Natalia Shlikhta "Ukrainian" as "Non-Orthodox": How Greek Catholics Were "Reunited" with the Russian Orthodox Church, 1940s - 1960s Natalia Shlikhta - Associate Professor, Chair of the History Department at the National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy" (Kyiv, Ukraine), nshlikhta@gmail.com Drawing upon archival, published, and oral sources as well as recent studies on the correlation between religion and nationality, the paper argues that formal "reunification" of the Greek Catholics with the Russian Orthodox Church has become a successful "subaltern strategy", ensuring the survival of the Greek Catholic Church through the Soviet period. The article demonstrates that the "Church within the Church", coming into existence as a result of "reunification", was for decades preserving its separate identity within the Russian Orthodox Church. The "Church within the Church" did not oppose directly the regime's assimilation policy while positioned itself as a Ukrainian and therefore as a non-Orthodox (because a non-Russian) and even as a non-Soviet. Concrete research issues are examined within a wider context of the survival of the Church in the Soviet state. Keywords: Russian Orthodox Church, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Church within the Church, national Church, communist (Soviet) regime, reunification, ecclesiastical nationalism. Introduction The "UNIATE problem", which the Stalinist leadership undertook at all costs (and with the help of the Moscow Patriarchate) to solve immediately after the end of World War II, was far from the only national challenge for Moscow. Previously, such challenges were the existence of Ukraine- page 208the existence of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (both the 1921 and 1942 models), as well as the existence of the Ukrainian Autonomous Church headed by Archbishop Alexy (Gromadsky), which, in justifying its autonomous rights, referred to the Regulations on the Ukrainian Exarchate of 1921. The religious situation in the Ukrainia ... Read more