NEWS ANALYSIS: Independent Orthodox parish fights for its rights in Donetsk (08/23/98)

NEWS ANALYSIS

Independent Orthodox parish fights for its rights in Donetsk

by Felix Corley
Keston News Service

DONETSK - Nearly six months after Ukraine's Supreme Arbitration Court ruled that it no longer had the right to use its church building or even call itself a religious community, the independent Orthodox Spaso-Preobrazhenska Parish in Donetsk has vowed to carry on the fight for its rights. "We have shown resoluteness in fighting for our legitimate right to be an independent Orthodox community, something that does not contradict the legislation of Ukraine and international legal standards," Archimandrite Yurii Yurchyk, pastor, told Keston News Service on July 16.

The parish has a regular congregation of about 100, with numbers rising to about 1,000 on major feasts. Archimandrite Yurii, who was ordained by a bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1991, but now does not consider himself under the jurisdiction of any bishop, conducts the liturgy in Ukrainian.

The court decision of February 2, according to Archimandrite Yurii, was motivated by the state's preference for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate and its dislike of independent Orthodox communities that threaten the dominance of that branch of the Orthodox Church. Archimandrite Yurii is also unpopular among local officials for his close cooperation with other local Christian communities, including Pentecostals and Baptists. He has also maintained international ecumenical contacts, especially with the Anglican Church (funds from one of whose members, John James Hughes, the owner of a metallurgical firm in Donetsk, helped construct the church building in 1910).

Since the court decision nearly six months ago, Archimandrite Yurii said, "There have been attempts by the Donetsk regional administration to blackmail me and my parishioners. For example, it was announced that if we persist, not only will the building be taken away from us, but conditions will be created in which we will not be able to conduct any further religious activity in Ukraine."

He continued: "They have also threatened to slander us in the newspapers and other mass media by calling us amoral people, sectarians, etc. Recently I have further been threatened with physical attack or imprisonment. These threats come from official sources, such as the head of the Directorate for Religious Affairs of the Donetsk region, G. B. Kostenko, and representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine."

Archimandrite Yurii recounted that on April 13 an attempt was made to kidnap him. Unidentified assailants tried to force him to get into a car, but the attempt was foiled by parishioners. Members of the parish council have faced similar threats.

The parish was founded in 1993 and was registered by the Donetsk representative of the president of Ukraine (Decree No. 632 of October 22, 1993). At the time it was part of the Donetsk-Luhansk Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate, which had broken away from the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. The parish, which was meeting in a hall of culture, petitioned the local authorities for the return of the Spaso-Preobrazhenska Church on Kuibyshev Street, which had been closed in 1962 during the persecutions of Nikita Khrushchev. The regional executive committee ruled on September 6, 1995, (Decision No. 203) to hand over the church to the community at the end of 1997, after the occupant, the Donetskvuhillia company, had finished building a new administration complex. Since gaining possession, the community has done extensive repairs to the building.

Increasingly dissatisfied with inter-Orthodox disputes in Ukraine and the Kyiv Patriarchate's stand, the parish decided to leave the Kyiv Patriarchate's jurisdiction in August 1996 and become the first independent Orthodox parish in Ukraine. On September 6, 1996, the parish applied to the city administration to amend its statutes to affirm its independent status, citing provisions in Article 8 of the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations.

However, the city administration failed to respond either positively or negatively within the maximum period of three months specified in the law. Mr. Kostenko and his deputy, I. M. Prokopenko, indicated their opposition to the emergence of "independent" Orthodox parishes and declared that they had to consult higher authorities before making any decision. The parish wrote to the city administration on December 16, 1996, requesting an explanation about why it had failed to register the amendments to the parish statutes. This letter, too, was not answered.

After disruption of church services by Orthodox loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate (the largest Orthodox jurisdiction in Donetsk), the parish asked the city administration for protection from harassment. The city's Directorate for Religious Affairs declined to intervene, stating that this it was outside its field of competence.

The believers loyal to Moscow had formed the parish of the Holy Apostles Ss. Peter and Paul in August 1995, which was registered on December 8, 1995, and in early 1997, took their case to the Supreme Arbitration Court, arguing that the city administration should turn the church building over to them and was behaving illegally in failing to do so. Neither Archimandrite Yurii nor his parish was informed of the Holy Apostles' court case and claim or invited to attend the hearings. The Supreme Arbitration Court in Kyiv ruled against Archimandrite Yurii and the Spaso-Preobrazhanska parish on February 2 (Decision No. 1/6), declaring that in changing its affiliation the parish had undergone "self-liquidation," thereby revoking the decision of September 1995 that granted the church building to the parish.

Archimandrite Yurii immediately protested this ruling to the Procurator General of Ukraine and appealed to the United States ambassador to Ukraine and the mission in Ukraine of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, calling for help in resolving the problem. Archimandrite Yurii has appealed for international human rights groups to write to President Leonid Kuchma, calling on him to intervene to allow the parish to retain legal ownership of its building and for an end to state harassment.

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