Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the Soviet Union  The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the USSR refers to the period in its history between 1939 and 1991, when Western Ukraine was under Soviet rule. Soviet policy toward the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church cannot be understood simply in terms of Marxist–Leninist ideology. The precedent for Stalinist church policy in Western Ukraine can be found in the treatment of the Greek-Catholic Church during centuries of tsarist rule and the pattern of relations between the Russian state and the Orthodox Church. Hostility toward the so-called "Uniate Church" dates back to the Union of Brest in 1596, when the majority of Orthodox bishops in Ukraine and Belarus (then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) recognized the primacy of the Holy See. In return, papal guarantees recognized that the Uniates retained their Byzantine (Eastern) rite, the Church-Slavonic liturgical language, Eastern canon law, a married clergy and administrative autonomy. Coming only seven years after the establishment of the Moscow Patriarchate (which claimed jurisdiction over the Orthodox in the Commonwealth), this union was viewed by Muscovy not only as an ecclesiastical obstacle to its claim as the "Third Rome," but also as an attempt to permanently separate Ukraine and Belarus from Muscovy. This opposition continued after the second and third partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, when the Russian Empire systematically carried out attempts to liquidate the Union of Brest. The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church's incompatibility with Soviet Russian policy and social order stems from the church's title. As a "Ukrainian" church, the UGCC not only managed to maintain its ethnic individuality under foreign domination but also helped forge a modern national self-identity. As a "Catholic" church, the UGCC was closely tied to Rome and to other Catholic Churches. Without any efforts to conceal its intentions, the Soviet regime renewed earlier attempts to liquidate the Union of Brest following its occupation of Western Ukrainian lands in September 1939, prior to which they had belonged to Poland. A propaganda campaign against the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church was initiated by the magazine "Communist", which, in its 9 October 1939 issue, accused the church's infrastructure of Anti-Soviet agitation and collaboration with the "Polish Bourgeoisie." At this same time, 20 Ukrainian Greek-Catholic publications were shut down by Soviet authorities who subsequently began confiscating religious literature from libraries and bookstores. Seminaries and monastic novitiates also witnessed the forced closure of their institutions.