Annual Report. PATRIARCHAL CURIA UGCC 2019

78 Areas within Ukraine which need the most support for their growth Pastoral care to the UGCC fai thful abroad and mi ss ionar y act i v i ty in Ukraine Prior to the forced abolition in XVIII-XIX, the Ukrainian Catholics had more than 2,000 parishes in Central and Eastern Ukraine After the Union of Brest in 1596, over the next two hundred years most of the faithful in the Central and Eastern Ukraine were united with the Holy See and recognized as an Eastern Catholic Church "sui iuris". The Russian Czarist Empire extended its authority to the adja- cent Ukrainian lands. This extension was accompanied by repressions against "uniates" and their forced "conversion" to Russian Orthodoxy. This took place in the "Right Bank" Ukraine in 1768–1796. This repression reached Western Belarus and Northern Volhynia in 1839, and by 1875 it had encompassed the Kholm Region and Pidliashshia (present day Poland). Prior to the forced abolition in XVIII-XIX , the Ukrainian Catholics had more than 2,000 parishes in Central and Eastern Ukraine. After legalization of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in 1989, the Church leadership decided to return a UGCC presence to the territories outside of Western Ukraine, with the majority of the population professing Orthodox faith. Today, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church has 324 parishes in the territories outside of Western Ukraine. There is room for growth considering the historic number of more than 2,000 parishes in the XIXth centu- ry, prior to the brutal abolition of the Church by the Russian regime.