By Klara GUDZYK, The Day
Last Wednesday journalists were shown a video cassette illustrating the
Kyiv Patriarch's visit to the Donbas [Donets Coal Basin]. In Mariupol,
the small group of visiting clergy was surrounded by a crowd of the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) zealots. Their newly erected cross
was torn down and the clergymen were bodily assaulted, the attackers tearing
off their pectoral crosses, shouting, "Anathema! Anathema! Anathema!"
It is now an established fact that Patriarch Filaret, the accompanying
clergy, and other Kyiv Patriarchate faithful visiting Mariupol were physically
assaulted when sanctifying the cross in what will hopefully become another
Orthodox church in the city. Patriarch Filaret received several blows,
his Panhagia vestment was torn off, whereupon water was poured over the
Hierarch, and his staff was broken. The windshield and rear window of his
automobile were smashed. Some of the clergymen accompanying him also suffered
body injuries - e.g., Hegumen Dmitry (Kyiv), Rt. Rev. Volodymyr (Donetsk),
and several local adherents. The Day contacted the Donetsk office
UOC (Moscow Patriarchate), asking for comment. The clergyman answering
the call refused to identify himself but confirmed the story. In a word,
what happened in the Donbas is another vivid testimony that the Memorandum
on Nonuse of Force in Settling Interfaith Conflicts, ceremoniously signed
by the hierarchs of the Ukrainian churches in the President's presence,
is just another sheet of paper.
The events preceding Patriarch Filaret's visit to Donetsk oblast included
Moscow Patriarchate zealots picketing the municipal authorities, carrying
posters demanding that the Patriarch be barred entry to the Donbas; such
pickets were also positioned on the boundary between Dnipropetrovsk and
Donetsk oblasts. In Donetsk, the Patriarch was made to spend five hours
in his vehicle parked in front of the Transfiguration Cathedral which is
under Kyiv Patriarchate jurisdiction. The militant "Christian" crowd never
let him out of the car or inside the house of God. And the militia just
stood by looking on.
The video accounts of Mariupol and boundary events convinced the journalists
present that there were comparatively few adherents campaigning for or
against the Moscow and Kyiv Patriarchates; a couple of dozen at best. Most
of the "zealots" turned out to be characters wearing church clothes, yet
more evidence that the interconfessional rift in Ukraine is mainly due
to the machinations of priests themselves. Plain ordinary believers seldom
bother to have an insight into the canonical complexities, as evidenced
by a recorded conversation between two women looking on from a safe distance:
"Who are those people wearing dark clothes?"
"They are the Orthodox believers."
"And the others, also wearing black?"
"They are also Orthodox."
"Then why are they fighting each other?"







