After the disintegration of Austria-Hungary and joining the Polish
state, Lviv lost its status as the capital of a large province and began to
play the role of just one of the peripheral centers in Polish socio-political
life, much inferior to Warsaw and a number of other cities. For the Ukrainian
population of Galicia, the city remained both a symbolic and organizational
center, where the headquarters of political parties, scientific, cultural and
economic institutions and the editorial boards of most periodicals were
concentrated. Most importantly, Lviv continued to be the core of the Galician
metropolitanate of the Greek Catholic Church, which was a most important
component of Ukrainian identity in the region, whose fate was considered not
only a purely ecclesiastical but also a national matter.
The rally ("viche") against the introduction of compulsory celibacy for the Greek
Catholic clergy became a good illustration of the city's importance for
Ukrainian political and ecclesiastical life. It was triggered by the decision
of Yosafat Kotsylovskyi, the Bishop of Przemyśl, to ordain to the priesthood
only those graduates of the Theological Seminary in Przemyśl who agreed to
become celibates. Earlier, in 1920, a similar step was taken by the greatest
enthusiast for the introduction of celibacy for the Greek Catholic clergy,
Bishop Hryhoriy Khomyshyn of Stanisławów. The position of Metropolitan Andrey
Sheptytsky remained unclear, although most clergy and secular figures suspected
him of similar intentions.
Although the idea of celibacy had some rational basis: the difficulty
for priests to keep their families in the economic crisis, celibates' being
less dependent on secular power, strengthening discipline, focusing on
spiritual rather than political matters, etc., the vast majority of Galician
Ukrainians, both laypersons and clerics, perceived it very negatively. This
position is best explained by the course and resolutions of the rally held on
February 8, 1925.
To prepare it, a "Committee for the Defense of Church and People's
Affairs" was established in Lviv, headed by 83-year-old Yulian Romanchuk,
a former member of the Galician Sejm and Austrian parliament (where he was vice
president of the House of Deputies for some time) and a leading populist
movement figure from the 1870s. Oleksandr Barvinskyi and representatives of
the clergy, Oleksandr Stefanovych and Havryil Kostelnyk, also played an
important role in the committee. The preparation of the rally became a task for
the Ukrainian National Labour Party (UNTP) milieu, as the committee members decided not to
involve radicals, socialists, and Russophiles, the latter because of
their pro-government policies. The degree of dissatisfaction with the
episcopate's actions is evidenced by the fact that at a meeting of the
committee Havryil Kostelnyk called them an "anarchic arbitrariness."
Initially, it was planned that Fr. Yaroslav Levytskyi would deliver the keynote
speech, but the draft he proposed seemed too radical for the most committee
members. Therefore, the mission was entrusted to Bohdan Barvinskyi, considered
to be more moderate. After completing the preparations, the committee sent a
request to the Lviv Police Directorate to hold a meeting in the large hall of
the Mykola Lysenko Music Society on Szaszkiewicza 5 str. (now Shashkevycha square).
The police response was positive.
The chosen location for the rally draws attention to several important
aspects. The fact that it took place indoors was traditional for the political
life of that time, though, considering the number of participants (about two
thousand people, according to the newspaper "Dilo"), there may have been need for
some open space too. However, the traditional space for Ukrainian
demonstrations — the square in front of St. George's Cathedral — was not
suitable this time. The rally was being prepared as a public protest against
the actions of Greek Catholic hierarchs, including Metropolitan Sheptytsky.
Even the meetings of the preparatory committee showed that its tone would be
too sharp to sound directly in the heart of the Galician metropolitanate.
Another fact is that Szaszkiewicza str. was at that time one of just a few
streets in Lviv named after a Ukrainian figure.
On Sunday, February 8, 1925, at 12:15, the rally was inaugurated by
Yulian Romanchuk. The event was based on a speech by Bohdan Barvinskyi, who,
according to a journalist of the "Dilo", "briefly and nuclearly"
described the history of the Brest Union and the future of relations between
Rome and the Greek Catholic Church. The speaker's main thesis was the
impossibility of introducing celibacy, because it was contrary to the
historical tradition of the church and violated the rights guaranteed to it by
Rome. Criticizing the metropolitan and the bishops, Barvinskyi blamed an
"invisible hand" for trying to "Latinize" the Greek
Catholic Church, meaning Poles and those circles in Rome who wanted to unify
the Greek Catholic rite with the Roman Catholic one. Those present greeted the
speech with applause.
Bohdan Barvinsky's speech electrified the already categorical audience,
this being reflected in the resolutions of the rally. The intention to
introduce celibacy was proclaimed as leading to the destruction of the union,
the Greek Catholic Church, and the entire Ukrainian people, while the hierarchs' actions were declared arbitrary and unlawful. The historical merits of the
married (white) clergy for the Ukrainian society were specially emphasized,
particularly in the creation and education of the secular intelligentsia. It
was decided to establish eparchial church-and-people's committees (in Przemyśl,
Stanisławów and the Central Committee in Lviv) and to prepare an appeal to Pope
Pius XI to protest against celibacy.
The one-sidedness, rigidity and pathos of the rally clearly demonstrate
a number of important things. The tone of the event reflected the general mood
of Ukrainian society in a situation when students of Theological Seminaries in
Przemyśl and Stanisławów went on strike against celibacy (and encouraged their
Lviv colleagues to join them), the Ukrainian press often using blatant curses
at bishops. This shows that St. George's Hill in Lviv not only ceased to be in
the lead of Galician Ukrainian policies, as it was during the second half of
the 19th century, but in fact became, like the whole Church, a political
instrument in secular hands. Even purely ecclesiastical affairs were now
evaluated primarily in terms of "national interests." At the same
time, the rally's resistance to the idea of celibacy was often based on
irrelevant ideas and testified to the reluctance of Galician Ukrainians,
including Lviv residents, to recognize the post-war status quo. First of all,
in the new conditions the role of married clergy had significantly decreased
compared to the Habsburg era for a number of reasons: the wartime hardships,
the growth of secular intelligentsia, the spread of new, often anti-church
ideas, the unfavourable (unlike the Habsburg times) attitude of the government.
The event's radical disposition influenced Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky's
decision not to imitate the actions of other bishops. However, despite the
painstaking preparation and a significant number of participants, the Lviv
anti-celibacy rally did not cause a significant resonance. With the exception
of the "Dilo" and some other UNTP-related periodicals, the Lviv Ukrainian and
Polish press ignored it. What is important is the "silence" of the
Russophiles, who were also extremely hostile to the idea of celibacy.
Nevertheless, political differences caused them to cover only their own
anti-celibacy events. Anyway, the biggest obstacle to the resonance of the
rally distracting the public from the celibacy issue was the signing of the
Concordat between Rome and Poland, which took place a few days later. After
all, this document did not satisfy the interests of the Greek Catholic Church,
limiting its territorial jurisdiction and making it significantly dependent on
the Polish state. So the Ukrainian society had a new, more relevant reason for
protests.
