Ukrainian Catholic People's party

Ukrainian Catholic People's party (Ukrainska katolytska narodnia partiia, or UKNP). A political party founded in Lviv in 1930 and known from 1932 as the Ukrainian People's Renewal (Ukrainska narodnia obnova). The UKNP promoted the principles of the Catholic church (see Christian Social Movement) and opposed atheism and Freemasonry. To a large extent it superseded the Christian Social party. It demanded autonomy for the Ukrainian territories under Poland but remained loyal to the Polish state. The party operated under the care of Bishop Hryhorii Khomyshyn and had more influence in his Stanyslaviv eparchy than in other regions of Galicia. From 1933 the president of UKNP was Ivan Voliansky, who was also a deputy to the Polish Sejm. Osyp Nazaruk was one of the party's leading members. Its organ was Nova zoria. It usually succeeded in placing one of its members in the Sejm and the Senate, but it failed to attain much political power in interwar Galicia.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]