Written by Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

Updated 03/18/14 – Additional information added

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis met privately at the Vatican with the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church March 17, the day after pro-Russian voters on the Crimean peninsula voted to secede from Ukraine in a referendum Canada, the United States and European Union called illegal.

While Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kiev-Halych, head of the Eastern-rite Church in Ukraine, declined requests for interviews, it was assumed his talk with the Pope would include a discussion about the fate of the Ukrainian Catholic priests ministering in Crimea.

Ukrainian Bishop Borys Gudziak of Paris, head of the Ukrainian Church’s external relations department, issued a statement March 15 saying Fr. Mykola Kvych, pastor of the Dormition of the Mother of God parish in Sevastopol, was taken from his church that morning, “seized by two men in uniform and four men in civilian clothing.” Earlier in the week, Gudziak said, Church leadership urged Kvych and other priests in Crimea to evacuate their families to mainland Ukraine.

“The priests themselves returned to their parishes to be with their faithful in a time of crisis and moral and physical danger,” he said.
Several hours after Kvych was taken from the church, the Ukrainian Catholic Church’s information service reported he had been freed after questioning, which apparently focused on accusations that he had been organizing anti-Russian riots.

The next day, however, parishioners helped him leave Crimea.

Ukrainian Catholics make up about 10 per cent of Crimea’s two million inhabitants; the majority of the people on the peninsula are ethnic Russians and speak Russian. Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia in late February and, in early March, Russian forces entered Crimea.
Crimean politicians said more than 96 per cent of voters participating in the referendum March 16 voted to secede from Ukraine. Members of the Crimean Parliament March 17 formally asked to join the Russian Federation.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian Catholic priest in Crimea said Church members are alarmed and frightened by the Russian military occupation and fear their communities might be outlawed again if Russian rule becomes permanent.
Fr. Mykhailo Milchakovskyi, a pastor in Kerch, Ukraine, described the atmosphere as tense because many residents of the town located in the eastern part of Crimea were unsure of their future.

“No one knows what will happen. Many people are trying to sell their homes and move to other parts of Ukraine,” Milchakovskyi told Catholic News Service.

“Our Church has no legal status in the Russian Federation, so it’s uncertain which laws will be applied if Crimea is annexed. We fear our churches will be confiscated and our clergy arrested,” the priest said.

He added that his Church feared Russian rule would inflict a “new oppression” on Ukrainian Catholics.
“Many have already stopped coming to church, after being branded nationalists and fascists by local provocateurs,” Milchakovskyi said. “The Orthodox have always insisted they’re dominant here and done everything to make life unpleasant for us. If they’re now given a free hand, we don’t know whether they’ll behave like Christians or follow the same unfriendly policy.”

Under Soviet rule, from 1946 to 1989, the Eastern-rite Ukrainian Catholic Church was outlawed. The strongest members lived their faith clandestinely, while others attended an Orthodox church or no church at all. The government confiscated all church property, giving some buildings to the Orthodox and putting other buildings to secular uses.