THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN VOLYNIA DURING THE INTER-WAR YEARS: BETWEEN THE UKRAINIAN AND POLISH NATIONALISMS
Keywords:
Poland, Volynia, Orthodox Church, nationalism, interwar periodAbstract
The article reveals the evolution of Poland’s policy towards the Orthodox Church in the 1920s and 1930s on the example of Orthodoxy in Volynia. This region of Poland had the largest number of Orthodox Christians, and Ukrainians prevailed among them. The Ukrainian national movement that was growing during those years stood for Ukrainization of the Orthodox Church in Volynia. The advocates of Ukrainization put pressure on the religion leadership and declared the need for “derussification” of the church life. They also proclaimed Russian priests as a threat not only to Ukrainians, but also to the Polish state, and called them supporters of the restoration of “one and undivided Russia”. In the early 1920s, the Polish authorities were afraid of the Ukrainian national movement and put up with the continuing influence of the ethnic Russian priests in the Orthodox Church. Polish officials did not want to allow the church to become an additional resource for the political influence of Ukrainian nationalists. After the coup of May 1926, when the supporters of Marshal J. Pilsudski came to power in Poland, state policy began to change in favor of the Ukrainization of the Orthodox Church in Volynia. The Volyn governor Henryk Józewski made an important contribution to the approval of this policy. However, later, under the influence of the international political situation in Europe during the 1930s, the approach of the Polish authorities towards the Orthodox Church in Volynia changed again. The authorities set a course towards the Polonization of the Ukrainians in Volynia together with the strengthening of the position of the Roman Catholic Church in the region. All this led to an increase of inter-ethnic tensions and anti-Polish sentiments there.References
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