Moscow, April 20, (Interfax) – On the Holy Friday, schismatics of the so-called “Kiev Patriarchate” captured the Transfiguration Church in the village of Beyevo, the Sumy Region, the Yedinoye Otechestvo Ukrainian public organization told an Interfax-Religion correspondent.
According to the organization’s official and editor of its web site Olga Kravets, Filaret’s followers “barricaded inside and desecrated the church not with their presence, but also with their excrement.”
“As the Satan is imitation of God, Filaret’s group is a parody on the Church,” Kravets said and added that Easter services would be celebrated in Beyevo in any case “even if we have to conduct them outdoors at the entry to the captured and desecrated Church.”
Ukrainian activists addressed the governor of the Sumy Region Nikolay Lavrik a telegram saying that “they are indignant at trampling of Orthodox believers rights in the Sumy Region.”
Monday, April 20, 2009
Interfax none to happy with UOC-KP
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One must be careful, when posting "stories" that appear on Ukrainian or Russian news services without a proper understanding of their immediate context, especially now that Ukraine is approaching its first presidential election (25 October 2009) since the Orange Revolution in 2004.
ReplyDeleteThe Kyivan Partiarchate has posted its own version of the event ( http://www.cerkva.info/2009/04/18/hram_Beeve.html ), claiming that the benefactor of the Church of the Transfiguration, Ivan Salo, bequeathed it to the Kyvian Patriarchate. There was no seizing of church property, nor desecration; moreover, the civil authorities were not called in to intervene.
One must keep in mind that the Sumy Region of Ukraine is from where President Yushchenko hails. Yushchenko has been a strong supporter of the Kyivan Patriarchate and the idea of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church, independent of Moscow.
Hence, it is no surprise that the Sumy Bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate, Jevlohij, wrote to President Yushchenko the following: "Today, your little Fatherland [the Sumy Region] is the only one in Ukraine, where presently the seizing of Orthodox churches continues and pressure is placed upon Orthodox believers. With respect, I ask You, as Head of State, to renew the legal right of the Orthodox inhabitants of the village of Bejevo, Lypovodolyns'kyj region, and stop the schismatics." In his letter of protest, Bishop Jevlohij referred to the members of the Kyivan Patriarchate as "Filaretian sectarians."
In a word, one can expect more stories like this to surface with the forth-coming presidential election. Religion plays a huge role in Ukrainian politics: pro-Russian candidates seek out the votes of the Ukrainian faithful belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate, while Western-leaning candidates rely on the votes of Ukrainian believers of those religious confessions independent of Moscow.
This simplification of things might help your readers unfamiliar with the Ukrainian reality place the Interfax "story" in its larger context.