FROM REAL POLITICS AND SOCIAL SOLIDARITY TO NATIONAL STATE: THE SOCIAL MISSION OF METROPOLITAN ANDREY SHEPTYTSKY IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

The article analyzes the features of state and political activity of the Metropolitan of the Greek Catholic Church (GCC) Andrey Sheptytsky, ambassador of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria and deputy of the Parliament of Vienna (1901–1914), member of the Ukrainian National Council of the Western-Ukrainian Peoples Republic (WUPR), who had infl uence over the leaders of the Ukrainian National-Democratic Union (UNDU) and, partially, members and sympathizers of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). The article shows his role in the relations of the state and the church in the age of the Habsburg constitutional monarchy, during the national state forming in the course of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917–1923, during the period of Polish authoritarianism, and in the turmoil of the Nazi and Stalinist totalitarian regimes. It proves the incompatibility of church and state priorities in the absence of a national state and democratic government. The study also confi rms that A.Sheptytsky considered it his moral-ethical / Christian duty to directly or indirectly resist undemocratic authorities, supporting legal methods of civil disobedience and excluding the methods of physical terror (assassinations of government offi  cials, as well as opposition / loyal politicians). At the same time, A. Sheptytskyi, as a church fi gure and citizen, sought to adhere to the principles of Christian ethics, social solidarity, and tolerance of inter-national and interpersonal relations in social and political life. He recommended politicians to reach civic maturity as soon as possible and think not in narrowly party or narrowly ethno-national categories, but in universal, Christian ones. Сritical analysis of social reality, cut across state-political transformations, party-political confrontation, economic competition, international contradictions, education of elites and civil society, and humanitarian aid to the poor and disabled, became an important feature of A. Sheptytsky’s social ethics. In his pastoral messages and other public actions, A. Sheptytskyi demanded openness, fl exibility and dynamism from public-political and church fi gures, and courage in the face of new adaptations, even those that changed personal beliefs. At the same time, he especially criticized the dogmatism of the left forces (socialists and communists), who promoted militant atheism, liquidation of private property, and collective management of agriculture. As a Christian pastor, he criticized the individual terror tactics of right-wing radical forces, as well as the anti-people policy of the totalitarian regimes of Germany and the USSR. A. Sheptytsky considered the increase in the level of education of everyone, including politicians and clergymen, businessmen and youth, to be an objective sign of social improvement.