UKRAINIAN GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY: THE ANALYSIS OF MODERN HISTORIOGRAPHY

Ukrainian Church History is a great field for scientific research. The 20th century was a kind of test for the survival and self-determination of Ukrainian churches. Through the spread of general pressure on the Ukrainian national movement, a repression mechanism was introduced against the Institute of the Church as an integral part of the social life of Ukrainian people in the Soviet Union. A characteristic feature of the anti-church campaign in the Ukrainian SSR was the introduction of a “new” model of social relations, built on the principles of atheism and godlessness. The only legal national church until March 1946, which opposed this path, was the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. In the second half of the 20th century its clergy, while in an unlawful position in the USSR, remained in the center of the Ukrainian resistance movement against the Soviet system.The article presents the modern view of domestic and foreign scholars on the history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the second half of the 20th century. On the basis of a broad historiographic base, an attempt was made to show the place of the UGCC in the Ukrainian national movement, its influence on the democratization of social processes in the second half of the 1980s, and others. Thanks to the works of foreign historians, the relevance of church issues in the study of socio-political processes in the USSR is shown. According to some scholars, ignoring this it is impossible to understand the phenomenon of the national movement itself, including in the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR.