Ukrainian catholic priests marriage

In 988 East Slavic state of Kyivan Rus was converted to the Ukrainian catholic priests marriage form of Christianity at the behest of Volodymyr I of Kyiv. The centuries of Polish rule were characterized by a steady erosion of the economic and social status of most of the local Galician clergy.

Prior to the Habsburg reforms, a very small number of Greek Catholic clergy, often Polonized nobility, were linked to the Basilian order. Travelling the lands newly acquired from Poland in 1772, Austrian emperor Joseph II decided that the Greek Catholic clergy would be ideal vehicles for bringing about enlightened reform among the Ukrainian population. The Austrian reforms granting education, land, and government salaries set the stage for the clergy’s dominant position in western Ukrainian society for several generations. Both significant Ukrainian social movements, that of the Russophiles who sought to unite Ukraine with Russia and of the Ukrainianophiles, who supported Ukrainian independence, were dominated by members of the clergy.

The situation changed somewhat by the late nineteenth century. The clergy’s colossal efforts to educate the peasants resulted in the relative loss of priestly power. New members of the intelligentsia arose from the peasantry, some of whom objected to what they considered to be the priestly patronizing attitudes towards peasants as childlike or drunkards needing to be taught and led. Scholar Jean-Paul Himka has characterized the Galician clergy as having “an Orthodox face, Roman Catholic citizenship and an enlightened Austrian soul. This Austrianism manifested itself not only in loyalty to the Habsburg dynasty but also in following the role ascribed to them by the Austrian emperor as Enlighteners and educators of the Ukrainian community. In 1831 seminarians were required by the head of the Church to take classes in agronomy because they were expected to introduce modern farming methods to the peasants.