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The Liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church in Communist Czechoslovakia, 1948–50

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2021

JAROSLAV CORANIČ
JAROSLAV CORANIČ*
Affiliation:
Department of Historical Studies, Faculty of Greek Catholic Theology, Prešov University in Prešov, Biskupa Gojdiča 2, 080 01 Prešov, Slovakia; e-mail: jaroslav.coranic@unipo.sk
*
E-mail: jaroslav.coranic@unipo.sk
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Abstract

This article examines the liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia following the Communist takeover in February 1948. The Greek Catholic Church was to be separated from the mother Catholic Church and incorporated into the Orthodox Church. The process culminated at the irregular Sobor (synod) of Prešov held on 28 April 1950. The synod was orchestrated and headed by the ruling Communist party, which enforced its conclusions. Greek Catholics were either outlawed or compelled to become Orthodox, although their situation slightly brightened during the Prague Spring of 1968 when their Church became legal again.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 590 - 610
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2021

AGAP = Archív gréckokatolíckeho arcibiskupstva v Prešove (Archive of the Greek Catholic Archeparchy, Prešov); KNV = Krajský národný výbor (Regional National Committee); KSČ = Komunistická strana Československa (Communist party of Czechoslovakia); KSS = Komunistická strana Slovenska (Communist party of Slovakia); KV KSS = Krajský výbor Komunistickej strany Slovenska (KSS Regional Committee, Prešov); NF = Národný front (National Front); OUN = Organizácia ukrajinských nacionalistov (Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists); SNA = Slovenský národný archív (Slovak National Archive, Bratislava); SNB = Sbor národní bezpečnosti; StB/ŠtB = Státní/Štátna bezpečnosť (State Security); SÚA, AÚV KSČ = Státní ústřední archiv, Archiv Ústředního výboru KSČ, Praha (State Central Archive, Archive of the Central Committee of the Communist party, Prague); SlÚC = Slovenský štátny úrad pre veci cirkevné (Slovak State Office for Religious Affairs); SÚC = Státní úřad pro věci cirkevní (State Office for Religious Affairs); TNP = Tábory nútených prác (Forced Labour Camps); ÚAV NF = Ústredný akčný výbor Národného frontu (Central Action Committee of the National Front); UNRP = Ukrajinská národná rada Prjaševčiny (Ukrainian National Assembly of Prjaševčina); ÚV KSČ = Ústredný výbor Komunistickej strany Československa (Central Committee of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia); ÚV KSS = Ústredný výbor Komunistickej strany Slovenska (Central Committee of the Communist party of Slovakia); ZNB = Zbor národnej bezpečnosti (National Security Corps)

The Greek Catholic Church, sometimes incorrectly referred to as the Uniate Church, is an Eastern Christian Church in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The Greek Catholic Church has preserved its rich Eastern theological and liturgical tradition and Byzantine ceremonies, but its ties with Rome are very strong and the Church is in full communion with the Apostolic See.

The Greek Catholic Church in the kingdom of Hungary dates to the 1646 Union of Uzhhorod. In 1818 a new eparchy of the Church was established in Prešov,Footnote 1 formed from what is now Eastern Slovakia. This region was at the heart of the Greek Catholic Church after the establishment of an independent Czechoslovakia after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, with smaller numbers of Greek Catholics elsewhere in the new state. Eastern Orthodoxy, by contrast, was marginalised in the kingdom of Hungary and began to revive in Slovakia only after 1918.

Census returns show that throughout the period 1821–1950, the number of Greek Catholics in Slovakia remained remarkably constant, ranging from 180,000 to 240,000. Orthodox numbers were negligible (fewer than 1,000) until 1918, but by 1950 had risen to nearly 8,000 in Slovakia and to over 50,000 in the Czech lands. This was the background to the crisis faced by the Greek Catholic Church in 1948–50.

In 2020 the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia commemorated the seventieth anniversary of its forcible liquidation by the Communist regime. This had culminated at the so-called Sobor (synod) of Prešov held on 28 April 1950. The whole process, however, had begun much sooner. It can be argued that it had started even before the end of the Second World War as a reaction to a new political situation that arose from the postwar redistribution of political power in Central and Eastern Europe.

The end of the war saw the Communist Soviet Union pushing its borders eastwards and creating its European empire. It had turned Central Europe into its own sphere of influence. The individual states had very little say over the direction of their domestic and foreign policy. After 1945 the Catholic Church still held an important position in Czechoslovakia, albeit somewhat different in the two parts of the republic.Footnote 2 Following the 1948 coup d’état (known as ‘the Victorious February’), the Communist party's leaders were indecisive about what strategy to employ against their ideological foe. The party's officials were especially eager to reach some sort of an agreement with the Catholic Church, the largest and most influential of all the Churches in Czechoslovakia.Footnote 3

The Catholic Church tried hard to maintain its independence from the state. The Communists, on the other hand, started to consider how to subjugate it in the most effective way. For the Communist party the Church was not just any cultural and social institution; it was an organisation with potential and resources to mobilise political opponents and mount resistance. The immediate priority therefore was to prevent the Church from becoming the second power in the state. All leading figures within the Communist party were convinced that conflict with the Church was inevitable. Six months after the events of February 1948, the politicians opted for ‘peaceful’ neutralisation of the Catholic Church. The ultimate goal of government policy remained clear – to seize control over the Church, separate it from Rome, transform it into an obedient national Church and then destroy it.

In March 1948 the Central Action Committee of the National Front (NF)Footnote 4 issued a proclamation whereby they granted religious freedom and guaranteed the Church its full independence. The state constitution, adopted in May 1948, did not clearly define the status of Churches and other religious entities. To facilitate communication between the state, Churches and other religious organisations, the Central Action Committee of the National Front created special commissions for religious and ecclesiastical affairs. The Commission for Religious Affairs was established as an independent body responsible, for instance, for compiling detailed background checks and collecting compromising information on all members of the clergy. Regional and district church secretaries were appointed to monitor parish priests.Footnote 5

The state administration demanded that the episcopate take a positive stand vis-à-vis the February events. The bishops refused to do so. Instead, they exposed a series of improper acts committed against church institutions such as taking over church buildings, removing priests from their offices and suchlike.Footnote 6

In the summer of 1948 the bishops remained firm in their conviction and demonstrated that the Catholic Church was indeed the last organised unit in the country refusing to renounce its sovereignty. Hard-line politicians in the Communist leadership therefore started to promote harsher measures against the Church. The party's top leaders, Klement Gottwald, Rudolf Slánsky and Alexej Čepička, started to hatch plans for the liquidation of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia.Footnote 7 The Church was also closely monitored by the State Security (ŠtB),Footnote 8 namely by its special church division formed towards the end of 1948. The number of priests incarcerated for political reasons (dissemination of anti-state leaflets, hiding politically persecuted people, helping the Bandera supporters, etc.) increased. All of these measures clearly signalled the forthcoming changes in the existing church policy.Footnote 9

On 25 April 1949 the Presidium of the KSČ's Central Committee approved an element in their policy. The crucial shift concerned the fact that the subordination of the Church could no longer be accomplished through agreement with the bishops. The talks were over; open conflict began. The following few months were to involve the gradual confiscation of church property, prohibition of money collections, dissolution of all remaining church associations and religious orders. Gatherings of the faithful were to be restricted to the churches.

The Church Six, an advisory body subordinate to the Presidium of the KSČ's Central Committee, initially headed by Čepička, was entrusted with the implementation of these tasks. The other members of this commission were Vladimir Clementis, Zdeněk Fierlinger, Václav Kopecký, Viliam Široký and Jiří Hendrych.Footnote 10 A series of repressive administrative measures followed. In the months of March and April, over thirty ‘reactionary’ priests were detained.Footnote 11

The ‘progressive’ priests, on the other hand, played a crucial role in promoting and implementing the party's anti-church policy within church structures. They supplied party leaders with knowledge about the situation inside the Church.Footnote 12

Alongside the implementation of administrative measures, the state administration started to prepare its own ‘political movement’ within the Catholic Church. On 28 April 1949 the Commission for Religious Affairs convened patriotic priests to a meeting where Čepička introduced plans to create a movement of progressive Catholics. The objective was to create a preparatory committee of progressive Catholics willing to collaborate with the party, which would then lay the foundations for a renewal movement within the bounds of the Catholic Church, under the noble name of Catholic Action.Footnote 13

The practical implementation of this policy was left to the progressive priests who were to become a faction of Communist power inside church structures, trying to break the unity of the clergy from within. In a joint circular letter, the bishops warned their faithful about these plans. The bishops denounced this movement as schismatic and subjected those who joined it to ecclesiastical penalties.Footnote 14

Parallel with Catholic Action, the authorities were working on new church laws. On 14 October 1949 the National Assembly adopted a number of legal norms intended to regulate religious life:

  1. 1. Act No.217/49 Coll. establishing the State Office for Religious Affairs

  2. 2. Act No.218/49 Coll. on Economic Security of Churches and Religious Groups

  3. 3. Governmental statute No. 219/49 Coll. on Economic Security of the Roman Catholic Church.Footnote 15

Establishing the State Office for Religious Affairs was somewhat symbolic. Ecclesiastical matters were no longer subject to political negotiations between the bishops and state administration; they were to become mere administrative matters.Footnote 16 The office carried out a wide range of norm-setting and supervisory activities regarding all ecclesiastical and religious matters.Footnote 17 President Gottwald appointed Čepička to head the office. The president of the Board of Commissioners, Gustáv Husák, headed its Slovak branch. Both offices commenced their activities on 1 November 1949.Footnote 18

The Act on Economic Security of Churches and Religious Groups turned priests into state employees. The fact that their salaries were to be paid by the state was key to the government's policy aimed at the total subordination of the Church.

After the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945, the reputation of the Greek Catholic Church was higher than that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Greek Catholic Church earned its reputation as a result of the firm stand taken by Bishop Pavol Gojdič and the majority of his clergy against the regime of the Slovak State (1939–45). Many Greek Catholics also took part in the resistance movement in Eastern Slovakia. Since mid-1946, however, the situation changed. The favour that Greek Catholics had briefly enjoyed turned into distrust and suspicion. Their Church was labelled reactionary and accused of being supportive of the Banderites and of collaborating with the enemies of democracy.Footnote 19

The liquidation of Greek Catholics was carefully prepared as a part of a larger operation with one goal only – the total suppression of the Church. To make it less apparent, party leaders decided to separate the Greek Catholic Church from the mother Catholic Church and incorporate it into the Orthodox Church. This plan became known as Action P, where ‘P’ stands for pravoslavizácia (Orthodoxisation) and implies the ‘return’ of Greek Catholics to Orthodoxy with the aim of weakening the authority and influence of the Holy See.

Paradoxically, the growing influence of Soviet Communist and atheist propaganda on the Central European countries brought the expansion of Orthodoxy. The Russian Orthodox Church, falling under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, made no secret of its loyalty to the ruling Soviet regime. After many years of totalitarian persecution, the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union was somewhat resigned to its fate and accepted the Soviet political system. For the ruling circles of Soviet Bloc countries, the open support of the Orthodox Church was seen as a declaration of their adherence to the pro-Soviet ideological orientation. With that in mind, leaders of the KSČ readily accepted Moscow's demand to incorporate the Greek Catholic Church into the Russian Orthodox Church.Footnote 20

The situation after the Second World War gave no direct indications as to what was going to happen later. After 1945 the Greek Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia enjoyed relatively favourable conditions. The new government even praised Bishop Pavol Peter Gojdič for having openly opposed the Slovak State.Footnote 21

None the less, these relatively peaceful times soon ended. It was not long before the Communist-controlled ŠtB launched an information campaign to discredit the Greek Catholic Church. One of the first attacks came in 1947 and was directed against the Basilian Fathers who were in charge of the Greek Catholic parish in Prague.

In the postwar years, retreating groups of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrayins'ka Povstans'ka Armiya, UPA), called the Banderites after their former commander Stepan Bandera, were trying to get to the West through Czechoslovak territory.Footnote 22 The Czechoslovak army and police forces were ordered to eliminate these groups in an operation called Action B. The Banderite raids in 1945–7 were carried out in rather difficult times of political struggle for the future orientation of Czechoslovakia. Since the Banderites were a group with a nationalist, anti-Soviet and anti-Communist agenda, they counted on the remnants of radical nationalist supporters of the wartime Slovak State, on the Ukrainian and Rusyn population in Slovakia and on supporters of the anti-Communist Democratic party. With few exceptions, the UPA's plans did not work out.Footnote 23

The majority of the Rusyn population in Slovakia were members of the Greek Catholic Church.Footnote 24 This was the main reason why the Greek Catholic Church came to be accused, entirely without foundation, of supporting the Banderites.

The Communist-controlled Ministry of Interior used this situation to its advantage and falsely labelled all refugees from Ukraine as terrorists. No or very little distinction was made between actual rebels and other Ukrainians who were fleeing their homes to escape political, national or religious persecution. The latter group mostly comprised Greek Catholic clergymen and their families, or religious persons choosing emigration rather than accepting the Orthodoxisation of their Greek Catholic Church. Government-backed propaganda, in line with common practice among Soviet comrades, called them all dangerous terrorists (Banderites) who allegedly posed a threat to civilians. People who in any way helped these immigrants were publicly attacked for engaging in espionage. They were then accused of anti-state activities and subversion.

The Greek Catholic parish in Prague was branded as the centre of these activities. On 13 March 1947 Father Pavol Hučko osbm and his associate and altar server Grigorij Javorskyj-BuraničFootnote 25 were both arrested ‘on suspicion of collaboration with Ukrainian Banderite organisations’.Footnote 26 They were charged with anti-state activities and espionage. Criminal proceedings against the two were initiated on 19 March 1947. In 1948 the newly appointed provincial superior of the Basilian Fathers, Sebastián Sabol osbm, was also charged.

The trial of the Basilian Fathers took place at the Supreme Court in Prague from 13 to 18 December 1948 (Hučko and Buranič spent twenty-one months in pre-trial custodyFootnote 27). Fr Sabol and G. J. Buranič were sentenced to life imprisonment (Fr Sabol was tried and sentenced in absentia) and Fr Hučko was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.Footnote 28

This was a pivotal moment in the party's plan for gradual Orthodoxisation and then liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church. The state authorities took into account liturgical and ritual similarities between the two churches. The party intended to remove from Greek Catholics their fundamental attribute: Catholicism, their allegiance to the universal Catholic Church and recognition of papal primacy. The Czechoslovak government initially planned a long-term propaganda campaign employing methods of intimidation and damaging the church leaders’ reputation.

In mid-1948 the Commission for Religious Affairs discussed a unification campaign with the aim of initiating among Greek Catholics a movement supporting union with the Orthodox Church. The precedent had already been set in Ukraine. On 8 March 1946, 351 years after the Union of Brest, unauthorised representatives of the Greek Catholic Church convened a sobor (synod) in Lviv – the ‘capital’ of Ukrainian Greek Catholics. The three-day sobor revoked the Union of BrestFootnote 29 and approved reunification with the Russian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate. The Greek Catholic Church was outlawed and the faithful could choose between converting to Orthodoxy or having no affiliation with any of the Churches.Footnote 30 The same model was to be applied in Czechoslovakia. The plan was officially presented for the first time on 30 August 1948 as a part of a long-term church policy.

Events surrounding the Banderites' case largely contributed to the discrediting of the Greek Catholic Church in 1948–9. Communist party propaganda began to spread false information about the Greek Catholic parish in Prague, claiming that ‘the Prague rectory was only one link at the centre of an extensive network with ties stretching as far as the residence of Bishop Gojdič in Prešov’.Footnote 31 The purported basis for this claim was several blank official documents signed by Bishop Gojdič, which had been seized by the police during a raid in Prague in March 1947. The bishop was accused of helping the Banderites since the Basilians, who were in charge of the parish in Prague, were using these blank documents to grant bishop's authorisation to refugee priests. On 12 January 1949 Bishop Gojdič wrote to President Gottwald. He offered an official explanation of his actions and asked the president to put a stop to the campaign against the Greek Catholic Church. He explained that in the years 1945–6, several Greek Catholic clergymen arrived from Poland, Galicia and Zakarpattia and settled in Prague. Staying there for many months, they wanted to dedicate their time to pastoral care of the faithful in need of spiritual guidance. To do so these priests needed authorisation from the Prešov Ordinary. Postal and railway connections between Prešov and Prague were quite complicated and slow at that time and the clergymen often needed to wait a good few weeks for their authorisations. Without thinking anything of it and to avoid the wait, Bishop Gojdič gave a few of these signed blank letterhead documents to Father Hučko so that he could fill them out without any unnecessary delay. Concluding his letter, Bishop Gojdič restated:

I have never done anything to the people of Czechoslovakia that could be deemed harmful or anti-state. I helped purely out of Christian love, never with an intention of harming the state or the nation … during the Second World War, the Greek Catholic clergy and faithful played an important role in the resistance movement and endured hardship during the German invasion. The Greek Catholic Church frankly does not deserve all the defamation and accusations levelled at us.Footnote 32

Nevertheless, leading politicians were continuing to work openly to discredit the Church. On 9 December 1948, at the meeting of the Presidium of the KSS's Central Committee, Husák came out strongly against the Greek Catholic Church for protecting Ukrainian immigrants agitating against Czechoslovakia. In his speech, he hinted at the future fate of the Greek Catholic Church. He said that ‘this is exactly why [for its engagement in anti-state activities] we can afford to crack down on Greek Catholics harder than we may perhaps do with the Roman Catholics’.Footnote 33

On 19 July 1948 and 4 August 1948 ZNBFootnote 34 agents staged raids and inspections in all Greek Catholic monasteries in Slovakia.Footnote 35 Six months later, on 23 February 1949, between ten at night and four in the morning, the National Security conducted yet another house search in all Greek Catholic monasteries in Prešov. Eleven monks from the Basilian Fathers monastery and six nuns from other convents were imprisoned.Footnote 36 Bishop Gojdič again strongly objected to this harassment. He sent a number of letters, to President Gottwald, to Husák as chairman of the Board of Commissioners, and to Ladislav Novomeský as Minister of Education.Footnote 37 His most emotional letter was addressed to Gottwald:

This kind of action taken by the security services provoked great upset and outrage among the people in the diocese. No one could have imagined that particularly religious sisters could, in any way, pose danger to the Czechoslovak Republic and hence be subjected to this kind of repeated horrid night raids … the actions of the National Security Corps are so painful for all of us for no one had awaited liberation from the German ‘protectorate’ as much as we did. Perhaps no one had helped the partisans as much as our faithful and priests. And surely, no one had suffered and lost as much during the war of liberation as our people living the Carpathian region.Footnote 38

Despite this, Bishop Gojdič lamented, Greek Catholics found themselves reviled on all sides:

We were accused of Panslavism by the Hungarian government; for the representatives of the Slovak State we were partisans, Communists and Russophiles and now we are labelled Banderites and the unreliable ones. It saddens us that even the people's democratic government, advocating in its Constitution the equal standing of every citizen does not adhere to that (Art. 3) and sees us as a thorn in its side.Footnote 39

At the end of his letter, he pleaded with the president to intervene and ensure that the ZNB's action be not repeated ‘for not only it is hurtful to us, it also does not bring any credit to the state, inviting unnecessary criticism’.Footnote 40

The action against monasteries or individual monks and nuns was in a way a ‘trial’ in which the state administration tested the reaction of Greek Catholics. Next came the seizure of property belonging to the Church. By 1950 the state had confiscated several church buildings in Prešov – public and municipal schools, a teaching academy with two diocesan residence halls and the Basilian monastery with its adjacent chapel.Footnote 41

In October 1949 the National Assembly approved the church laws and party officials were given carte blanche to do as they pleased. By these laws, the Greek Catholic Church was stripped of its freedoms and subjected to state control. In the early 1950s the Presidium of the KSS's Central Committee established a special commission associated with the Slovak Office for Religious Affairs, which was to prepare for the reunification of Greek Catholics with the Orthodox Church.Footnote 42

The centre of the Orthodox Church in Moscow was already under the control of Soviet comrades. At the beginning of December of 1949 a government plenipotentiary was appointed in the Greek Catholic diocese in Prešov. His appointment was unconstitutional since it had no basis in the existing legislation. Bishop Gojdič was put in a position similar to that of house arrest. On 27 March 1950 the Slovak Office for Religious Affairs ordered him to remain in isolation. This was an unprecedented act. Gojdič and his auxiliary bishop Vasiľ Hopko strongly objected, but in vain.

Initially, the plan to persuade Greek Catholics to become Russian Orthodox was drafted as a long-term plan and spoke of conversion on a voluntary basis. So-called Committees for the Return to the Russian Orthodox Church were formed in municipalities and districts from among Greek Catholic Communists and supporters of Orthodoxisation. The role of these committees was to promote the transition to Orthodoxy and convene a sobor where the transition was to be proclaimed.Footnote 43 The plan, however, took an unexpected turn. Representatives of the Orthodox Church both in Moscow and Prague were pressing for the whole process to be accelerated. A visit to Slovakia by a delegation of Russian Orthodox Church from Moscow led by Metropolitan Nikolai in January 1950 supported the speedy elimination of the Greek Catholic Church.Footnote 44

On 22 February 1950 the Church Six held talks about the religious situation in Eastern Slovakia. They approved a timeline mapping activities leading to the total liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church. A few days later, on 27 February, the committee addressed the issue again and refused suggestions to postpone the transition. Nothing stood in the way of Action P. The Church Six also decided that bishops Gojdič and Hopko, along with other leading clergymen of the Greek Catholic Church, should be detained.Footnote 45

District and regional national committees of the eastern Slovak region were all involved in the first stage of Action P. Pressure on Greek Catholic priests and laity intensified and it soon turned into police intimidation and terror. The February report, drafted by the Church Six, outlined the course of action against Greek Catholics:

Preparation for the process of Orthodoxization must be very thorough and it could last for several weeks. Yet the attack on the Greek Catholic chapter and clergy must be carried out swiftly. Greek Catholic priests are married and have large families. Facing a decision to reunite with Russian Orthodoxy or lose their livelihood, many will most likely opt for transition. It is advisable to be very attentive to priests who have converted. They need to be taken care of, for instance by performance-related remuneration. To avoid unnecessary complications and delays, priests who resist will have to be transferred from their place of work elsewhere. Common country folks cling to all sorts of formalities, therefore we need to keep existing Greek Catholic rituals, traditions, clerical vestments and the like.Footnote 46

In early March 1950 Action P was at the top of the agenda for the highest state bodies, including the Presidium of the KSČ's Central Committee, the Church Six, the Presidium of the KSS's Central Committee and individual church commissions associated with the regional committees of KSS. On 9 March 1950 the first division of the State Office for Religious Affairs sent out a 16-point plan of action addressed to Čepička, outlining a detailed timeline for the destruction of the Greek Catholic Church. The first priority was to establish the Central Re-Unification Committee headed by Ivan Rohaľ-Iľkiv, then vice-chairman of the Slovak National Assembly and a prominent activist of the Ukrainian National Assembly of Prjaševčina (Ukrajinská národná rada Prjaševčiny – UNRP).Footnote 47 The other objectives were: to create a special committee responsible for Action VS (východné Slovensko – Eastern Slovakia) headed by Rohaľ-Iľkiv, to carry out propaganda activities, to organise local reunification committees and to convene, in late April 1950, a meeting of progressive priests who would issue an important statement to the clergy and the faithful (‘minor sobor’). Action P was to culminate at a ‘major sobor’ – a conference of clergy and laity at which they would officially proclaim separation from the Vatican and request acceptance into the Orthodox Church.Footnote 48

Some specific issues related to the planned sobor had already been discussed at the meeting of the General Secretariat of the KSS's Central Committee held on 30 March 1950. Initially, the minor sobor was planned for the end of April with the purpose of electing a Central Re-Unification Committee. That committee was expected to invite Greek Catholic priests and faithful to reunite with the Orthodox Church. The major sobor, proclaiming the termination of Rome's jurisdiction and a return to Orthodoxy, was planned for June 1950.Footnote 49

Gustáv Husák (then Chairman of the State Office for Religious Affairs) assigned the task of implementing the plan to the UNRP. The Central Committee for Return to the Russian Orthodox Church was created on 18 April 1950 in Prešov.Footnote 50

Plans for the destruction of the Greek Catholic Church were top of the agenda at the meeting of the local KSS functionaries from the regions of Prešov and Košice. On the outside, the Central Committee for Return to the Russian Orthodox Church was to appear to represent a state-wide people's and civilian movement advocating return to the Orthodox Church. To make the illusion believable, the Central Committee even began creating its organisational structure, first at the district level and then in individual towns and villages. The UNRP leadership insisted on bringing into these local committees highly regarded members of the clergy and laity who enjoyed the confidence of the faithful. Blackmailing civil servants, mainly teachers and those working in cultural and public services, was not alien to them either. The Central Committee created five action ‘troikas’ which were given the task of visiting certain representatives of the Greek Catholic Church in order to convince them to accept Orthodoxy. These UNRP activists were also responsible for keeping files on persons who refused Orthodoxy or vigorously opposed Action P. These politically inconvenient people were reported to the local committees of KSS and were threatened with losing their jobs. These activities were undertaken in coordination with the church secretaries, the State Security divisions and representatives of the Orthodox Church.Footnote 51

The UNRP activists also paid a visit to the Greek Catholic bishops Gojdič and Hopko and tried to persuade them to abandon their religion. The party's leaders knew very well that winning support from both bishops would mean a great political victory and would make the whole process of Orthodoxisation faster and easier.Footnote 52

Whilst the reunification committees were feverishly trying to fight for their cause, the Greek Catholic Church suffered two major blows. One of them was a show political trial of the superiors of several religious orders which took place from 31 March to 1 April 1950 in Prague. These individuals were falsely accused, again, of collaboration with the Banderites. Another blow came soon after. The regions were instructed to start Action K (K = kláštory – monasteries and convents). This was carried out during the night of 13 April 1950. All Greek Catholic monasteries of the Redemptorists and Basilian Fathers were affected. Monks were transported to monasteries in Podolínec, Pezinok and Báč.

Action P was again on the agenda at the meeting of the Presidium of the KSS's Central Committee held on 21 April 1950. Ladislav Holdoš, who took over the Slovak Office for Religious Affairs after Husák, informed the Presidium of plans to convene at Prešov (28 April 1950) a consultative meeting of the preparatory reunification committees with representatives of both eastern regional committees (this proves that initially the sobor was not planned as a rally of the Greek Catholic clergy and faithful). Holdoš's idea was to treat this meeting as a trial run before the major sobor, which was planned for June 1950 and was to follow the Lviv pattern. The Presidium approved.Footnote 53 The Central Committee for the Return to the Russian Orthodox Church was formally in charge of the preparations. Nevertheless, involving the Greek Catholic clergy in the activities of preparatory committees proved rather challenging. By 24 April 1950 the UNRP had managed to convince fifty-one Greek Catholic priests to publicly support Action P and invited them to a meeting with the vice-chairman of the Slovak National Assembly, Ivan Rohaľ-Iľkiv, at Vyšné Ružbachy to discuss the future fate of the Greek Catholic Church.Footnote 54 Not all of these priests were sincerely convinced that it was necessary to renounce the Greek Catholic faith and convert to Orthodoxy. The vast majority of those who arrived at Vyšné Ružbachy had already experienced intimidation. They were broken men, personally affected by the policy of state terror against the Catholic Church. Only a few actively collaborated with State Security.Footnote 55 Even so, the session did not go as planned, since most of the priests present refused to consent to conversion to Orthodoxy.

Following the fruitless meeting in Vyšné Ružbachy, events took a sudden turn. The declining numbers of the priests who earlier had been in agreement with the transition and increased pressure from the Orthodox Church, re-unification committees, regional party and state authorities greatly contributed to a new decision to transform the upcoming rally of reunification committees into a major sobor and proclaim the transition to Orthodoxy with no further delay. The programme for the Prešov sobor was agreed upon in the early hours of 28 April 1950. Arnošt Pšenička (Chairman of the KSS's Regional committee in Prešov), Ivan Rohaľ-Iľkiv (Deputy of the Slovak National Council and the head of the UNRP), Vasil’ Kapišovský (head of the Culture and Promotion Department of the KSS's Regional committee in Prešov), L'udovit Medveď and Michal Chudík (heads of the KNV in Prešov and Košice), delegated representatives of the State Office for Religious Affairs (Vladimir Ekart) and representatives of its Slovak branch (Andrej Gombala) all played an important role in the organisation of the sobor.Footnote 56 Members of ŠtB, other security forces, army and militia attended the consulting meetings too. In his report, Vladimir Ekart described the events surrounding the sobor:

It was decided that some three thousand comrades from Košice, Prešov and the districts with villages that had already transitioned to Orthodoxy would be mobilised and concentrated in the town of Prešov to ensure that the sobor were brought to a successful conclusion. Instructors from those districts were invited to mobilise the masses and organise transport. They arranged places and times where people could access transportation. The functionaries nominated one comrade to oversee the whole operation. During the night, Communist functionaries checked the performance of the tasks assigned. In the meantime, the commanders of the ŠtB and ZNB arrived at KSS's Regional Committee to arrange safety and security measures that were to be followed in the town, in Čierny Orol Hotel (where the sobor was held), in the cathedral and in the bishop's office, in case Bishop Gojdič is asked to vacate it.Footnote 57

Since the leadership of the KSS's Regional committee did not trust any member of the clergy who had collaborated with the regime (either willingly or forcibly), they decided to retain direct control over every committee (working board, selection committee, etc.) that the KSS created on the night of the sobor. The sobor was under direct supervision of Rohaľ-Iľkiv and Pšenička. The KSS's Regional committee prearranged every detail and even selected the priests who were to participate in the debate, the priests who were to welcome the Prešov Orthodox Bishop Alexy DekhterevFootnote 58 in the Greek Catholic Cathedral, and the priests who were suitable to become members of the board and working committees.Footnote 59

The sobor was held in the grand hall of the Čierny Orol Hotel in Prešov on 28 April 1950. Buses brought delegates and supporters from the surrounding districts. They were gathered unlawfully for they had been told that they were going to partake in a peace rally.Footnote 60 The priests were either tricked into participation or were brought to Prešov in covered trucks after having been arrested. As few as seventy-three out of approximately 820 delegates at the sobor were actually priests.Footnote 61 The remainder were students who were manipulated into taking part, adherents of other churches, Communist activists posing as the faithful, KSS candidates from Košice whose participation was seen as evidence of their ideological loyalty to the party, and ŠtB officers. Initially, the authorities brought in around one hundred priests, but some of them had left before the meeting started. Seventy-three of them remained. Nine priests could not attend in person but they sent letters with their written consent. Thus, the total number of priests approving the transition to Orthodoxy was eighty-two.Footnote 62 This was barely a quarter of the total number of Greek Catholic clergy.Footnote 63

Ján Benický, the head of the Education Department of the Regional National Committee in Prešov and the chairman of the Regional Preparatory Committee for the Return to Orthodoxy, opened and presided over the meeting which was described as a working congress. The welcoming speech was followed by a staged ‘discussion’. Arranged in advance, some of the progressive priests delivered their addresses.Footnote 64 All the speakers put forward a number of political and historical arguments to justify the need for the separation of their Church from the Vatican and its return to Orthodoxy. After hearing just a few contributions, and at the request of the speakers, Benický proposed that the congress be proclaimed a sobor and elected a three-member committee responsible for drafting a resolution. It should be noted that the sobor elected Rohaľ-Iľkiv as a president of that committee despite his being there only as a guest. A few minutes later, Rohaľ-Iľkiv presented a draft resolution of several pages containing five articles, clearly indicating that the draft had been prepared beforehand. The articles demanded that

  1. 1. the Union of Uzhhorod be revoked

  2. 2. the Greek Catholic Church reunify with the Orthodox Church and rupture its ties to Rome

  3. 3. the Moscow patriarch be asked to accept the Greek Catholic Church under his jurisdiction

  4. 4. telegrams be sent to church dignitaries of Russian and Czechoslovak Orthodox Churches and to the state officials of the Czechoslovak Republic

  5. 5. a manifesto be addressed to the Greek Catholic clergy and the faithful.

The sobor adopted the ‘Manifesto to the Greek Catholic Clergy and the Faithful of Czechoslovakia’ proclaiming the revocation of the Union of Uzhhorod. From that day, all members of the Greek Catholic clergy and the faithful were to become Orthodox.Footnote 65 Around the same time, KNV functionaries assisted by the security forces seized the bishop's office and arrested both Greek Catholic bishops.Footnote 66

Although Action P was finalised, there was no legislative regulation or legal norm referring to the destruction of the Greek Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia. None the less, the totalitarian regime acknowledged the conclusions of the sobor without any legal justification. Although it was the Communist government that initiated and carried out the liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church, the person who informed the chairman of the State Office for Religious Affairs, Fierlinger, about the outcome of the sobor was the Orthodox Exarch Jelevferij. The following day, Fierlinger passed on the information to the Church Six. Even though Communist functionaries partially criticised Action P as rushed and ill-prepared, the nomenklatura eventually fully approved of it.Footnote 67 The government's approval was announced on 27 May 1950 in a letter from Fierlinger to the Orthodox Exarch Jelevferij:

Respecting the will manifested by the faithful, the State Office for Religious Affairs considers the sobor resolution, declaring the liquidation of the Union and return of the former Uniates to Orthodoxy adopted on 28 April of this year, as fully justified. By adopting this resolution, the Union was annulled and the so-called Greek Catholic Church ceased to exist. The clergy and the faithful of the former Greek Catholic Church were returned to the Orthodox Church, which has taken over the rights, property and facilities of the former Greek Catholic Church. From now on, state bodies will approach the bishops of the Orthodox Church in all matters pertaining to former Greek Catholic clergy concerning their salaries and other issues of similar nature.Footnote 68

According to the Code of Canon Law of Eastern Churches (Codex Iuris Canonici Orientalis), which was in effect at that time, the authority to convene a synod belonged only to eparchial bishops. The eparchial bishop was also the only person with the authority to sign any provisions adopted by the synod. Bishop Gojdič was a victim here.

The priests who attended the sobor could not promulgate any legally binding regulations in their bishop's absence. Even the lay people who were present could not guarantee the legitimacy of the sobor, since they would normally have no access to a legally convened synod. The resolutions and the manifesto adopted at the sobor could not therefore have had any legal effect grounded in the Code of Canon Law. During the negotiations between the Czechoslovak government and the Vatican, the Holy See was quite correct to argue that, in accordance with canon law, the Greek Catholic Church had never ceased to exist and that all resolutions adopted at the Prešov sobor were null and void.Footnote 69

The state attack on the Greek Catholic Church must be seen as unfounded, unlawful and a direct result of adverse political conditions in the Stalinist era. The outlawing of the Greek Catholic Church was a serious violation of the Czechoslovak constitution, which guaranteed religious freedom. By the power of the state apparatus, 258,357Footnote 70 Greek Catholics in Czechoslovakia became Orthodox overnight, at least from the perspective of the leaders of the Communist regime. The regime did not, however, anticipate the persistent faith of majority of the clergy and faithful who remained inwardly loyal to the Greek Catholic Church. In 1968, as soon as it was made possible, most Greek Catholics unequivocally professed their faith again.

The majority of Greek Catholic priests did not agree with the government's action and refused to sign the transfer to Orthodoxy. The party's officials adopted a series of measures to increase the numbers of converts. Promises, bribes and intense pressure were used to collect signatures. The most resilient priests were interned. Some priests were even offered help with finding a civilian jobs or retiring as an exchange for their signature, as an alternative to becoming Orthodox priests. Others were pressed to take an oath of allegiance to the Orthodox bishop. Taking the religious oath was determinative for exercising priesthood and their conversion to Orthodoxy (i.e. full communion with the Orthodox Church). State officials used tricks to collect the signatures, e.g. in exchange for seeds, fertilizers or feed. These were then presented as signatures approving return to the Orthodox Church. Under various pretences, priests were called to state or party institutions where they had to sign attendance sheets. Without their prior consent, their signatures were then copied onto pre-printed forms declaring their conversion to Orthodoxy.Footnote 71 Every priest who had taken his religious oaths was given a bonus of 2,000 Kčs, effective from 1 January 1950. Those who had signed the manifesto, but did not take the oath, were paid only half their salaries. The priests who had neither signed the Manifesto nor taken the oath lost all their benefits, effective of 1 June 1950. If the priests did not comply, they were removed from pastoral duties or their wives and children were laid off from work.Footnote 72

Sixty-three priests had taken their oath of allegiance by the early June 1950.Footnote 73 In October 1950 the number almost doubled to 103 priests.Footnote 74 In April 1951 the total number of priests who had returned to Orthodoxy reached 130.Footnote 75 In reality, however, only ninety-six of them served as priests. The others later withdrew their signatures or left the priesthood and chose civilian life. Some of them died. For one third of these ninety-six priests their decision was just the ‘matter of existence’, as stated in the report on the church-political situation in Eastern Slovakia compiled by the Secretariat of the ÚV KSS, dated 3 November 1953.Footnote 76

The most resilient priests were removed from their parishes and interned in monastery-prisons or forced labour camps. Those who refused to sign the transfer to Orthodoxy and could work were relocated to Bohemia (mostly to the houses that had been left vacant after expulsion of Sudeten Germans) and placed in blue-collar jobs. Action 100 took place from 6 November to 7 December 1951. The numbers of displaced families differ slightly, depending on the source. Roughly, it concerned one hundred families.Footnote 77

Greek Catholic bishops and clergymen were not the only people who were stigmatised and persecuted. The faithful, who were left without their spiritual pastors were intimidated; many of them ended up in prisons or forced labour camps.

The spontaneous return to the bosom of the Orthodox Church described by the Communist party did not in fact happen. In some parishes the faithful could not tolerate Orthodox services in their churches and prayed together at cemeteries, before the crosses or in their own houses without their priests. Others attended masses and received sacraments in nearby Roman Catholic churches. Many of them converted to Roman Catholicism. Some parishes eventually accepted Orthodox priests but as soon as it was made possible again (after re-legalisation of the Greek Catholic Church following the Prague Spring in 1968), they returned to their mother Church.Footnote 78

This positive development was abruptly halted by the invasion by Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968. The Greek Catholic Church remained legal during the ‘normalisation’ period of the 1970s and 1980s, but was under constant surveillance by state authorities. The Orthodox Church, on the other hand, enjoyed support from the state. Despite its re-legalisation, the Greek Catholic Church did not have all its property returned for many years to come. Only following the fall of the Communist regime in November 1989 was the Greek Catholic Church's forty years of ‘Babylonian captivity’ finally brought to an end.

References

1 Coranič, J., ‘Dvesto rokov od kánonického erigovania Prešovského gréckokatolíckeho biskupstva (22 September 1818)’, Historia Ecclesiastica ix (2018/1), 94–114Google Scholar.

2 The population of Czechoslovakia in 1945 was about 12 million, of which 9.5 million professed the Catholic faith. The Church had thirteen dioceses, nineteen bishops and around 6,000 diocesan priests. There were 887 students in thirteen seminaries, 2,000 priests living in 258 monasteries and 10,500 nuns in 750 convents. After the resettlement of citizens of German and Hungarian nationalities and after the liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church in 1950, the number of Catholics was reduced to 8.94 million (76.42% of the population). In 1950s Slovakia only 0.26% of population was without adherence to any faith.

3 Pešek, J., ‘Štát a katolícka cirkev na začiatku komunistickej totality’, 50 rokov od 50. rokov, Bratislava 2000, 59Google Scholar.

4 In 1945–90 Czechoslovakia, the National Front was a coalition of political parties (later also some civil society organisations) originally established to take over the governance of the state after the Second World War. It was established in March 1945 during the Moscow negotiations regarding the Košice Government Program (Košický vládny program). The Communist party, which played a crucial role in the National Front from the very beginning, used its influence to seize power in the country. After February 1948 the National Front became one of the instruments of the totalitarian political system. It was dissolved on 7 February 1990.

5 Fedor, M., Z dejín gréckokatolíckej cirkvi v Československu, 1945–50, Košice 1993, 64Google Scholar.

6 Šturák, P., Dejiny Gréckokatolíckej cirkvi v Československu v rokoch, 1945–89, Prešov 1999, 79Google Scholar.

7 Klement Gottwald, prime minister and later the president of Czechoslovakia; Rudolf Slánsky, general secretary of the of the KSČ's central committee; Alexej Čepička held several state positions: general secretary of the National Front's central action committee, head of the State Office for Religious Affairs, Minister of Justice, Minister of Defence of Czechoslovakia.

8 The ŠtB was the secret security service in Czechoslovakia that was at once an investigative, intelligence and counter-intelligence agency.

9 Vaško, V., Neumlčená: kronika Katolícke církve v Československu po druhé světové válce II, Praha 1990, 66Google Scholar.

10 This church committee of the ÚV KSČ was comprised of ministers and members of the party leadership. Since it was originally composed of six members, the committee became known as ‘the Church Six’. As Minister of Education, Sciences and Arts Zdeněk Nejedlý attended the later meetings. The Church Six would meet until the end of April 1950. In May 1950 there were some changes in the composition of the committee. Z. Fierlinger replaced A. Čepička as the chairperson; V. Clementis was replaced by J. Havelka. In June 1950, L. Holdoš joined the committee and by the end of the same year, Z. Nejedlý was replaced by V. Nosek: Balík, S. and Hanuš, J., Katolícka církev v Československu, 1945–89, Brno 2007, 20Google Scholar.

11 Vnuk, F., Pokus o schizmu, Bratislava 1996, 14Google Scholar.

12 During the forty years of the Communist totalitarian regime, two organisations of ‘progressive priests’ collaborating with the regime existed in Czechoslovakia. From 1950 to 1968 it was Mierové hnutie katolíckeho duchovenstva (The Peace Movement of the Catholic Clergy) and from 1968 to 1989 Združenie katolíckych duchovných “Pacem in Terris” (Association of the Catholic Clergy ‘Pacem in Terris’). The most prominent priests in the service of the Communist regime were Jan Mara, Bohuš Černocký, Jozef Fiala and Josef Plojhar in the Czech Republic and Alexander Horák and Jozef Lukačovič in Slovakia. See also P. Jakubčin, Pastieri v osídlach moci: komunistický režim a katolícki kňazi na Slovensku v rokoch 1948–68, Bratislava 2012, 216, and J. Haľko, ‘Niektoré aspekty vzťahu komunizmu a Cirkvi v Československu – mierové hnutie katolíckeho duchovenstva’, Deo gratias, Esztergom–Piliscsaba 2003, 75–84.

13 Originally, Catholic Action was the name of a group of lay Catholics initiated by Pope Pius xi in his encyclical Ubi Arcano of December 1922.

14 AGAP, fond Bežná agenda, series Spisy, 1949, inv. no. 455, sign. 2012.

15 Šturák, Dejiny Gréckokatolíckej cirkvi, 80.

16 Kaplan, K., Nekrvavá revoluce, Praha 1993, 206Google Scholar.

17 Kuruc, J., ‘Katolícka cirkev na Slovensku od skončenia druhej svetovej vojny po pád komunizmu’, Viera a život vii (1997/2), 138Google Scholar.

18 Vnuk, Pokus o schizmu, 110.

19 Pešek, J. and Barnovský, M., Štátna moc a cirkvi na Slovensku, 1948–53, Bratislava 1997, 23Google Scholar.

20 Konečný, S., ‘K niektorým otázkam pravoslavizácie na Slovensku v roku 1950’, in Rusíni: otázky dejín a kultúry, Prešov 1994, 125Google Scholar.

21 See also Pekár, M., ‘Vplyv národných a náboženských princípov na charakter slovenskej štátnosti v r. 1939–45’, in Švorc, P. and Harbuľová, Ľ. and Schwarz, K. (eds), Cirkvi a národy strednej Európy (1800–50), Prešov 2008, 330Google Scholar.

22 The Ukrainian Insurgent Army arose out of separate militant formations of the OUN.

23 Michal Šmigeľ closely studied the activities of the Banderites in Slovakia: Banderovci na Slovensku (1945–47): Niektoré aspekty pôsobenia jednotiek Ukrajinskej povstaleckej armády na území krajiny, Banská Bystrica 2008, 232.

24 The Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia has always comprised the faithful of three main nationalities: Rusyn, Slovak and Hungarian. Their proportion gradually changed in the course of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the seventeenth century Rusyns formed the vast majority. In the nineteenth the number of Slovaks and Hungarians rose. In the first half of the twentieth century, the number of Slovaks and Rusyns was almost the same. Hungarians accounted for 6–7% of the Greek Catholics in Slovakia.

25 G. J. Buranič was of Polish descent; his arrest by the German Gestapo in 1942 stopped him from completing his studies in theology. He was interned in several concentration camps. Following the end of the Second World War, he spent some time in Prešov. Bishop P. Gojdič persuaded him to take up a position in Prague where he helped to organise the transport of several people, mainly priests, to Bavaria.

26 A notification sent by the National Land Committee (in Prague) to the Greek Catholic Ordinariate in Prešov, dated 9 April 1947, about the detention of P. Hučko and G. J. Buranič. The Land National Committee requested Bishop Gojdič to remove Father Hučko from his office. See also AGAP, fond Bežná agenda, series Spisy, inv. no. 463, sign. 1140. The Ministry of Justice described the activities of the OUN: ‘The organization active mainly in Poland operated also in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic where its members distributed leaflets inciting conflict with the existing establishment and encouraging the formation of an independent Ukraine which would include eastern Slovakia. The organization has centres in Poland and in Munich and uses messengers to maintain contacts in Czechoslovakia.’

27 On 28 July 1948 Bishop Gojdič sent a letter to minister Čepička objecting to their detention. In his letter, Gojdič stated that ‘it is against all laws, reason and justice, and it is a grave breach of the right to personal freedom to hold a person in police custody for such a long period of time. If the person in question did really commit a crime against the state and is found guilty based on concrete evidence, then the sentence should be imposed on him. If there is no corpus delicti, he should be released’: AGAP, Prezidiálne spisy, inv. no. 83, sign. 28.

28 Ibid. sign. 49.

29 The Union of Brest, 1595–6, brought into the Roman Catholic Church several million Ukrainian and Belorussian Orthodox living under Polish rule in Lithuania. They belonged to the Byzantine-Slavic rite and were under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Kiev. In 1589 Polish-Lithuanian Orthodox serfs came under the jurisdiction of the newly established Moscow Patriarchate (until then the Kiev Metropolia had been under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople). One way of avoiding dependence on the Moscow Patriarch was creating union with the Catholic Church. Polish-Lithuanian rulers supported the union for political reasons (to loosen the control of Moscow over the population in Little Russia [Ukrainians]), as well as for religious reasons (they were Catholics). The Union of Brest was permitted by Pope Clement viii in 1595. It was solemnly proclaimed at the synod in Brest held from 6 to 10 October 1596.

30 Vaško, Neumlčená II, 170.

31 These accusations were published in 1948 in a series of press releases in the magazine Ľud (The People) entitled ‘Pozadie jedného politického procesu’ (Behind the scenes of one political trial).

32 AGAP, Prezidiálne spisy, inv. no. 82, sign. 5.

33 SNA, fond: ÚV KSS – predsedníctvo, box 789.

34 The National Security Corps (Slovak: ZNB; Czech: SNB) – police armed force; it was a repressive unit of the executive power in Czechoslovakia. The ZNB comprised two separate organisations: Verejná Bezpečnosť (Public Security) and Štátna Bezpečnosť (State Security).

35 AGAP, Prezidiálne spisy, inv. no. 83, sign. 28.

36 Ibid. inv. no. 82, sign. 33.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 P. Šturák, ‘50 rokov od 50 rokov’, 50 rokov od 50–tých rokov, Bratislava 2000, 42.

43 Š. Šutaj, ‘Akcia P’, Národná Obroda xxvii (1990), 38, 9.

44 K. Kaplan, Stát a církev v Československu, 1948–53, Brno 1993, 115.

45 V. Vaško, Likvidace řeckokatolické církve, Kostelní Vydří 2007, 23–4.

46 Marie Bulínová, Milena Janišová and K. Kaplan, Církevní komise ÚV KSČ, 1949–1951, Brno 1994, 387.

47 The UNRP; Ukrainian: Українська Народна Рада Пряшівщини [Ukrainian National Assembly of Prjaševčina] was a political organisation in post-war Czechoslovakia uniting Ukrainian or Rusyn population in northeast Slovakia (the UNRP avoided using a term Rusyn; they believed that the Rusyn identity was just an artificial construct). The UNRP was established in Prešov on 1 March 1945 and was headed by Vasil Karaman. Other leading figures were Ivan Rohaľ-Iľkiv, Vasiľ Kapišovský and Peter Babej. The magazine Prjaševčina, published in Russian, became an official printed journal prioritising the Orthodox Church, praising the remarkable success of the USSR, and promoting Stalin's cult of personality.

48 Bulínová, Janišová and Kaplan, Církevní komise ÚV KSČ, 152.

49 SNA, fond: ÚV KSS, box 7. Zasadnutie Sekretariátu ÚV KSS 30. 3. 1950; see also Pešek and Barnovský, Štátna moc a cirkvi na Slovensku, 151.

50 Priaševčina vi, 27 Apr. 1950.

51 J. Bobák, Rusíni a akcia P, <http://www.kultura-fb.sk/stare/dejiny-16a.sk>, 5–6.

52 Borza, P., Blahoslavený Vasiľ Hopko prešovský pomocný biskup (1904–76), Prešov 2003, 61Google Scholar.

53 SNA, fond ÚV KSS, box 795.

54 Fedor, Z dejín gréckokatolíckej cirkvi, 197.

55 The ŠtB frequently picked several priests and tried to ‘win’ them over for their own goals. It used various methods of persuasion, for example priests were promised high positions within the future church hierarchy. They believed that the conversion of some priests could encourage others and the ordinary faithful would follow. However, the ŠtB managed to ‘persuade’ only a few such priests, for instance Fr Michal Knapp (Maškovce parish), Dezider Schudich (Ďurďoš), Eliáš Kačur (Vyšný Mirošov), Anton Havrila (Michalovce), Pavol Bobalík (Hrabovčík) and Jozef Molčan (Kyjov).

56 Letz, Róbert, ‘Postavenie gréckokatolíckej cirkvi v Česko–Slovensku v rokoch 1945–68’, Historický časopis xliv (1996/2), 274Google Scholar.

57 Správa o sobore v Prešove od V. Ekarta z 29. apríla 1950: Státni ústřední archiv, Archiv Ústředního výboru KSČ, Praha (SÚA, AÚV KSČ), fond 100/24, vol. 49, archival unit 871; cf. Istoričeskij sobor duchovenstva i mirjan v Prjaševi: Svet pravoslávia, 3, 1950, no. 5, 67– 9; cf. Manifest gréckokatolíckych duchovných a veriacich, prijatý na sobore dňa 28. apríla 1950 v Prešove. Prešov 1950; cf. Spontánne rozhodnutie právoplatných zástupcov grécko – katolíckej cirkvi. Grécko-katolícki veriaci sa vrátili do lona pravoslávnej cirkvi: Hlas ľudu, 7. 5. 1950, 4–5.

58 Bishop Alexy (Alexander Petrovich Dekhterev) (2 May 1889–19 April 1959). When young, he worked in sea navigation, later as a journalist or a director of orphanages in the USSR. In 1934 he came to Slovakia, where he worked as an editor of the Prešovská Rus magazine. In 1935 he took religious vows in the village of Ladomirová. In 1938 he was ordained a priest at the age of forty-nine. During the Second World War Dekhterev worked as pastor in several places, such as Yugoslavia and Egypt. In 1949 the Moscow Patriarch Alexij relieved him for work in ČSR. On 30 December 1949 he was appointed bishop of the Orthodox Eparchy of Prešov. He stayed there until 1950. When he returned to the USSR, he was appointed as bishop in Vilnius (present-day Lithuania).

59 SÚA, AÚV KSČ, fond 100/24, vol. 49, archival unit 871.

60 Babjak, J., P. Michal Lacko, SJ informátor a formátor gréckokatolíkov, Trnava 1997, 81Google Scholar.

61 It is difficult to determine the exact number of delegates present at the sobor, since the numbers provided in various sources differ. The Communist press mentioned 820 delegates, 100 Greek Catholic priests and around 4,000 others. Vaško refers to 720 delegates, out of whom 40 were the Greek Catholic priests: Neumlčená II, 172; Kaplan mentions 73 priests: Stát a církev, 116. The Orthodox writers Š. Horkaj and Š. Pružinský mention 88 clergymen, though their list only contains 87 names: Pravoslávna cirkev na Slovensku v 19. a 20. storočí, Prešov 1998, 174–6.

62 Pešek and Barnovský, Štátna moc a cirkvi na Slovensku, 154.

63 There are several sources providing overall figures of Greek Catholic clergy in 1950. The figures vary. The primary church sources could be the most reliable. The last schematism (list of priests) of the Eparchy of Prešov was issued for the year 1948. As of 1948 there were 312 clergymen in public service in the whole eparchy (in pastoral service, teaching and administration, retired assisting priests, etc.). This means that for the year 1950 it is necessary to add new priests ordained in 1949 and 1950, and take into account that some priests would have died.

64 Michal Knap, Eliáš Kačúr, Ján Bihún, Anton Havrila, Andrej Tóth and Professor Dribňák from Humenné participated in the discussion: Pešek and Barnovský, Štátna moc a cirkvi na Slovensku, 154.

65 ‘Opis zápisnice zo soboru zaslaný exarchom Jelevferijom Z. Fierlingerovi 2. mája 1950’, SNA, fond SÚC, box 116.

66 Šturák, P., Otec biskup Pavol Gojdič, OSBM, Prešov 1997, 99Google Scholar.

67 Idem, Dejiny Gréckokatolíckej cirkvi, 80.

68 J. Babjak, Zostali verní: osudy gréckokatolíckych kňazov VIII, Košice 2001, 109, cf. his Michal Lacko, 82. Other published documents analysing the situation before, during and after the sobor are to be found in Mandzák, D. A., Dokumenty k akcii P: Prešovský sobor, Bratislava 2014, 759fGoogle Scholar.

69 Horňáček, J., Konfesné právo upravujúce postavenie gréckokatolíckej cirkvi na území Slovenska po roku 1918, Bratislava 2011, 110Google Scholar, cf. his ‘Prešovský sobor – jeho zákonnosť a právne následky’, in J. Coranič, P. Šturák and J. Koprivňáková (eds), Cirkev v okovách totalitného režimu, Prešov 2010, 116.

70 The number of Greek Catholics according to the census held in Czechoslovakia on 1 March 1950 was 225,495 in Slovakia and 32,862 in the Czech Republic: SNA, fond SŠÚ (Slovak Statistical Office), box 79, inv. no. 128.

71 Fedor, Z dejín Gréckokatolíckej cirkvi, 293.

72 Pešek and Barnovský, Štátna moc a cirkvi, 244–6.

73 Ibid. 247.

74 ‘Správa L. Holdoša Komisii pre cirkevné otázky pri Predsedníctve ÚV KSČ zo dňa 7. 11. 1950’, SNA, Bratislava, fond SIÚC, box 220.

75 ‘Správa o niektorých otázkach cirkevnej politiky na Slovensku, 5. 4. 1951’, SNA, Bratislava, fond ÚV KSS–sekr., box 17.

76 Ibid. box 239.

77 P. Marek, ‘Pokus dokončit likvidaci Řeckokatolícke církve v Československu: Akce 100’, in Coranič, Šturák and Koprivňáková, Cirkev v okovách totalitného režimu, 162.

78 In 1968 a referendum was held in 210 parishes. Of these 205 decided that their religious allegiance was Greek Catholic and only five wished to remain Orthodox. In 31 parishes, the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies delayed the referendum.