Treaty on the Creation of the USSR on 30 December 1922 by a conference of delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR. The Treaty and the Declaration were confirmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by heads of delegations Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze and Grigory Petrovsky, Aleksandr Chervyakov respectively on December 30, 1922. The treaty provided flexibility to admit new members. Therefore, by 1940 the Soviet Union grew from the founding four republics to 15 republics. On 8 December 1991, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian Presidents signed the Belavezha Accords. The agreement declared
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the USSR Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the USSR The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the USSR refers to the period in its history between 1939 and 1991, when Western Ukraine was under Soviet rule. Soviet policy toward the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church cannot be understood simply in terms of Marxist–Leninist ideology. The precedent for Stalinist church policy in Western Ukraine can be found in the treatment of the Greek-Catholic Church during centuries of tsarist rule and the pattern of relations between the Russian state and the Orthodox Church. Hostility toward the so-called "Uniate Church" dates back to the Union of Brest