On the “Uniate” Prince Volodymyr

I. Eggink, “Grand Prince Volodymyr Chooses the Faith.” Photo: open sources

On July 2, the head of the UGCC, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, solemnly brought into a Uniate church in Rome the relics of St. Prince Volodymyr, which had been gifted to him by Oleksandr Drabynko.

“We solemnly brought into this holy temple the relics of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Prince Volodymyr. This is the Volodymyr whom Moscow invaders stole from Ukraine, and today he returns to his Church,” Shevchuk declared.

As is well known, Volodymyr baptized Rus’ in the Orthodox faith, not the Catholic. And Uniates are Catholics. Nevertheless, this does not stop Shevchuk.

“Volodymyr says that the Church which was born in the waters of the Dnipro through that baptism he gave our people is here (in Rome),” the head of the UGCC assured. “We are the heirs of this Kyivan Christianity.”

Let us recall what the Primary Chronicle says about the Baptism of Rus’. Prince Volodymyr received envoys both from the Pope and from Constantinople. He had a choice – either Orthodoxy or Catholicism.

“Foreigners from Rome came and said: ‘We are sent by the Pope’... But Volodymyr said to the Germans: ‘Go back to where you came from, for our fathers did not accept this,’” so the Chronicle records his rejection of Catholicism.

That is, the Baptizer of Rus’ refused the Pope’s envoys and rejected their faith.

Catholics and Uniates often emphasize that the Baptism of Rus’ happened 66 years before the Great Schism of 1054, claiming therefore there was no difference in which faith he baptized Rus’. But this is false. In fact, the split happened much earlier.

In the mid-9th century, Pope Nicholas excommunicated Patriarch Photius of Constantinople, and Photius anathematized Nicholas. For the next 200 years, up until the Great Schism, there were almost no contacts between the Western and Eastern Churches.

Therefore, Prince Volodymyr’s choice in 988 was a conscious decision in favor of Orthodoxy. To say he has anything to do with Catholics is simply incorrect.

And he certainly was not a Uniate. Greek Catholics arose only in 1596 at the Union of Brest. They spread significantly only a century later, and only in the western lands.

Therefore, the UGCC is not any “Kyivan Church” and has no connection to Prince Volodymyr’s Baptism of Rus’.

Sviatoslav Shevchuk, tell people the truth, will you?

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