Today, the attention of scholars is increasingly drawn to church-religious issues. This interest is due to the current state of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, which remains divided into the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate. In the interwar period, the Russian Orthodox Church tried to establish control and influence the future of Orthodoxy in Poland.
This dissertation examines the legal status of the Orthodox Church in Poland (OCP) in 1921-1939. In interwar Poland, Orthodoxy was the second largest denomination after the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). At the same time, the Orthodox Church in Poland in the early 1920s remained subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church, and pro-Russian sentiments prevailed among the clergy. This did not satisfy the Polish authorities, who tried to subjugate this Church. There were no legal acts that would regulate the relationship of the Polish authorities to the Orthodox Church. Some provisions regarding religion and the church were enshrined in the Polish Constitution of 1921. The legal act that regulated the internal position of the OCP for many years was the "Temporary Rules on the Relationship of the Government to the Orthodox Church in Poland." Nevertheless, the Russian Patriarchate continued to claim its rights to Orthodoxy in Poland. The decisive act that broke the canonical connection between the OCP and the Russian Patriarchate was the "Patriarchal and Synodal Canonical Tomos of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople of November 13, 1924, recognizing the Orthodox Church in Poland as an autocephalous church." The final act that regulated the legal status of the Church was the Decree of the President of the Polish State of November 18, 1938, "On the Relation of the State to the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church." It introduced the official name "Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church," which was intended to emphasize the national affiliation of this church with the Polish state, distinguishing it from Orthodox churches in other countries.
A significant place in the dissertation is occupied by the analysis of the activities of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation of Volyn (UPRV) in protecting Orthodox Volhynians and fighting for the Ukrainization of the Church. From the late 20s to the early 30s, Ukrainian ambassadors and senators actively defended the interests of the Church. From the rostrums of the Sejm and the Senate, they sought to meet the needs of the Ukrainian Orthodox population. The Volyn Ukrainian Association (VUO) was created on the initiative of the UPRV, which put the problems of Ukrainization of Orthodoxy at the forefront of its activities. Ukrainian ambassadors came up with the idea of establishing a society named after Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, which demanded that the church system be based on the principles of conciliarity and that the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine be given a Ukrainian national character. The activities of the UPRV became a driving force that awakened and united Orthodox society in the struggle to build a national church. In the first half of the 1930s, the Ukrainian church movement had significant achievements: Ukrainians managed to lay the foundations of their own hierarchy, Ukrainize worship in many parishes of the Volyn Eparchy, and create and restore church and public institutions.
The problem of the property status of the Orthodox Church during the interwar period in Poland and the government's attempts to subjugate Orthodoxy by parceling out church lands was emphasized. The assimilation policy pursued by the Polish authorities was analyzed. The Polonization was met with resistance from the Orthodox population, which saw this policy as an attempt to assault their church traditions and an attempt to subordinate the Orthodox Church to Catholic Poland.
Considerable attention was paid to the revisionist actions of the Roman Catholic Church. To this end, Orthodox churches were destroyed, locked up, or given to Catholics. The transfer of shrines to the RCC was not always carried out in accordance with the actual needs of the Catholic population and not always in a legal way. The Orthodox population of Volyn defended their churches with all their might, seeking help from the Orthodox hierarchy and the state authorities. However, the church authorities could only protest, and the Polish government was not interested in preserving a large number of Orthodox churches and therefore practically tolerated this phenomenon.
The author analyzes in detail the neo-Union action, which became one of the tools for converting Orthodox Christians to Catholicism by creating a new rite. The commitment of a small part of the population to the neo-Union was accompanied by the distrust of parishioners in the hierarchy and the pro-Russian clergy, who neglected their pastoral duties, thereby losing the authority of the spiritual leader.
