LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (07/04/99)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Commendations on N.J. festival article

Dear Editor:

I commend Stan Jakubowycz for his article about the New Jersey Ukrainian Festival (June 6). So much of what he wrote needed to be publicly aired.

At one time, the Ukrainian Festival was, indeed, the showcase of the Garden State Arts Center; sold-out performances were the norm. The secret to the success of those festivals was dedicated committees and outstanding shows.

For the years 1979-1982 I had the privilege of serving as treasurer and then co-chairman of the festival committee. I vividly remember the dedication, commitment and professionalism of the members of those four committees. I recall that each year the committee set as its goal the organization of yet a better festival than the year before, and each year they succeeded. They succeeded because the committees brought in new talent from throughout the United States and Canada, thus attracting not only the previous year's audience, but new people as well.

Not only were these festivals artistically successful, they were financially successful also. While the cost of sponsoring professional talent from far away was high, the sold-out performances meant profits for the New Jersey Arts Center and the festival committee. In 1979, when I took over as treasurer, I was handed a treasury of $647.50 - the profit of the first four festivals. After the 1982 festival, the festival treasury had grown to $17,500.

I share Mr. Jakubowycz's sadness about no longer seeing signs on the Garden State Parkway for the Ukrainian Festival while so many other ethnic groups continue organizing their own. It is heartbreaking to have watched the Ukrainian Festival go from being the best and most successful to non-existent.

The community has the right to be told why New Jersey, a state with the third largest concentration of Ukrainians in the U.S., no longer hosts a Ukrainian Festival at the Garden State (now PNC Bank ) Arts Center.

Michael J. Iwanciw
Chatham Township, N.J.

UOC-U.S.A. status has poor prognosis

Dear Editor:

I was so impressed by Z.L. Melnyk's letter (May 23) that I feel the need to congratulate him for his perceptiveness. In view of a possible papal visit to Ukraine in future months, Mr. Melnyk questions the Ukrainian Catholic Church hierarchy's silence regarding the Vatican's recognition of the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate as the only canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine, and wonders if it is too much to expect courage and leadership from his Church authorities. If the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A have set the precedent, then, unfortunately, the obvious answer to Mr. Melnyk's question is: yes, it is too much to expect.

As a practicing Ukrainian Orthodox Christian and president of St. Mary Protectress UOC parish board in Clifton, N.J., I've followed with great disappointment the recent decisions and actions of the UOC-U.S.A. leaders.

Since the signing of the "Eucharistic Union with Constantinople," those of us who still consider ourselves committed Ukrainians have been absorbed into a vortex of unwelcome change and unresolved issues.

As a sequel to the "great union" with Patriarch Bartholomew (and, as an extrapolation from there, a union with the Moscow Patriarchate), public documents/articles and common knowledge inform us of a new mentality in the UOC-U.S.A.: an ongoing, steady departure from the condemned "provincialism" of our Ukrainian practices and traditions to achieve the ultimate goal of generic, non-ethnic Orthodoxy here in the United States. Slowly, yet very surely, "Ukrainian" is being weeded out. Examples abound.

Many parishes in the area have now decreased Ukrainian language usage and have incorporated and increased English (and at times Greek) into weekly services. Portraits of Ukrainian leaders, notably Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky's, have been removed from churches in the Midwest. In many parishes, "Bozhe Velykyi" (Lysenko) has been eradicated from the conclusion of liturgy because of its purported political message. Has anyone picked up a recent issue of The Ukrainian Orthodox World? The bilingual publication has subtly reversed the order of presentation, placing the larger, English section first. Furthermore, news stories include coverage of pilgrimages to Kenya and religious services at Russian churches and monasteries.

At one of the largest commemorations of the Great Famine to be held in the New York City area in recent years - last November 8 when more than 4,500 people gathered at St. Patrick's Cathedral - none of the UOC-U.S.A. hierarchs or senior clergy felt it important to concelebrate the moleben, though there is no question that they had been invited and were expected. An ecumenical moleben is a traditional part of the way our communities commemorate the Great Famine. In previous years it would have been inconceivable for UOC-U.S.A. hierarchs or senior clergy to not be there.

However, according to the new policy set forth by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, UOC-U.S.A. hierarchs and clergy cannot participate in "political" activity - by which the patriarch of Constantinople means any activity that acknowledges a distinct Ukrainian identity. Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs should not be seen commemorating in public prayer, along with other Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians, the lost lives of the millions of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians that perished in one of the largest genocides in history, because doing so would be a "political" activity. For not being at this moleben and for adhering to this policy, the UOC-U.S.A. hierarchs should feel nothing less than complete sorrow and shame.

Hand-in-hand with the aforementioned examples, our UOC-U.S.A. Church hierarchs confirmed their anti-Ukrainian, pro-Russian stance when they basically ignored the visit of Patriarch Filaret to the U.S. this past November. Claiming the UOC-Kyiv Patriarchate to be unstable and non-canonical, they boycotted all public events involving Patriarch Filaret. A message was sent loud and clear: Ukraine and Ukrainian is out, self-aggrandizement for the cost of alliance with Istanbul, and thereby Moscow is in.

How sad and disappointing that the UOC-U.S.A. to date presents such a moribund prognosis. Has anyone else noticed? Apparently, Mr. Melnyk is on the ball. Kudos to him.

Ivan Bilobron
Clifton, N.J.

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