“HE PRESENTED TO BE ORTHODOX, BUT ADHERED TO ANCIENT UNIATE PRACTICES”: AN ATTEMPT TO RECONSTRUCT THE HISTORICAL PORTRAIT OF PRIEST MYKHAILO ANDRIYOVYCH FEDORAK (1921–1995)

Abstract

The aim of the work. Coverage of the life and activities of Father Mykhailo Andriyovych Fedorak, parish priest of the UGCC community of the village of Yamnytsia near Ivano-Frankivsk, an example of which can demonstrate the evolution of the views and behavior of one of the priests from the practice of an Orthodox “Uniate-minded” priest to the full restoration of his Greek-Catholic religious-confessional individual self-identification.The results. The second part of the article examines the activities of Father Mykhailo Fedorak as a priest of the ROC for local religious communities in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, his persecution by the Soviet authorities for “Uniate sentiments”, his return to the UGCC in 1989, and his pastoral and public work.Conclusions. The reconstruction of the life and activities of Father Mykhailo Andriyovych Fedorak (1921–1995), conducted on the basis of an analysis of a complex of historical sources using the methods of biography, prosopography, and microhistory, allows us to assert that he became a good example of zealous pastoral service for the Ukrainian people under the conditions of the Soviet totalitarian regime and in the revived independent Ukraine. At the same time, using the historiographic model “Church within the Church”, we can confirm the presence in the activities of Father M. A. Fedorak of elements of formal loyalty and “double confessional self-identity”, which was formed as a result of the historical circumstances of the formation of his personality and largely determined his active pastoral work, first as an Orthodox priest, his conflict with the Soviet totalitarian regime (which led to his imprisonment), and later found a final solution with his return to the bosom of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church legalized by the state. The important results of our research are the reconstruction of his pastoral work sequentially, first as an Orthodox priest in the villages of Kolodiivka, Dobrivlyany (Dobrovlyany) and Uzin (Uzyn) of the Stanislavsky district, Sadzhavka and Kubayivka (Kubayivka) of the Kolomyia district, Zhovten (Yezupil) of the Galician district, Hlubok (Hlyboke) of the Bogorodchansky district, Korshiv, Kazaniv, Lisky and Gody (Gody-Dobrovidka) of the Kolomyia district, Nyzhniv, Bratyshiv and Kutyska (Kutyshche), Zhukiv and Zhukotyn of the Tlumachsky district, and after his arrest and imprisonment in 1973–1975. – in the villages of Kolokolyn and Kozary in the Rohatyn district, Blyudnyky, Temerivtsi (Temirivtsi), Kurypiv, Pukasivtsi, Hannivtsi and Mezhyhirtsi in the Halych district, Yamnytsia in the Tysmenytsia district, and then as a Greek Catholic priest in the same village of Yamnytsia. Among the promising areas of research, in particular, is the reconstruction of the prosopographic portrait of the family of Father Mykhailo Fedorak, which will allow us to reveal the role of each such “little person” in the religious-ecclesiastical, cultural, professional, and public spheres of life of Ukrainian society.