Katherine L. Younger is a PhD candidate in Russian/East European History at Yale University (New Haven, CT), and her dissertation examines the Greek Catholic (Uniate) Church in the 19th century, focusing on the church’s international context. While today we often think of the Church as a specifically Ukrainian institution, in the 19th century perceptions of the Church were much more fluid. The Church occupied a liminal position between Orthodoxy and Catholicism and between the Russian and Habsburg Empires, and this position rendered the Church an object of great fascination across Europe. Not only were government officials and religious figures interested in shaping the Church in their image, but the European public – especially Catholic Western Europe – was also invested in the fate of their coreligionists. The researcher will detail the vicissitudes of imperial, ecclesiastic, and public attention, the resulting policies, and their consequences for the Church. Ultimately, this transnational history will help elucidate the interplay between religion and power in the modern world.

During her stay in Lviv, Katherine L. Younger plans to focus on the role played by the city itself in the evolution of the Greek Catholic Church’s international context: as the seat of the Church hierarchy; as the urban center through which so many of the clergy passed during their training to enter the priesthood; and as the nexus of interactions between state officials, religious officials, and the Greek Catholic population.