They lived alongside each another for centuries, they were neighbors, they were mixed marriages, and no 1 threatened to kill anyone, and abruptly they became enemies... even in matrimony and family. Why?
Baptism of east Europe was held through the Orthodox Church, i.e. through the Church of Greece, which as a consequence of the Church Schism introduced differentiation between Roman Catholics and Orthodox. After the Church Schiism 1054 the Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church became far apart. For Orthodoxy, the authority was the Patriarchate of Moscow and Constantinople, not the Pope in Vatican.
After Poland's next war, the east areas and the regulation of Orthodoxy came under the authority of the Polish king and were thus influenced by the Vatican. In order to destruct spiritual antagonisms, bishops of the Catholic Church led to the Church Union, or the Brest Union.
The Brzeska Union of 1596 is simply a spiritual act, in which part of the Orthodox Church in the lands of the Republic recognized the authority of the pope and Catholic dogma, while retaining the east (Byzantine) liturgy and its own calendar. This agreement established the Greek Catholic Church (unique).
Unickie Churches were mainly located in the border areas of Poland, that is, areas that frequently change their nationality and erstwhile there was another demolition of Poland, the tsar changed the units back to Orthodox ones.
Unfortunately, this did not happen in the Austrian election. Austria, a Catholic state, favored the Unitoms. Thus unici in Austrian territories, and these were Polish Ukraine's territories inhabited by another Ukrainian border population alongside Poles. This is how the Ukrainian nationality arose, which found its own religion, or national ideology. Ukrainians sought independency and so UPA was established.
After WW1 Poland regained Ukrainian lands there were conflicts, antagonisms arose due to the fact that Catholics were Poles and Ukrainians were Greek Catholics. There were besides Russians, that is, as today, faithful to the Orthodox Church.
Crimes in Poles were the work of the Ukrainian Insurgency Army (UPA), but even among the unic clergy there were cases hostile to Poles and support of nationalists. Historians, however, besides note the martyrdom of respective priests and nuns of the Unity rite at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists.
The main hierarchs of the Greek Catholic Church during this period are: Metropolitan Andrzej Szeptycki – head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church based in Lviv. Critic in Polish historiography for first support for independency structures and ideas, although he opposed execution and personally rescued Jews. The communicative is besides mentioned by Bishop Josyph Slipyj – Archbishop and later patriarch of the close associate of the Metropolitan of Szeptycki in Lviv.
