Hniliczki affair
[1] The Hniliczki trial prompted leading Russophiles to emigrate to Russia, and the Vatican to replace the Greek Catholic Metropolitan of Lviv, Joseph Sembratovych, with a pro-Polish and pro-Latin Sylwester Sembratowicz.
[2] Since 1877, the Greek Catholic population living in this village had been requesting the establishment of a filial parish due to their insufficient number according to the Church regulations (800 people).
[2] At the turn of 1881 and 1882, the Galician press reported that 129 inhabitants of the village of Hniliczki Małe in the Zbarazh district submitted a request to convert from Eastern Catholicism to Orthodoxy.
[2] A longer letter was sent to the Greek Catholic consistory, in which the same individuals accused the Pope of violating the provisions of the Union of Brest, imposing it by force, and destroying churches.
They accepted the version that the transition to Orthodoxy was suggested to the peasants by a local landowner, Count Della Scala, whose mother belonged to that faith.
[3] It was acknowledged that the accusations against Catholicism in the application indicated that the text was not written by the peasants of Hniliczki but by a well-known Russophile activist, the parson of the Greek Catholic parish in Skalat, Ivan Naumovich.
Another important figure in the case was Oleksa Załuski, also a Russophile and a friend of Father Naumovich, who was in conflict with the Hniliczki parson due to his repeated articulation of unequivocally anti-Orthodox views.
[2] Seeing the dissatisfaction of the inhabitants of Hniliczki Małe with the lack of a church in their village, Szpunder began to promote the idea of adopting Orthodoxy, which was passed on to him by Father Naumovich.
The district administrator of Zbarazh, in a report to the High Imperial and Royal Governorship in Lviv, stated that the events in Hniliczki were a long-planned act of anti-state activity, as well as that:This attack is only an outburst of the widespread Russophile agitation to disturb the minds of peasants, to disrupt peace and order, and to incite hatred against nationalities.
[5] Metropolitan Joseph Sembratovych issued a letter in defense of Catholicism on 31 December 1881, and two days earlier condemned the Russophile newspapers Prolom and Wicze.
[3] However, after conducting preliminary investigations, which unequivocally established that the converts from Hniliczki were not motivated by religious reasons, the Austrian authorities decided to take decisive action against the Russophiles.
[7] Bernadetta Wójtowicz-Huber emphasizes that at the time of the scandal, Austro-Russian relations were particularly tense due to conflicting interests of both states in the Balkan region.
[5] According to Stefan Kieniewicz, the Governor of Galicia, Andrzej Kazimierz Potocki, who had hitherto tolerated Russophile activities, now decided to repress them.
[3] Provincial of the Jesuit Order, Henryk Nostitz-Jackowski [pl], in a letter to the papal nuncio in Vienna, Serafino Vannutelli, described the Greek Catholic Church as "riddled with schism".
[3] This letter prompted Vannutelli to inform the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, whose prefect, Cardinal Giovanni Simeoni, was perplexed by the attitude of Greek Catholic clergy professing Russophile views.
[3] The indictment against the Russophile group included charges of treason, espionage,[7] and aspirations to detach Bukovina, parts of Hungary, and Eastern Galicia from Austria.
[7] Testifying in court, Father Ivan Naumovich claimed that he acted out of "humanism, religion, love", convinced of the negative influence of the "Jesuits" on the Ruthenian population.
[9] He emphasized that he was not the organizer of a broader movement for conversion to Orthodoxy but merely hoped that such an act by the inhabitants of one village would prompt the Metropolitan of Lviv to convene a provincial Synod and the Pope to withdraw Jesuit and Resurrectionist orders from Galicia, which, in his opinion, contributed to the Polonization of the Ukrainian population.
[7] According to Osadczy, the stance of the Russian diplomacy, and thus Austria's fear of worsening bilateral relations with Russia, may have influenced the final low sentences in the trial.
According to Włodzimierz Osadczy:The apostasy to Orthodoxy of the Galician community of Hniliczki in the Zbarazh district shook not only the province but also resonated loudly in the high offices of Vienna and the apostolic halls of Rome.
[2]Pope Leo XIII, who closely monitored the situation in Galicia, removed from office the Greek Catholic metropolitan of Lviv, Joseph Sembratovych.
