UGCC cleric calls Russian Orthodox literature dangerous for clergy
While examining the causes of divisions within the UGCC, Yustyn Boiko concluded that Russian Orthodox literature had influenced Greek Catholic clergy.
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) cleric Yustyn Boiko said that Russian Orthodox spiritual and theological literature had exerted a dangerous influence on Greek Catholic clergy and monastics, shaping their thinking and contributing to schisms within the Church.
According to Boiko, Ukraine faced an acute shortage of Ukrainian-language spiritual literature beginning in the early 1990s, prompting large-scale imports of books and translations of the Church Fathers from Russia. As a result, entire generations of UGCC priests, monks, and laypeople were raised on Russian Orthodox literature.
The Greek Catholic priest emphasized that these books also introduced theological perspectives, spiritual practices, and ideas about Church life into the Greek Catholic community, influencing its monastic traditions.
Boiko arrived at these conclusions while studying the causes of internal schisms within the UGCC since the 1990s. “I am convinced that this is an important and understudied subject for academic research,” the cleric concluded, adding that “language matters.”
The UOJ previously reported that Yustyn Boiko had described the killing of a TRC officer as an “especially grave sin.”
