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Olexandra Prolyaka: Displays of Christian Love, or Beat the Bishops!
Displays of Christian Love, or Beat the Bishops!
Yesterday, I was an eye-witness of the religious revolution which affected me strongly. I'll tell you in more detail. Our youth organization Plast, National Scout Organization of Ukraine, has a room in the premises of the UAOC Patriarchate, located on Trekhsvyatitelska street, 8a. I work as the Plast organization secretary there. Yesterday, February 4, 2005, at about 3:45 in the afternoon some unfamiliar young people came into the organization chancellery and asked to leave the office with taking only private belongings. To my quite reasonable question 'What's the matter?', they responded that there was the revolution. I went downstairs to get my things from the second floor, and the massive guys block the stairs upstairs. There were a lot of people downstairs, nearly 20 to 25 people, including bishops and seminarians.
The Patriarchate Chancellor Father Valerij (Kopijka) was trying to find out who were those newcomers (he is under the jurisdiction oa Vladyka Igor, UAOC). He was told that they were the owners of the premises (Vladyka Mefodij, he was present) and was shown some papers that he couldn't make out. I asked the bishops what was going on. They explained to me that the premises belonged to the real Autocephalous church, and those who had occupied it were just dissenters turned out for heresy. I abstained from entering into inter-church matters and explained that we were not a religious division, but just a youth organization and asked to take our legal documents away from the building (statute, registration certificate, tax documents) and the most precious - the stamp. They told me the following: "all that was yours, now becomes ours" and "hey, girl, get away from here". I was not allowed to call the police. The newspaper editor of the "Our Faith", senior citizen Evgen Sverstjuk, was trying to have a look at the advocate's documents of the new-comers, but was forcefully taken away. Father Valerij was trying to get upstairs where the Patriarchate documents were stored, but was pushed off. He rushed into the room with the Chapel of St. Dmotrij Solunsky, but was driven to the corridor. At that time I was in the chapel and cried that that was the church and he was the bishop, I was ordered to leave the building.
I ran to the premises of the Kyiv Patriarchate to call the police, but when I returned I saw the bishop Father Valerij pushed out the building into the snow. Bishop Evgen was thrown away in the same manner.While the newspaper worker and I helped the poor old man to rise to his feet, Father Valerij without his coat ran to call the police again. When he came back and tried to get into the building at least to get his coat, he was brutally beaten, squeezed between the iron grate and the stone fence. They insulted him by unprintable words. He was screaming because they could break his arm and rib. Two men rushed to help him, one being the former political prisoner Mr. Shevchenko. They were also injured.
The police detachment, passing by, pretended whey didn't see or hear anything special. Ordinary people walking to the funicular stopped and begged for ending the fight on the monastery territory. Finally, several police detachments arrived, but only some of them were allowed to enter. The policemen ignored our questions and were not listening to us at all. We had been standing by the gate, trying to find out any news. When the NTN television arrived, the opponents didn't even want to talk to them. Then arrived the people's deputy Mr. Shevchenko who was not at all allowed to step on the premises territory. He was just mocked at. The gallery director was asking for being present at the inventory, as she was afraid that some valuable icons might be taken away. The policemen who got out of the building behaved in a very impudent manner, jeering, they refused to call their names and ranks so that we were unable to know who we had addressed. They lied in the eyes and told us to wait for the court decision. We explained that that we were a youth non-profit non-political and non-religious organization, that the organization activities might have been terminated, so we were simply allowed to stay there, but we were rejected to have any contacts with 'revolutionaries'. The injured asked to take record of the beating and accept their written statements, they were told that it was their right to do so, but for the period of four hour nothing had been done. When finally everything ended and everybody started leaving the building, the unpleasant scandal between the bishops struck because of the stamp of the Patriarchate Chancellery, which Fathee Valerij was trying to pick up as he is responsible for it.
I have no idea of what will happen next, what the court decision will be, and how they all settle the situation. However, I do know one thing: I am Orthodox Christian (though I don't belong to the Auocephalous Church, I am Christian) since my birth and a sorry sight of the beaten bishop while other bishops just watching silently made me feel really awful. Does one have to be faithful to the church where such awful things take place?
Why did the police refuse to tell me, a citizen of Ukraine, their names and ranks? Why are they so brutal?
Finally, I add Vladyka Igor's statement about the events, as the opponent side has not made any public statements yet.
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