Repression-conscious govt claims to honor victims of political repressions
Zelensky and his wife paid tribute to the victims of political repressions. Photo: Ukrinform
We honor the memory of all those people whom the Soviet government tortured in prisons, rotted away in the Gulag, starved, and executed in the basements of punitive bodies.
Today, President of Ukraine V. Zelensky laid flowers in Bykivnia, where the remains of victims of the Soviet regime rest, and posted a message on his official Telegram channel that included the following words:
"Today we honor the memory of millions of people who were killed by the totalitarian system. Humiliated, repressed, tortured. Deprived of their true destiny. Talents taken from our nation. Broken lives that could have done so much more for future generations."
"Humiliated… Broken lives… Deprived of their destiny…." But isn't this about the Orthodox journalists sitting in the Lukyanivska prison, awaiting life sentences? Isn't it about Valeriy Stupnitsky, Andriy Ovcharenko, and Volodymyr Bobechko, whose destinies are already being shattered by the Ukrainian authorities?
"Talents taken from our nation…." Isn't this about Metropolitan Arseniy of Sviatohirsk, imprisoned for his preaching, taken away from his numerous flock by the Ukrainian authorities?
"…who could have done so much more…." Isn't this about Archpriest Serhiy Chertylin, who was transporting funds to buy a resuscitation vehicle for the front but couldn't do so because the Ukrainian authorities threw him in prison and confiscated his money to never return it?
A frightening fact of our reality is that there are political prisoners in Ukraine today, prisoners of conscience who ended up behind bars not even for their political beliefs but for their faith, the Orthodox faith, which our people have professed for a thousand years.
Yes, the scales are different, and the level of cruelty is not yet the same. But the Bolsheviks didn't build the GULAG overnight either. Maybe it’s not worth following the path once taken by the Soviet communists?
Read also
Remember this, Ukrainian – all your troubles are blamed on Orthodox schools
Our media have long been engaged in loud incitement of hatred toward people who harm no one at all. And, strangely enough, this always seems to coincide with scandals around thieves in high offices.
Should the law banning the UOC be repealed?
It turns out that MPs from Batkivshchyna were taking money for “the right” votes. Could the vote for the law banning the UOC also have been “bought”?
Our raider–officials should brace themselves?
Someday the Zelensky era will end. And when it does, there will be plenty of claims to answer for. The war against Orthodoxy will be among the chief indictments.
State and Churches: For Catholics – restitution; for Orthodox – confiscation
Shouldn’t DESS be campaigning for the Kyiv Caves Lavra to be returned to the Church after the Bolsheviks expelled the monks a hundred years ago and turned it into a “museum complex”?
Why the idea of a "national Church" is doomed
According to the most optimistic estimates, the population of Ukraine is now no more than 19 million. The figure is shocking, especially when you remember that at the beginning of independence, 52 million people lived in the country.
"The UOC doesn’t hold funerals for soldiers": a lie-manufacturing machine
At the end of December, a wave of outrage swept across the internet over claims that UOC priests refused to serve a funeral for a fallen soldier in the Bukovynian village of Banyliv-Pidhirnyi. So what actually happened there?