THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES OF THE STUDY OF THE SOVIET PERIOD IN HISTORY UKRAINIAN GRECO-CATHOLIC CHURCH

The evolution of contemporary humanitarian science takes place under the influence of a wide range of processes that affect the human consciousness, stirring up interest in it in the knowledge of a new, in understanding its past. Recent events that filled the Ukrainian society, actualized the demands of the people to history in their local and global dimensions. Being under the constant influence of the mass media, who often submit a limited interpretation of the facts, a contemporary Ukrainian citizen has a desire for a creative study of the experiences of past generations. The hybrid Russian-Ukrainian War convincingly emphasized that knowledge of its own history is an integral part of the national security of the state, which can be built by anyone who considers Ukraine as their homeland, identifies with it a story of its kind. In studying the history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the Soviet era, historical science enjoys both generally accepted and special methodological principles that emerged during the second half of the twentieth century. in the environment of both Ukrainian scientific emigration and post-Soviet era. It clearly reflects the historical background of the period and its impact on the functioning of scientific institutions, the formation of scientific research areas, etc. Among the key issues was the study of the historiographical description of the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the UGCC, the Greek Catholic underground, the dissident movement in its environment. It was in the environment of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic emigration that the themes of such studies were born, which later only entered the western historiography, and hence the contemporary historical thought. Each of them contained some emotional coverage of the problem, and somewhere with elements of the archaic approach to highlighting the complex issues of the history of Ukrainian Greek Catholicism. However, in our opinion, this is perhaps the best way to understand the essence of the liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church and the repression against its episcopate, monasticism, clergy, etc. The article also focuses on the special terminology that should be used in the study of Ukrainian Greek Catholicism in the Soviet era. In particular, terms such as „unbreakable”, „Catacomb Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church”, „catacomb period of the UGCC”, „the history of the elimination of the UGCC” are highlighted and interpreted.