A procession in Kiev appeals to President Kuchma

A PROCESSION IN KIEV APPEALS TO PRESIDENT KUCHMA

Orthodox Christians marched on May 17 in Kiev in protest against the visit of the Pope of Rome to Ukraine. They came from the dioceses of Kiev, Odessa, Vinnitsa, Chernigov, Tulcha and other cities to march from the Kiev Laura of the Caves to the Supreme Rada and then to the Presidential administration and the Catholic nunciature in Kiev.

The procession was organized by the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods in Ukraine and the Union of Orthodox Citizens in Ukraine. Among the participants were members of the parliamentary inter-faction association For the Union of Ukraine, Belorussia and Russia and the United Fatherland public organization.

The participants protested against the Pope’s coming to Ukraine and the destructive activity of schismatic groupings named the “Kiev Patriarchate” and “Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church”.

An appeal to the Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma was adopted. It stated that “the Vatican and the schismatic groupings have openly and bluntly identified with those forces which seek to oust you, the lawfully elected President. In this connection, it is necessary to cite the rector of a Catholic parish in Chernigov, Father Genrikh Kanisky, who said in an interview to the Catholic Prikhodskaya Gazeta in Kiev that ‘experience has shown that in those countries which were visited by the Pope of Rome, the internal political and social relations have changed for the better. For instance, after the visit of the Pope to Chile, Pinochet stepped down, while in other countries totalitarian regimes collapsed like houses of cards’. What can be more blunt than these utterances?” The participants in the procession reminded the President of the numerous cases where the Greek Catholics used mass violence, beating and torture against clergy and laity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in western Ukraine, where three Orthodox dioceses were sacked and thousands of churches were seized.

The participants also adopted an appeal to the Ukrainian authorities to establish criminal proceedings against the head of the so-called “Kiev Patriarchate”, Filaret Denisenko, who was accused by the participants of involvement in the state coup attempt made on March 9 in Kiev, in recruitment of Ukrainians in the international terrorist units in Chechnya and of other violations of the law.