Due to historical circumstances (i.e. Russian occupation), the first hierarchs of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church held titles that did not mention the original metropolitan city of Kyiv. It is common for people to refer to the major archbishop as a "Primate". However, only Mykhailo Levitsky officially held that title which was granted by the Austrian Emperor as the Primate of Halychyna and Lodomeria, but not approved by the Pope.
Metropolitans in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Following the Synod of Polatsk (1838), the Ruthenian Uniate Church was forcibly abolished on the territory of the Russian Empire.[citation needed] Its property and clergy were transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. The only exception to this was the Eparchy of Chełm which lasted until May 1875 before its faithful were forcibly converted and its property seized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Those eparchies that ended up within the Habsburg monarchy were reorganized. The Eparchy of Lviv was elevated to an archeparchy and its bishop became a metropolitan bishop governing the rest of the eparchies of the former Ruthenian Uniate Church. The new metropolis received the name of Galicia (Halych)[a], an echo of the 14th century Metropolis of Halych. Only these hierarchs were recognised by the Holy See; those created by the Russian state were not recognised.
As the leading bishop, Josyf Slipyj was arrested by the Soviet authorities in 1945. Following the Lviv Council (1946), the Greek Catholic Church was forcibly abolished on the territory of the Soviet Union, and its property and clergy transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church.
On 25 November 1995, the Archiepiscopal Exarchate of Kyiv-Vyshhorod was created under the jurisdiction of Archeparchy of Lviv. Originally, it covered all central, eastern and southern parts of Ukraine. Later (2002-2003), it lost territory to form new exarchates for the eastern and southern regions. On 6 December 2004, the remaining central region of the Exarchate was transformed into the Archeparchy of Kyiv. Since the "Synod of Polotsk" in 1838, Kyiv had been deprived of its own see. At the same time, an ecclesiastical province or "major archeparchy" was erected. The Archeparchy of Kyiv became the principal see of the newly created Major Archeparchy of Kyiv-Halych, and thus a primatial see of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.[2] The episcopal seat of the "Metropolis of Galicia" was transferred from St. George's Cathedral in the city of Lviv to the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in the capital city of Ukraine — Kyiv.
