University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy Volume 9 Issue 1 Fall 2014 Article 4 January 2014 Pro Deo et Patria: The Greek Catholic Church and Ukrainian National Life - Past and Present Brett R. McCaw Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.stthomas.edu/ustjlpp Part of the Religion Law Commons Recommended Citation Brett R. McCaw, Pro Deo et Patria: The Greek Catholic Church and Ukrainian National Life - Past and Present, 9 U. ST. THOMAS J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 94 (2014). Available at: https://ir.stthomas.edu/ustjlpp/vol9/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UST Research Online and the University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy. For more information, please contact the Editor-in-Chief at
[email protected]. PRO DEo ET PATRIA: THE GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH AND UKRAINIAN NATIONAL LIFE - PAST AND PRESENT BRETT R. MCCAW' In the early months of 2014, global attention turned to the streets of Kyiv as the most pressing crisis in post-Soviet Ukraine unraveled in the course of weeks. What originated as an incidental political protest against president Viktor Yanukovych's last minute reneging of a long-awaited European Association agreement, soon developed into a mass movement on Kyiv's Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) with ramifications for the entire country. As tensions escalated between protestors and riot police, stirring images of Ukrainian priests in the midst of such confrontations offered Western audiences a noteworthy paradox of the formerly atheistic Soviet republic's strikingly religious civil society.