c. 2003 Religion News Service

TORONTO _ Cardinal Lubomyr Husar is a realist.

As leader of the world’s 6 million Ukrainian Catholics, he doesn’t sugarcoat tensions that exist with his counterpart in Orthodox Christianity, and he fully and freely acknowledges the need for bridge-building to ease relations he concedes are sour.

Husar, who recently ended a 19-day pastoral tour of Canada, says he’s eager to tackle the East-West divide that continues to result in cold relations between the majority Ukrainian Orthodox Church and his church, which was persecuted and driven underground in the days of the Soviet Union.

Relations with the Orthodox “are not very happy for several reasons, mainly political,” Husar told RNS in an interview during his Toronto stop. “Relations with everyone (else) are very correct. We’re not fighting one another. We do not avoid one another.”

However, the “overall situation is not at this moment a very bright one. We are trying to establish some collaboration on the basis of social action (and) cultural projects as sort of a beginning of a collaboration. We have neglected this a bit too much.”

Husar said be believes Ukrainian authorities wish to integrate the Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Orthodox church as a way of integrating and stabilizing the country.

In Canada, the Ukrainian Catholic Church consists of the Archeparchy (archdiocese) of Winnipeg and four eparchies (dioceses) in Toronto, Saskatoon, Edmonton and New Westminster, British Columbia. There are more than 300,000 Ukrainian Catholics in this country.

Husar, who will turn 70 later this month, also appealed for funds to help build a huge new cathedral in Kiev. The project is seen as the centerpiece of his grand plans to move the church’s headquarters from Lviv, in the western part of Ukraine, to the capital, located in the country’s center.

Born in Lviv, Husar’s family fled to the United States in 1944, where he studied for the priesthood. He served as a pastor in Kerhonkson, N.Y., and as a prefect in Stamford, Conn. After further studies, he became a Studite monk. He was named a bishop in 1977 and a cardinal in 2001.

The Ukrainian Catholic Church (known in its homeland as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church) was liquidated by Josef Stalin and forced underground by the Soviets in 1946. Property was confiscated and all its bishops and many priests were arrested. Some were tortured. The church was re-legalized in 1991.

Today, it is the largest of Catholicism’s Eastern rite, or Uniate, churches _ in full communion with Rome while using the Byzantine ritual. Ukrainian Catholic priests may marry before they are ordained, but not after.

It wasn’t until 1965 that Catholic and Orthodox churches lifted mutual excommunications that had divided them since the Great Schism of 1054, the year the two camps were born.

Even during persecution under the Soviets, “there was a period of close understanding (between Catholics and Ukrainian Orthodoxy),” said Husar. But “once everybody came up into the open, strangely enough, this warmth … cooled down considerably, especially on an official level, because other interests have entered.”

Now, the two sides are looking to develop “more religious closeness. It’s going to be a long process, not an easy one, but we are certainly not pessimists because we have been witnesses to certain miracles, like the collapse of the Soviet Union. So I don’t think for God it would be much of a difficulty to bring us together.”

Husar said he also hopes to resolve a longstanding dispute with neighboring Russia, which does not recognize the Ukrainian Catholic Church and forbids it from building churches.

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Another sore point lies in the Vatican’s refusal, our of consideration for the Orthodox, to elevate Husar’s position to that of a patriarchate. His official title is “major archbishop.” But on this matter too, he is optimistic.

“The patriarchate is not something special. It is the normal way of structuring the Eastern church, whether Orthodox or Catholic. What we are asking is not something unusual or exceptional. We simply ask for a consistent policy of treating Eastern churches according to their own tradition, as has been requested by the Second Vatican Council. We are treating (this) as a normal situation to which we aspire,” says Husar, adding the Holy See’s attitude on the issue “has changed in our favor.”

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Even shifting the Ukrainian Catholic Church’s headquarters from the western part of the country to the capital, Kiev, has resulted in tension because the Orthodox church has viewed it as a move into its traditional territory.

“We are moving our center to underline that we are not a church of one corner of Ukraine but as centrally located as any other church in Ukraine,” Husar responds. There are many “historical and pastoral reasons to move.”

In some circles, Husar has been touted as a successor to Pope John Paul, but he good-naturedly dismissed the possibility.

“I don’t take it seriously,” he said. “I think we need an Italian pope.”

Touching on a possible U.S.-led war in Iraq, Husar said that in Ukraine, at least, “I suspect nobody wants a war. It seems not to be a war on terrorism. There seem to be other interests very strongly emphasized.”

DEA END CSILLAG