Introduction

Purveyors of conventional wisdom have analyzed the collapse of communism from many points of view: economic, political, ideological, structural, military. The respected American journal The National Interest devoted a special issue to the strange death of Soviet Communism. Its 144 pages contained many helpful insights and useful analyses, but only half a sentence on religion, and that in the framework of analbeit inspired forecast of the collapse of communism by the British columnist Bernard Levin. A passionate book by the American scholar George Weigel seized upon this theme more emphatically: the Roman Catholic Church was the catalyst for the dramatic overturning of the system. The unrelenting communist attempt to combat religion, either by direct physical attack, by reeducation of the masses, or by undermining its integrity through subversion of its leadership. Even during after World War II, period, the Ukrainian Catholic Church was liquidated because of its identification with the nationalist cause.