Abstract
The continuing conflict between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) in western Ukraine is routinely cited by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Aleksi 11 as the main obstacle to a papal visit to Russia. On 9 June 2000 the patriarch complained on the Russian national television channel RTR that Pope John Paul was failing to censure the Greek Catholic 'occupation' of the region. In the L'viv, Ternopil' and Ivano-Frankivs'k dioceses of the Ukrainian Orthodox ChurchMoscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), he maintained, parishioners were being 'hounded' from their churches and clergy beaten. Almost all the Catholic, Orthodox and government representatives we interviewed in Ukraine in September 2000, however, were in agreement that no such conflict existed. According to the secretary of the Greek Catholic Synod Bishop Yulian Gbur, 'the conflict between us and the Moscow Patriarchate exists only in the imagination'. Roman Catholic priest Fr Andrzej Legowicz similarly described the conflict as 'artificial'.
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