Lie about the Church from Soviet and Ukrainian authorities: any difference?

On October 30, 2023, representatives of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (AUCCRO) travelled to the United States. There, they claimed that "no Сhurch in Ukraine had been banned," and the spokesperson for the OCU, Eustratiy Zoria, told Americans about the "unprecedented level of religious freedom". But is it really the sole purpose of this delegation's visit to the US to talk about how well things are going in Ukraine and how badly in Russia? Unlikely. So, what is the true reason for this visit? Let's find out.

An American voyage: Where is the UOC?

The official reason for the visit was announced on the AUCCRO website: "to share personal testimonies of the suffering of the Ukrainian people from Russian aggression".

Undoubtedly, the representatives of the Church that lost the most priests and had the most churches destroyed during the war could tell most about this. However, the AUCCRO delegation included members of the OCU, UGCC, RCC, Adventists, Evangelicals, Muslims, the Ukrainian Bible Society, as well as the leadership of the Institute for Religious Freedom (apparently, to ensure that all statements of the delegation were as "free" as possible), except UOC representatives. You would agree that considering the stated goal, the composition of the delegation appears very strange.

This oddity was noticed by the interviewer of the OCU spokesperson Eustratiy Zoria on the "Voice of America" channel when he asked him directly why Metropolitan Onuphry or another UOC rep did not come to the USA. Zoria lied, saying that there were no representatives of the UOC in the delegation because the UOC leadership “didn’t find it necessary” to include a representative "of the corresponding level".

However, Archpriest Mykola Danilevych explained, "In reality... they didn't want to see us so as not to spoil the picture and the seemingly unanimous position of the AUCCRO. So, they should not say the untruth that supposedly we did not find it necessary to send someone there as Eustratiy said," he noted.

This means that the absence of representatives of the UOC in the delegation indicates that the purpose of the visit was not at all to tell about the suffering of the Ukrainian people from the war with Russia. Then what was it?

Who is the AUCCRO defending?

The organisation's website calls this visit "advocacy". Advocacy means defence. Who and from whom are the religious leaders of Ukraine supposed to defend?

Almost from the first steps of the visitors on American soil, it became obvious that they came to defend the Ukrainian authorities. Why do we think so?

We remember that on 27 October 2023, the famous American journalist and TV presenter Tucker Carlson published on X (former Twitter) an interview with lawyer Robert Amsterdam, who is currently engaged in defending the UOC from state persecution. Elon Musk linked to this interview on his X account, questioning, "Priests are being imprisoned?". In total, more than 105 million people have already watched this broadcast on Carlson and Musk's X pages. More than a million more have watched its translation into Russian on the UOJ YouTube channel. That is, the interest is huge.

It immediately became clear to the Ukrainian authorities that Amsterdam's interview in which he openly stated about the persecution of the UOC is a scandal. Yes, one could have "overlooked" it if it had come out in any other country. But not in the United States.

Ukraine is at war with Russia, and America is giving Ukraine substantial (if not decisive) financial aid. However, not everyone in the US agrees with this – there are very influential politicians and political forces that demand to stop funding Ukraine.

Against this background, the Ukrainian government, which bans the Church and restricts the right to freedom of religion, looks very bad in the eyes of the ordinary American taxpayer. And especially if they are told about it by American politicians.

For example, US presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy believes that Ukraine cannot be called a democratic country because of the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. His words show that American politicians are quite well aware of what is happening in the religious sphere of Ukraine. That means that the Ukrainian authorities had to do something about it urgently.

It is precisely to somehow "defuse" the scandal that broke out after Carlson's interview with Amsterdam that AUCCRO representatives were sent to the United States. Moreover, this is not our assumption, but a direct statement of one of the experts involved in drafting the government bill No 8371 on the ban of the UOC. He directly said to “Ukrainska Pravda”: "We have now sent a delegation of the Council of Churches to the US to counter this wave of manipulation that Novinsky and other defenders of the MP are trying to stir up there through the media."

According to him, the AUCCRO members were even instructed on what exactly to say to the Americans. They were told to frame the situation regarding the UOC as "similar to what happened during their Civil War – the British monarch demanding an oath from the Anglicans in America, but they refused and founded the Episcopal Church."

Thus, Ukraine's religious leaders are travelling to the U.S. as a matter of urgency, probably at public expense, to somehow justify before American society the lawlessness that the Ukrainian authorities are committing against the UOC.

Zoria and the "freedom" of religion in Ukraine

In this regard, the spokesperson for the OCU, Eustratiy Zorya, made extra efforts in this regard. As mentioned earlier, he claimed that Ukraine currently has an unprecedented level of religious freedom. Proof? Essentially, it's the words of the AUCCRO members, whom the Ukrainian authorities sent to the USA with a specific mission – to convince Americans that there is no persecution of the UOC.

"If one denomination or individual was saying that yes, there is religious freedom, then it could be questioned," Zoria developed his thought. But since "the entire Council of Churches said this," in his opinion, this is evidence that "the level of religious freedom that Ukraine has under independence is something Ukraine has never had throughout its history, for centuries."

Zoria believes that he "succeeded in persuading sceptics in the USA," except for those "who are committed opponents of Ukraine and use any falsehood to justify their cooperation with the aggressor country".

So, you understand that if someone disagrees with Zoria and says that there is a denomination in Ukraine that is under pressure from the authorities and whose representatives were not included in the AUCCRO delegation for this reason, it's only because they are "opponents of Ukraine" and collaborate with Russia.

For example, this is exactly what he accused Bob Amsterdam and Tucker Carlson of, saying they "do not speak the truth; they only spread propaganda". In other words, if you say something different from the rhetoric of the OCU and the government, you are a Putin agent. As the saying goes, it's a "rock-solid" argument. By the way, Amsterdam was the lawyer for one of Russia's main opposition figures, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and is considered a personal enemy of Putin. He is even banned from entering Russia. According to Zoria, can he be called someone who "collaborates with Russia"?

The OCU, the Ministry of Culture and the KGB

But there is another historical aspect to the situation with the AUUCRO's visit to the United States.

The point is that there have been historical instances where authorities sent religious figures abroad with the same mission as sending the AUUCRO delegation to the USA – to assure Western society of an "unprecedented level of religious freedom". This occurred in the... Soviet Union.

For example, reports sent by Colonel V. Timoshevsky, the chief of the 4th Department, to the leadership of the KGB of the USSR, say: "Agents 'Antonov', 'Kuznetsov', 'Vadim' and 'Prokhorov' were sent to the meeting of the Working Committee of the International Religious Organization 'Christian Peace Conference' (CPC) to be held in the HPR with the task of preparing the 6th Congress of the CPC in a manner acceptable to us. The composition of several leading bodies has been determined by the decision of the Working Committee, where our agents will be promoted." This is 1985.

Furthermore, the KGB not only sent delegations abroad but also controlled the organization of their visits to the territory of the USSR, ensuring that guests "saw" how the Church was living "freely" and "well" in this atheistic country. And the guests did "see".

For instance, a report dated 1986 reads: "Together with the KGB of the USSR and the Ukrainian KGB in the Lviv region, counterintelligence support was provided for the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Lviv Council, which abolished the Uniate Church in the USSR. A large group of KGB agents, including 'Adamant', 'Antonov', 'Lukyanov', 'Skala' and others, participated in organizing and hosting the events. The celebration, in which about 300 guests and 10 representatives of foreign Orthodox Churches took part, was held in the acceptable to us spirit. It had a positive impact on foreigners; some were positively interviewed."

We can provide other references to archival documents, but even from those cited above, it becomes clear that the Soviet authorities fully exploited religious figures to appear "white and fluffy" in the eyes of Western society. In nearly all such actions, the most active participant, as we can see, was a man with the nickname "Antonov". Today, we know that this KGB code name belongs to the creator and ideologue of the OCU, Zoria and Dumenko’s mentor, the "honorary patriarch" of the OCU, Filaret Denisenko.

It is quite possible that Filaret, at his time, shared his experience with Zoria, with whom he was closely associated for many years, about how to deceive the West regarding "religious freedom" while closing down churches and arresting priests.

The same can be said about our government representatives. Why invent something new when there are such wonderful practices of the KGB predecessors, who have already thought of everything before you?

When Western partners begin to ask questions, you simply gather some clergymen, give them a party task, and remuneration, and off they go – telling naive partners that "they don't know any other country where people breathe so freely".

And this is far from being the only case where the Leninist sickle and hammer can be seen through the yellow and blue colours of Ukrainian rulers. They say that if you play the Soviet anthem for the current head of the State Ethnopolitics Service, V. Yelensky, he will immediately stand up and, just like before, start declaiming, "The Marxist-Leninist theory provides us with tools to penetrate into the spiritual sphere of humanity. One cannot help but admire the scale and depth of Lenin's thought, his genius."

The Soviet Union collapsed more than 30 years ago, but the ideology of the Bolsheviks continues to live on. And it seems that a great and bright future awaits it in Ukraine. What did Lenin say?

You are on the right path, comrades!