Who is bothered by an Orthodox church in Khmelnytskyi?

Fr. Ioann Zinkevych with UOC parishioners and representatives of the initiative group. Photo: Press service of the Khmelnytskyi Eparchy

For more than ten years, the Orthodox community has been fighting for the right to build a new church on Chekhov Street, not far from a military cemetery and adjacent to the old city cemetery.

In 2003, the Khmelnytskyi City Union of Afghanistan Veterans established an initiative group consisting of ten Afghan war veterans who were Orthodox Christians. These veterans formed a church community and proposed building a church dedicated to the Holy Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica on Chekhov Street.

Every year in February, on the anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the veterans attend church services to commemorate their fallen comrades and all soldiers who died in wars. For this reason, they want to have what they call a military church, where the memory of defenders of the homeland can be honored.

The city authorities were in no hurry to allocate land for the construction of the Orthodox church, but at the end of 2010 the Khmelnytskyi City Council finally approved the allocation. The City Union of Afghanistan Veterans purchased a trailer to serve as a chapel. Metropolitan Anthony of Khmelnytskyi and Starokostiantyniv consecrated both the land and the chapel, and services have been held there ever since.

The area around the chapel was cleared of bushes and weeds. As a result, drug users and drunkards no longer gather there, as they once did. Residents of nearby homes had previously been forced to build a concrete fence to protect themselves from unwanted visitors. At the request of the Orthodox community worshipping in the chapel, municipal services also began taking better care of the old cemetery.

All documents – including the church project and the necessary permits from municipal services – have been properly prepared. Many Orthodox Christians attend services there, especially on Sundays. The faithful have already raised a significant portion of the funds needed for construction, and building work was expected to begin shortly.

However, in mid-January unknown individuals broke a large wooden cross near the chapel. A nearby Christmas tree was overturned, and offensive graffiti appeared on the chapel accusing its rector, Fr. Ioann Zinkevych, of serving the interests of Russia.

On February 5, after a service, a group of people approached Fr. Ioann, among them Yurii Smal, a deputy of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Council from the Svoboda party. He expressed outrage over what he called the “expansion of the Russian world” and openly provoked an argument.

He was supported by Mykhailo Kryvak, secretary of the city council, who argued that the decision to allocate land for the church should be reconsidered, emphasizing that the regional center already had enough churches of the Moscow Patriarchate.

At present, Khmelnytskyi has 13 Orthodox churches and two chapels. This is significantly more than during the Soviet era, when atheism was the only officially permitted ideology. Yet all these churches, including the Cathedral of the Protection of the Mother of God, are filled with worshippers, especially on Sundays and feast days. The number of practicing Orthodox Christians continues to grow, which is why the city community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is building new places of worship. But it is building more than churches – it is building centers of authentic Orthodox life.

Fr. Ioann and his parishioners are also engaged in charitable work. Directors of social institutions testify to this.

Serhii Kyryliuk, director of the Medzhybizh Residential Home for Children with Disabilities, said:

“For the past three years, Fr. Ioann and his parishioners have continually helped our institution. The church community purchases clothing, shoes and bedding for our residents. They also built a small chapel on the second floor of our building, where the children pray.”

Anatolii Yurchenko, director of the Khmelnytskyi Rehabilitation Center for People with Disabilities and Children with Intellectual Disabilities (“School of Life”), added:

“Fr. Ioann often visits us and comes for all religious holidays. At Pascha he always brings Easter cakes for the children. He never refuses our requests for help, and recently bought chairs for the dining room for our youngest residents. He is a very kind and compassionate person.”

This is the kind of “expansion of the Russian world” that Fr. Ioann Zinkevych, a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, is supposedly bringing into society. His ministry has long been appreciated by the faithful in every parish where he has served. Residents of the Vinnykivtsi area also remember him warmly.

As for those who believe the location chosen for St. Demetrius Church is inappropriate, it is worth recalling some historical facts. During the anti-religious persecutions of the 1930s, when the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in Proskuriv was closed, clergy and parishioners conducted services in a cemetery chapel located on Kamianetska Street, near the very place where St. Demetrius Church is now planned. Therefore, an Orthodox community has existed there for at least eighty years.

Today, three petitions have been submitted to the city council.

The first, submitted by the religious community of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Khmelnytskyi, asks the authorities not to obstruct the construction of St. Demetrius Church at 48 Chekhov Street. The petition notes that the project was initiated by Orthodox Christians and the Khmelnytskyi City Union of Afghanistan Veterans to provide a place for services, prayers for soldiers, and memorial services for those killed in combat in eastern Ukraine. Within a few days, the petition had gathered 534 signatures.

The second petition calls for understanding between Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians regarding the church project. Roman Catholics propose allowing the Orthodox community to build nearby, though not on cemetery grounds, while giving the Roman Catholic community an opportunity to restore and maintain the cemetery. They also suggest preserving the Orthodox chapel, building a Roman Catholic chapel nearby, and concluding the process with an ecumenical procession involving both communities. This petition gathered significantly fewer signatures.

The third petition, supported by an even smaller group, asks the city council to prohibit construction on the old cemetery and revoke the previous council decision that granted permission.

So who could be bothered by the Orthodox Church and its churches?

Unfortunately, there are many such people, including those who identify the Church with the image of the so-called “Muscovite enemy,” forgetting that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is not dependent on Russia. In 1990 it received independence and full self-governance and remains the only canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine, that is, the Church in communion with world Orthodoxy.

Its Primate, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine, has repeatedly emphasized that the clergy and faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are building neither a “Russian world” nor a “Ukrainian world,” but the world of God.

Therefore, for those who have love for their neighbor in their hearts, for those who truly share the ideals of goodness and mercy taught by Jesus Christ, the Head of our Church, an Orthodox church will never be an obstacle – no matter where, when, or by whom it is built.

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