14 March 2023
The Ukrainian authorities continue to follow the path of establishing a dictatorship in the country, justifying their steps by the war with Russia. At the same time, official propaganda says at every step that Ukraine is at the forefront of the struggle for democracy.
Well, a strange form of democracy that we have. If everything that is happening in Ukraine today is democratic processes, then we will have to admit that the Bolsheviks were super-democrats. Since, in fact, the current actions of the Ukrainian authorities are a revival of the traditions of Bolshevism. A sort of Bolshevism without Marx: the same methods, the same rhetoric, and the same style.
On 10 March 2023, the Holy Dormition Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra received a letter from the state authorities stating that from 29 March, an indefinite lease agreement will be terminated, according to which the monastery’s infrastructure (except for the territory of the reserve site) shall be transferred to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to be further used by the latter. An attempt is made to strip the Church of its main sanctuary, and this happens in violation of the current legislation, with reference to absolutely speculative and far-fetched arguments. This is the second stage of the plan to expel the UOC from the Lavra. The first one took place several months ago, when the Church was deprived of some of the church buildings in the upper part of the Lavra. Unfortunately, this is accompanied by a campaign of defamation against hierarchs, the imposition of sanctions against clergymen on the basis of far-fetched, unsubstantiated accusations, the seizure of churches, attempts to blackmail, exert pressure against and bribe priests – in order to tempt them over to the side of a new “church” instituted by the authorities.
It is noteworthy that the Ukrainian authorities took the respective decision regarding the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra on 10 March – on the same day in 1961, the authorities of Soviet Ukraine decided to close down the monastery on the territory of the Lavra, as part of an anti-religious campaign (at first, under the pretext of repairing the buildings. Yet everyone realized that it was about the termination of the monastery).
Attacks on sanctuaries do not go with impunity. Thus, in three days after the decision to close down the monastery on the territory of the Lavra in 1961, namely on 13 March, Kyiv experienced one of the greatest tragedies in its history – the Kurenivka mudslide tragedy. The fate of the people who made this decision is much unenviable, too. The Lavra is an adobe of the Holy Mother, and any boldness of a human against what does not belong to him by right is punishable. I am a believer, and I believe that any action will be rewarded a hundredfold, will backfire.
The events around the Lavra are in full accord with the narrative of the current government’s policy aimed at creating an artificial pseudo-church backed by the state – the OCU. The process, launched by former president Petro Poroshenko, has gained a new momentum today. How many times in history have politicians sought to subjugate not only secular life, but also spiritual or religious life! Unfortunately, the current leadership of Ukraine is not an exception in that sense.
“Peter the Great was the first Bolshevik,” wrote Maximilian Voloshin in 1924. He also attempted to create a system where the Church was governed by a state structure subordinated to the emperor – the Most Holy Governing Synod. This system was destroyed in 1917: it was then that the Church was separated from the state, and after a break of two hundred years, Orthodoxy found a real Shepherd – His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon.
The history of the Bolshevik regime also knows a shameful page about the creation of a “renovationist” or “living” church – the most politicized, most compromising and opportunistic one, with portraits of Lenin and Trotsky next to the Holy Images.
The history of Ecumenical Orthodoxy saw an equally shameful attempt by Patriarch Gregory VII of Constantinople to recognize this false church – under the pressure from Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Alas, similarity with the events around the recognition of the OCU is obvious. One of the leaders of “Renovationism”, who later broke up with his colleagues in heresy, “Metropolitan” Antonin (Granovsky) wrote, “By the time of the Council of 1923, there was not a single drunkard, not a single vulgar, who did not get into the church administration and did not cover himself with a title or mitre. The Living Church prelates did not want to be consecrated bishops; they were made right into the second rank of archbishops. The whole country was covered with a network of archbishops who leapfrogged to the bishop’s pulpits directly from the ranks of drunk deacons. An incredible number of archbishops and metropolitans popped out, those who faced a lack of white crepe for their headgear. A monstrous, rampant, predatory, insatiable priestly brawl, or some form of sadism manifested through an award- or rank-giving spree, broke out.” How fresh and how closely correlated with the trends of the new time! It seems that the current authorities, in their striving to support the false church, repeat that century-old shameful stance.
Back then, Metropolitan Mikhail (Ermakov) of Kyiv was the most important pillar in the Ukrainian Orthodoxy, who, thanks to his authority, did not allow schismatics and self-consecrators to destroy the Church, and who agreed to go through prisons and camps, but did not betray true Orthodoxy. History teaches us that no yermaks can overcome the Ermakovs – after all, the Lord is on the side of truth, and not on the side of force.
There arises a question: if actions in relation to the Church are signs of democracy (as propaganda seeks to convince us), what is totalitarianism then?
Do the authorities really want to hand the Lavra over to the OCU? They have a very bad knowledge of history. At the end of the 16th century, the Uniates already tried to establish control over the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, but twice met with a rebuff organized by Archimandrite Nykyfor (Tur). In the 20th century, the authorities made three attempts to prohibit the service in the Lavra – and each time they failed. Where is the power of the ungodly communists now? Or do the naive power holders of today think that they are stronger than Christ? Well, communists were more organized, and they were driven although by a satanic, but still an idea, and not a banal desire to curry favour with the suzerains. Communists were fanatics, but there are no fanatics in the close circles of the current president – but rather only pragmatists, and only cynics.
A logical question arises: what does the OCU need the Lavra for? Remember, in Pushkin’s “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel”, Tsar Dodon was sincerely surprised by the desire of the Skopets stargazer, “But why do you need Tsarina?” It is known that the OCU almost does not have monks (233 monks, according to the official information as of November 2021), while the Ukrainian Orthodox Church had 4,620 monks at the end of 2022. This, by the way, is also an important indicator of the realness of the OCU: asceticism and self-sacrifice in the name of the Lord is one of the constituent elements in the activities of each Church.
Over the past 35 years, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has carried out significant restoration and repair work in the lower part of the Lavra, where some buildings have been re-built from ruins. Everyone can compare the state of the Upper (state-owned) and Lower Lavra. So, the question is, “Is it fair to forcibly evict and expel the brethren (the monks) from the monastery, which was restored by their hands, for the money donated by faithful parishioners of this particular Church? Is it possible to deprive of housing and forcibly evict the inhabitants of the monastery, for whom the Lavra is the place of their permanent residence? What is this, if not an outright raiding or takeover, in which senior officials are involved?”
The Church will certainly appeal to the courts, try to challenge the actions of the authorities, referring to the current legislation – since a number of articles of the Economic and Civil Codes of Ukraine (regarding the procedure for termination of the lease agreement) have obviously been violated. The reasoning set out in the letter contains patently false statements and references to non-existent decisions of the National Security and Defence Council (sanctions of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine were imposed against specific individuals and not against the Church as a public institution). However, frankly speaking, in a country where even the president can ignore the decisions of the Constitutional Court, hoping for victory in a judicial dispute would be a thankless occupation. For this reason, it will be almost inevitable to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, and if the case is won (and it will be won, of which I have no doubt), the state of Ukraine will be forced not only to cancel the illegal decision, but also to pay compensation.
It is also surprising that international human rights organizations, usually thoroughly looking for the slightest sign of violation of civil liberties, are silent in the case of violations of the rights of the UOC’s multi-million flock in Ukraine. Did someone, who generously distributes grants (including for human rights activities), order them to remain silent? Where is the famous objectivity, impartiality and honesty of these organizations?
Where are the positions of foreign embassies that are constantly concerned for the slightest reason? Where is the voice of the G7 ambassadors?
I am sure that the role of believers is not last in this matter. Today, the Lord is testing us again for strength and devotion to Him. In recent years, the faithful believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have repeatedly proved that they are ready to selflessly defend their Church. The processions in 2016-2018 gathered a huge number of believers. Those in power, while demonstrating voluntarism (remember such a term, popular after Khrushchev’s resignation?), risk losing trust in the eyes of their people. Actions aimed at fighting against their own people in the conditions of the bloody war with Russia are a patent madness. Or maybe the authorities think that by banning the Church and taking away the shrines and sanctuaries, they motivate millions of faithful believers of the UOC to be patriots of Ukraine? Does the state have the right to systematically violate the fundamental rights of citizens – including the right to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion?
I believe in the triumph of justice, and I believe in real democracy in our country.
Any power is temporary. True faith and the true Church are eternal, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. “If God is for us, who is against us?” asked St. Paul in his letter to the Romans. And this question still remains relevant today.
Spiritual boomerang always comes back, and if the current government does not believe in God, it must at least learn the lessons of history.
True faith always overcomes political fashion and the desire to be opportunistic and take advantage of the situation.
All related news Well, a strange form of democracy that we have. If everything that is happening in Ukraine today is democratic processes, then we will have to admit that the Bolsheviks were super-democrats. Since, in fact, the current actions of the Ukrainian authorities are a revival of the traditions of Bolshevism. A sort of Bolshevism without Marx: the same methods, the same rhetoric, and the same style.
On 10 March 2023, the Holy Dormition Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra received a letter from the state authorities stating that from 29 March, an indefinite lease agreement will be terminated, according to which the monastery’s infrastructure (except for the territory of the reserve site) shall be transferred to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to be further used by the latter. An attempt is made to strip the Church of its main sanctuary, and this happens in violation of the current legislation, with reference to absolutely speculative and far-fetched arguments. This is the second stage of the plan to expel the UOC from the Lavra. The first one took place several months ago, when the Church was deprived of some of the church buildings in the upper part of the Lavra. Unfortunately, this is accompanied by a campaign of defamation against hierarchs, the imposition of sanctions against clergymen on the basis of far-fetched, unsubstantiated accusations, the seizure of churches, attempts to blackmail, exert pressure against and bribe priests – in order to tempt them over to the side of a new “church” instituted by the authorities.
It is noteworthy that the Ukrainian authorities took the respective decision regarding the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra on 10 March – on the same day in 1961, the authorities of Soviet Ukraine decided to close down the monastery on the territory of the Lavra, as part of an anti-religious campaign (at first, under the pretext of repairing the buildings. Yet everyone realized that it was about the termination of the monastery).
Attacks on sanctuaries do not go with impunity. Thus, in three days after the decision to close down the monastery on the territory of the Lavra in 1961, namely on 13 March, Kyiv experienced one of the greatest tragedies in its history – the Kurenivka mudslide tragedy. The fate of the people who made this decision is much unenviable, too. The Lavra is an adobe of the Holy Mother, and any boldness of a human against what does not belong to him by right is punishable. I am a believer, and I believe that any action will be rewarded a hundredfold, will backfire.
The events around the Lavra are in full accord with the narrative of the current government’s policy aimed at creating an artificial pseudo-church backed by the state – the OCU. The process, launched by former president Petro Poroshenko, has gained a new momentum today. How many times in history have politicians sought to subjugate not only secular life, but also spiritual or religious life! Unfortunately, the current leadership of Ukraine is not an exception in that sense.
“Peter the Great was the first Bolshevik,” wrote Maximilian Voloshin in 1924. He also attempted to create a system where the Church was governed by a state structure subordinated to the emperor – the Most Holy Governing Synod. This system was destroyed in 1917: it was then that the Church was separated from the state, and after a break of two hundred years, Orthodoxy found a real Shepherd – His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon.
The history of the Bolshevik regime also knows a shameful page about the creation of a “renovationist” or “living” church – the most politicized, most compromising and opportunistic one, with portraits of Lenin and Trotsky next to the Holy Images.
The history of Ecumenical Orthodoxy saw an equally shameful attempt by Patriarch Gregory VII of Constantinople to recognize this false church – under the pressure from Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Alas, similarity with the events around the recognition of the OCU is obvious. One of the leaders of “Renovationism”, who later broke up with his colleagues in heresy, “Metropolitan” Antonin (Granovsky) wrote, “By the time of the Council of 1923, there was not a single drunkard, not a single vulgar, who did not get into the church administration and did not cover himself with a title or mitre. The Living Church prelates did not want to be consecrated bishops; they were made right into the second rank of archbishops. The whole country was covered with a network of archbishops who leapfrogged to the bishop’s pulpits directly from the ranks of drunk deacons. An incredible number of archbishops and metropolitans popped out, those who faced a lack of white crepe for their headgear. A monstrous, rampant, predatory, insatiable priestly brawl, or some form of sadism manifested through an award- or rank-giving spree, broke out.” How fresh and how closely correlated with the trends of the new time! It seems that the current authorities, in their striving to support the false church, repeat that century-old shameful stance.
Back then, Metropolitan Mikhail (Ermakov) of Kyiv was the most important pillar in the Ukrainian Orthodoxy, who, thanks to his authority, did not allow schismatics and self-consecrators to destroy the Church, and who agreed to go through prisons and camps, but did not betray true Orthodoxy. History teaches us that no yermaks can overcome the Ermakovs – after all, the Lord is on the side of truth, and not on the side of force.
There arises a question: if actions in relation to the Church are signs of democracy (as propaganda seeks to convince us), what is totalitarianism then?
Do the authorities really want to hand the Lavra over to the OCU? They have a very bad knowledge of history. At the end of the 16th century, the Uniates already tried to establish control over the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, but twice met with a rebuff organized by Archimandrite Nykyfor (Tur). In the 20th century, the authorities made three attempts to prohibit the service in the Lavra – and each time they failed. Where is the power of the ungodly communists now? Or do the naive power holders of today think that they are stronger than Christ? Well, communists were more organized, and they were driven although by a satanic, but still an idea, and not a banal desire to curry favour with the suzerains. Communists were fanatics, but there are no fanatics in the close circles of the current president – but rather only pragmatists, and only cynics.
A logical question arises: what does the OCU need the Lavra for? Remember, in Pushkin’s “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel”, Tsar Dodon was sincerely surprised by the desire of the Skopets stargazer, “But why do you need Tsarina?” It is known that the OCU almost does not have monks (233 monks, according to the official information as of November 2021), while the Ukrainian Orthodox Church had 4,620 monks at the end of 2022. This, by the way, is also an important indicator of the realness of the OCU: asceticism and self-sacrifice in the name of the Lord is one of the constituent elements in the activities of each Church.
Over the past 35 years, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has carried out significant restoration and repair work in the lower part of the Lavra, where some buildings have been re-built from ruins. Everyone can compare the state of the Upper (state-owned) and Lower Lavra. So, the question is, “Is it fair to forcibly evict and expel the brethren (the monks) from the monastery, which was restored by their hands, for the money donated by faithful parishioners of this particular Church? Is it possible to deprive of housing and forcibly evict the inhabitants of the monastery, for whom the Lavra is the place of their permanent residence? What is this, if not an outright raiding or takeover, in which senior officials are involved?”
The Church will certainly appeal to the courts, try to challenge the actions of the authorities, referring to the current legislation – since a number of articles of the Economic and Civil Codes of Ukraine (regarding the procedure for termination of the lease agreement) have obviously been violated. The reasoning set out in the letter contains patently false statements and references to non-existent decisions of the National Security and Defence Council (sanctions of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine were imposed against specific individuals and not against the Church as a public institution). However, frankly speaking, in a country where even the president can ignore the decisions of the Constitutional Court, hoping for victory in a judicial dispute would be a thankless occupation. For this reason, it will be almost inevitable to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, and if the case is won (and it will be won, of which I have no doubt), the state of Ukraine will be forced not only to cancel the illegal decision, but also to pay compensation.
It is also surprising that international human rights organizations, usually thoroughly looking for the slightest sign of violation of civil liberties, are silent in the case of violations of the rights of the UOC’s multi-million flock in Ukraine. Did someone, who generously distributes grants (including for human rights activities), order them to remain silent? Where is the famous objectivity, impartiality and honesty of these organizations?
Where are the positions of foreign embassies that are constantly concerned for the slightest reason? Where is the voice of the G7 ambassadors?
I am sure that the role of believers is not last in this matter. Today, the Lord is testing us again for strength and devotion to Him. In recent years, the faithful believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have repeatedly proved that they are ready to selflessly defend their Church. The processions in 2016-2018 gathered a huge number of believers. Those in power, while demonstrating voluntarism (remember such a term, popular after Khrushchev’s resignation?), risk losing trust in the eyes of their people. Actions aimed at fighting against their own people in the conditions of the bloody war with Russia are a patent madness. Or maybe the authorities think that by banning the Church and taking away the shrines and sanctuaries, they motivate millions of faithful believers of the UOC to be patriots of Ukraine? Does the state have the right to systematically violate the fundamental rights of citizens – including the right to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion?
I believe in the triumph of justice, and I believe in real democracy in our country.
Any power is temporary. True faith and the true Church are eternal, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. “If God is for us, who is against us?” asked St. Paul in his letter to the Romans. And this question still remains relevant today.
Spiritual boomerang always comes back, and if the current government does not believe in God, it must at least learn the lessons of history.
True faith always overcomes political fashion and the desire to be opportunistic and take advantage of the situation.
