Pope will not establish Ukrainian Patriarchate

VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II said June 3 that Orthodox opposition makes it impossible at present for him to establish a patriarchate for the 4.5 million Ukrainian Catholics who celebrate the Byzantine Rite.

Addressing the members of the Permanent Synod of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the pope praised the church for its “heroic witness” under communism and said he supported its aspiration to have “a full juridical-ecclesial configuration.”

But John Paul indicated that he would bow at least for the present to the strong opposition of the Russian and other Orthodox churches to a Ukrainian Patriarchate, which would put the Ukrainian Church on the level of Orthodox churches.

The Russian Orthodox Church considers Ukraine to be part of its canonical territory. Since the fall of communism the Russian Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic churches have been at odds over church property confiscated by the Communists.