Shevchuk: ROC still refers to Lviv Council without adding “pseudo” prefix

Head of the UGCC at the university. Photo: UGCC press service

At a roundtable held at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv on March 12, 2026, and dedicated to the events of 1946, the head of the UGCC, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, expressed outrage that the Russian Orthodox Church still uses the term “Lviv Council” without adding the prefix “pseudo.”

According to the Uniate leader, the use of the word “council” without quotation marks is a product of “Soviet propaganda” and of a “special operation by the intelligence services,” whose purpose was the liquidation of the UGCC. Shevchuk recalled a past exchange between the former head of the UGCC, Lubomyr Husar, and Patriarch Kirill – then still DECR chairman – who, in response to calls to “face the truth,” allegedly resorted to “Soviet clichés” and described the events of 1946 as a Church act in opposition to the Union of Brest of 1596.

In his remarks, the head of the UGCC claimed that the Russian Church had become “an instrument for eliminating the phenomenon of Ukrainianness” in all its forms.

He further insisted that “there is no process of Ukrainian nation-building without the role of the UGCC,” effectively portraying his confession as a cornerstone of Ukrainian statehood. The Uniate head called on people to “free themselves from Orthodox propaganda” and place their trust in studies financed and promoted by UGCC structures themselves, along with the SBU.

Earlier, the UOJ reported on how Shevchuk told Budanov about the UGCC’s “state-forming role.”

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