Ukrainian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church
independent sect of Eastern Catholicism founded in 2019
The Ukrainian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church (UOGCC) is an unregistered Eastern Independent Catholic religious movement that was established by Basilian priests, predominantly from Slovakia, who schismated from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and declared the creation of the new church in 2009 based in Pidhirtsi, Ukraine.
The movement is not officially recognized in Ukraine by the religious community or state authorities. The organization was officially excommunicated from the Catholic Church and their bishops' consecrations declared invalid. The movement's seven founding self-consecrated "bishops" were formerly priests of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and former members of the Order of Saint Basil the Great. In 2009, the organization announced that it succeeded the "heretical" Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
The organization is also known as Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate or Pidhirtsi Fathers.
The movement has been described by The New York Times as anti-European Union and anti-Ukrainian as well as pro-Yanukovych and pro-Russian, as well as fervently against homosexuality which it often accuses its opponents of spreading.
In 2019, the sect elected Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, as Pope, thus switching from a sedevacantist to a conclavist position. There is no evidence that Viganò ever accepted the results of this election.
History
Prelude (from Roman Catholics to Greek Catholics)
Anthony Elias Dohnal, born 1946, was ordained as a priest for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Litoměřice in Czechoslovakia c. 1971.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ukrainian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church” is independent sect of Eastern Catholicism founded in 2019. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ukrainian, Orthodox and Greek, not as a finished interpretation.
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