CHURCH leaders in Ukraine have marked the tenth anniversary of the “Maidan Revolution” against Russian domination, after Ukrainian and Russian representatives traded accusations over religious rights at a meeting of the UN Security Council.
“A decade separates us from the start of that revolution of dignity, when our people lost patience with a pro-Russian regime openly transforming Ukraine back into a Russian colony,” said the Primate of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church (OCU), Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko).
“It marked the beginning of our liberation from the Russian yoke, and the road has been a hard one, covered with thorns and drenched with tears and blood. But there is no other way for us, no gate back to the slavery Russia held us in for centuries.”
In social-media post on Tuesday, the national Day of Dignity and Freedom, Metropolitan Epiphany said that Moscow was still seeking, with “devilish pride and satanic malice”, to strip Ukraine of its liberty. He vowed that St Michael the Archangel would help “all brave fighters for truth” prevail in their struggle.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a TV message that the protests in Maidan Square, Kyiv, in which 106 Ukrainians had been killed and more than 2000 had been wounded, had marked “the first victory in today’s war. . . a victory for courage against indifference”. The Primate of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine, Major Archbishop Svetoslav Shevchuk, also recalled “the moment Ukrainians said no” to evil, blind violence, corruption, and the abuse of power.
“Perhaps, if Europe had heard the united voice of Ukraine’s Churches ten years ago, millions of Ukrainians would not have faced such a tragedy,” the Archbishop said in a national message on Tuesday.
“To defend our European choice, Ukrainians exchanged the Maidan barricades for trenches in the Donbas, and, two years ago, they launched nationwide resistance to a full-scale Russian aggression, whose goal was and remains the destruction of the Ukrainian state and our freedom-loving people.”
The commemorations followed angry exchanges during a Security Council session requested by Russia to highlight current legal moves against Ukrainian Orthodox communities opting to stay loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate.
At the session, Moscow’s permanent UN representative, Vasyl Nebenzia, said that a draft law awaiting final passage in the Kyiv parliament was “aimed at closing down the ancient canonical Orthodox Church”. He said that “groundless accusations” had been levelled by the Ukrainian government against the country’s Moscow-linked Orthodox Church (UOC), to “free the hands of radicals for violence and lawlessness”.
Russia’s own record was attacked, however, by the delegates from the United States and other Western countries, as well as by Ukraine’s representative, Natalia Mudrenko, who accused Moscow of using the Security Council to “promote the interests of the Russian Orthodox Church”.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow had repeatedly “broadcast propaganda narratives in unison with the Kremlin”, Ms Mudrenko said. His Church had annexed six UOC dioceses in areas under Russian occupation, and silenced its own priests when they tried to talk about peace.
The proposed Law 8371 would counteract attempts “to use religious organisations in Ukraine for the purposes of aggression”, Ms Mudrenko told the Security Council. But it would not penalise “religious organisations whose affiliation to the aggressor state is not established by the courts”.
The UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Ilze Brands Kehris, a Latvian, said that Ukraine had failed to protect UOC members or investigate threats and violence sufficiently. She called on the country to ensure “rights to due legal process, and a fair trial” for UOC clergy accused of collaboration with Moscow.
She went on to say, however, that UN observers had documented “disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture, ill-treatment, and unlawful deportations” of non-Russian Orthodox Christians under Russian occupation. She said that her UN office could help Ukrainian lawmakers to ensure that the new law complied with international legal standards.
Heavy fighting continued this week as Ukrainian forces attempted to repel a Russian counter-attack around the destroyed city of Bakhmut. The UN has confirmed that more than 10,000 civilians, including 560 children, have been killed, and 18,500 have been injured since the invasion by Russia last year, but it warned that the real toll would be “significantly higher”.
Tuesday’s Day of Dignity and Freedom was marked in Kyiv with visits by the German Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius; the President of the European Council, Charles Michel; and President Maia Sandu of Moldova. Stopovers were also made by the US Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, and the UK’s new Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron.
Patriarch Kirill said on Monday, his 77th birthday, that he felt joy at the Russian Church’s current expansion. He was praying for President Vladimir Putin, and thanked government officials at all levels for the “many important and good deeds being carried out through the interaction of secular authorities and the Church”.