«Tserkovnyi Vostok» Magazine as a Source for Studying the Worldview Dilemmas of Russophile Priests on the Eve of the First World War

Abstract

The Russophile movement was an important part of the Ukrainian national life of Galicia in the second half of the ХІХth and early ХХth centuries. The key role in its history was played by the Greek-Catholic clergy. On the eve of the First World War, the traditional Russophile ideology, based on the conservative principles of the historical tradition, faced a deep crisis. This also had a significant effect on the priests-russophiles. During the research period they were organized in the St. John Chrysostom Society, which published the magazine «Tserkovnyi Vostok» This magazine is a valuable source for a detailed analysis of the ideological problems of the Russophile part of the Greek Catholic clergy in 1910-1914. Based on this source, the author studies how these priests reacted to the new challenges. The most important was the transformation of the Greek Catholic Church into a modern Ukrainian national institution, what contradicted the main principles of the Russophile idea. As a result, the Russophiles became a minority among the clergy and lost their influence. In this situation they were forced to reconsider some of their key ideas, including the political activity of the Greek Catholic Church. The most radical ideological searches had consequences in sympathy for the Orthodox Church. This led to repression by the state and local authorities and destroyed the traditional image of
the Russophiles loyalty to the Habsburg monarchy. The author has established that, in spite of all unfavorable external circumstances, the reasons for the ideological dilemmas of this environment within the Church were primarily internal, connected with the specifics of the conservative perception of the world by Russophiles.