
(a short approach)

In the late 1500’s CE, Poland conquered the Western Section of the Ukraine. The Poles, as loyal Roman Catholics wanted the “heretical” Orthodox believers to renounce their errant Faith and embrace the Church of Rome.

The Ukraine was the seat of Slavic Orthodoxy for over 500 years. It was Vladimir of Kiev who baptized the Kievian-Rus in the Faith of the Byzantine Empire and a majority of the worshippers in the Ukraine and Russia followed the Orthodox Faith. The people were in a state of shock at the requirement that they worship in a Latin manner, because the Church of Rome was seen as the enemy. Among many alien ideas were that they worshipped in Latin, used stiff Roman liturgics, had a different calendar, and required celibacy of their clergy. The whole Roman way of thinking and doing things was strange and quite unacceptable to the Orthodox Ukrainians.

A Number of Ukrainian Bishops approached the Roman Hierarchy with an idea. They would submit to the control of Roman Hierarchy, accept all Roman Doctrine and Dogma, if they could maintain their Byzantine Rituals and liturgical formulas. The Polish Jesuits saw this as the perfect opportunity to infiltrate their ancient enemy… Orthodox Christianity. This was agreed to, and the Union of Brest was formulated, and the Uniat Churches were born. Uniat is a misnomer, because it makes it look as though Orthodox Clergy and Laity were a part of the Roman Church. There was no re-union at Brest, but the creation of a heretical hybrid organization. Outwardly the Church appears no different from its Orthodox counterpart. The Clergy were the same garb, monks look like Orthodox Monks, the Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom, Basil and Gregory are all used. The language of the Liturgy is the same as in its Orthodox counterpart, everything seems the same. However, in the various litanies, various prayer for the Pope/Bishop of Rome are included. Brest created an organization that allowed for variance in worship but in full agreement with the heretical Doctrine and dogma of the Church of Rome.

This played out in some very strange ways. The agreements on paper that favoured the Ukrainians were simply not held sacred. Clerical celibacy became an issue with Polish Priests… how could these married priests be “Catholic” when we, Polish clergy are required to be celibate?

Slowly Romanisms began to creep into Byzantine worship. Such items as the Roman Rosary became normative, as did Icons with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Icons of the “Stations of the Cross” began to appear and other such “irregularities” became the norm.

The Jesuits had a plan… why not create these “Greek-Catholic Churches in places where the majority of people were Orthodox but had to travel long distances to go to worship. This was the formula in Bylorussia and places in Eastern Poland. Churches were built, Byzantine Divine Liturgies were chanted and so the peasants brought their children to be baptized, never knowing that they were baptizing them as Roman Catholics.

The Jesuits carried this plan much further. For every group under the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow, Greek_Catholic counterparts were established; if not in their native land, then in an organization called the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Churches. Rome didn’t stop here. It created parallel churches to those who had separated earlier… the Monophysite Churches of the Armenians, Egyptian/Ethiopian Copts, all of the Jacobite churches, and even the Nestorian Churches in Mesopotamia. There was one exception. There was a small Syriac Church which had never formally separated from the west. That was the Maronite Church in the mountains of Lebanon, and since the crusades, they had submitted to Rome. In actuality, they submitted to whomever was the ruler at the time.

In this country the Greek-Catholics suffered greatly and the OCA has its roots in a group of Uniat Catholics tired of being treated shabbily by an ignorant Roman Hierarchy, left Rome and join the Orthodox Church en masse. The came under the hierarchy of Russian Orthodox Church. They eventually became the OCA. The Uniat Churches were misunderstood by the Latin Bishops in this country. They are still second class citizens in the RCC.

The reality of all this is that the Greek-Catholic Church is a fraud. It is the ultimate “wolf in sheep’s clothing”. It is a lie in its basest form.

They pretend to be Orthodox union with Rome, yet they are bound to observe Roman Catholic Doctrines like the Immaculate Conception, Purgatory, Limbo, Augustinian Original Sin, the Roman Pascalion, the “ego te absolvo” of the confessional along with many other small issues.

Rome continues to lie about who we are and who they are. They committed terrible crimes against us. They raped us, robbed us and now they want us to be a part of them. How stupid do they think we are?