Greek-Catholic church of Subcarpathian Rus' by eyes of diplomats (on archival materials of the Czechoslovak Republic MFA)

The author analyses the documents from the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia to study the Greek-Catholic Basilian Order, whose monks were under constant administrative control by the state executive power. The Greek Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia operated within two dioceses - Mukachevo (Subcarpathian Rus) and Presov (mainly Eastern Slovakia). In WWI, the position of the Greek Catholic Church in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was difficult: the church was supposed to supply products for the army, lend money and even bells for melting into weapons. After 1918, the difficult wartime was followed by state modernism and secularisation in Czechoslovakia. As evidenced by numerous archival documents, the officials of the Czechoslovak government tried to limit the influence of the cultural idea of Hungary in the 1920s by opposing it to the Ukrainian cultural environment. However, this policy subsequently led to the spread of Ukrainian ideas from Poland to Subcarpathia, though the officials in the Czechoslovak government tried to limit them on the basis of consular and diplomatic measures in the 1930s by limiting the clergy of the Greek Catholic Church from Galicia and controlling its political loyalty.

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