Editing Polonization (section)

==== Religion ====
{{See also|Recovery of Orthodox Churches in the Second Polish Republic}}
While the [[Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church]], which is in [[Full communion|communion]] with the [[Catholic Church]], hoped to receive a better treatment in Poland where the leadership saw Catholicism as one of the main tools to unify the nation – the Poles under [[Stanisław Grabski]] saw the restless Galician Ukrainians as less reliable than the Eastern Orthodox Volhynian Ukrainians,<ref name="Snyder" /> seen as better candidates for gradual assimilation. That's why the Polish policy in Ukraine initially aimed at keeping Greek Catholic Galicians from further influencing Orthodox Volhynians by drawing the so-called "Sokalski line".<ref name="Snyder">[[Timothy Snyder]], ''The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999'', Yale University Press, {{ISBN|0-300-10586-X}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=xSpEynLxJ1MC&dq=stanislaw+grabski&pg=PA144 No preview available. Google Books, p.144] See instead: [http://jivebelarus.net/files/books/Snyder-The-Reconstruction-of-Nations.pdf PDF copy (5,887 KB), last accessed: 25 February 2011.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110819003258/http://jivebelarus.net/files/books/Snyder-The-Reconstruction-of-Nations.pdf |date=19 August 2011 }}</ref>

Due to the region's history the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church attained a strong Ukrainian national character, and the Polish authorities sought to weaken it in various ways. In 1924, following a visit with Ukrainian Greek Catholics in North America and western Europe, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was initially denied reentry to Lviv for a considerable amount of time. Polish priests led by their bishops began to undertake missionary work among [[Eastern Catholic Church|Eastern Catholics]], and the administrative restrictions were placed on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.<ref name=Magocsi>{{cite book|author=Magocsi, P. |title=Morality and Reality: the Life and Times of Andrei Sheptytsky|location=Edmonton, Alberta |publisher=Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta |year=1989}}</ref>

With respect to the Eastern Orthodox Ukrainian population in eastern Poland, the [[Polish government]] initially issued a decree defending the rights of the Orthodox minorities. In practice, this often failed, as the Catholics, also eager to strengthen their position, had official representation in the [[Sejm]] and the courts. Any accusation was strong enough for a particular church to be confiscated and handed over to the Catholic Church. The goal of the two so called "[[Recovery of Orthodox Churches in the Second Polish Republic|revindication campaigns]]" was to reverse the gains of the Orthodox Church from the [[Russian Partition|partitions period]] and to return to the Catholics those churches that had been converted into Orthodox churches by the Russian authorities.{{Sfn|Magocsi|1996|p=596}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Piotrowski |first1=Tadeusz |title=Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947 |date=1998 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=9780786403714 |page=182 |quote=Under Tsarist rule the Uniate population had been forcibly converted to Orthodoxy. In 1875, at least 375 Uniate Churches were converted into Orthodox churches. The same was true of many Latin-rite Roman Catholic churches}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kloczowski |first1=Jerzy |title=A History of Polish Christianity |date=2000 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=9780521364294 |page=272 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ecdye8hk_tgC&pg=272}}</ref> 190 Orthodox churches were destroyed, some of the destroyed churches were abandoned,<ref name="BP">Manus I. Midlarsky, "The Impact of External Threat on States and Domestic Societie" [in:] ''Dissolving Boundaries'', Blackwell Publishers, 2003, {{ISBN|1-4051-2134-3}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=epmK6bwLECsC&dq=Pilsudski+minorities&pg=PA15 Google Print, p. 15.]</ref> and 150 more were forcibly transformed into Roman Catholic (not Greek Catholic) churches.<ref name=Subtelny>{{cite book |first= Orest|last=Subtelny |title=Ukraine: A History |location= Toronto |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=1988 |isbn=0-8020-5808-6 |author-link=Orest Subtelny}}</ref> Such actions were condemned by the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, [[Metropolitan bishop|metropolitan]] [[Andrei Sheptytsky]], who claimed that these acts would "destroy in the souls of our non-united Orthodox brothers the very thought of any possible reunion."<ref name="Magocsi"/>