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First of all to say that Russia suffered from the Communists less than Ukraine is just plain wrong. Both countries suffered equally. There were simular famines to the Holodomor in Russia which were also perpetrated by the communist government. The Famine of Povolzhye comes to mind. As far as I know 5 million Russians died in the famine of 1921. The people killed by Stalin and his goons in Russia are in the millions. There was the purge of the Don Cossacks, the murders that took hundreds of thousands in 1918-1921. By 1930 hundreds of thousands were deported to concentration camps and brutally murdered. Than came the "Great Purge" which killed close to 800,000... The list goes on and on. It is wrong to argue over who suffered more. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians have had their soul torn own and trampled with a dirty communist boot. May our Lord give rest and grant Eternal Memory to all the people who were killed by the Godless ones.

Having said that there is little doubt that Ukraine suffered more culturally because the Soviets looked at Ukrainian culture as a threat. The people lost their language, their Church. But of course this was done purely for political expediency rather than a hatred of Ukrainian people. The Soviets saw any and all expressions of Ukrainian nationalism as a direct liability.

Having said all that, the current leader of KP was the staunchest opponent of Ukrainian Autocephally until he lost the election for the throne of the Moscow Patriarch. This is a known fact.

As of supporting KP. You are right, I do not.

I do not support schism for any reason, especially political or ethnic. I want Ukraine to have a canonical Autocephalous Curch recognized by all other Churches. KP is not recognized or commemorated by ANY Canonical Orthodox Bishop. They are not allowed to set foot into any altar of any Canonical Jurisdiction. My homeland Ukraine, which is the cradle of Eastern Slavic Orthodoxy deserves better than that.

We need to work towards the UOC-MP receiving the tomos of Autocephally. This is the only way in my opinion to achieve a canonical united Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and of course this will NEVER happen under the current leader of KP for a large number of reasons.

Finally, our Bishops are canonical Orthodox Bishops under the omophor of the Ecumenical Patriarch. They are not in communion or in any negotiation with the current leader of KP. At least not that I know of.

Not speaking for Father Deacon, whom this question was originally directed towards.. BUT.... I don't belong to a Ukrainian Church, I don't belong to a Russian Church, rather I belong to the Orthodox Church, the church Christ founded. Christ came into the world to preach to all nations, He is for all peoples.

Thank you, that is a wonderful answer. We are Orthodox first and foremost.

We are all brothers and sisters because we are connected by the Blood and Body of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Depriving ourselves of this for any reason, especially of ethnicity and politics is diabolical.

Deacon Borislav,

That's fine, my brother. Thank you for finding a way to work with the issue.

Many years,

Neil

Orthodox Pyrohy, this is an excellent summary!
As for the situation at St. Andrew's.
First and foremost, Bishop Daniel has not ever been kicked out from another Christian Church. In the last several decades, it became common that Orthodox Hierarchs come from the converts to the Faith. Usually, it means lay persons, who converted to Orthodoxy and then sought and received Orthodox ordination. Later these gentlemen eventually rose in ranks and were called to serves as Bishops. Having said that, it is necessary to mention that multiple cases when non-Orthodox clergy comes to Orthodox Christianity and eventually earns the rank of the Hierarch.
In the last number of decades such situations transpired with:

St. Hieromartyr Bishop Gorazd (Pavlik), a former Roman Catholic priest, (1879-1942).

Archbishop Metropolitan Johannes (Rinne) of the Senior See of Nicea of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, a former Lutheran pastor, who serves as an Orthodox Hierarch since 1969.

Archbishop Nathaniel (Popp) of Detroit - OCA, a former Roman Catholic priest, who serves as an Orthodox Hierarch since 1980.

All these Hierarchs made a decision to enter Orthodoxy and serves very well. In particular, we are really blessed to have Bishop Daniel (Zelynsky) at UOC of USA. He is a true Christian and a wonderful leader.

The majority of parishioners of St. Andrew parish in Bloomingdale stayed with UOC of USA. As it has been described by Deacon Borislav, they formed a new parish, Holy Trinity. Some parishioners joined other Canonical Orthodox parishes, which were closer to their residences. As it has been correctly pointed out, Fr. Bogdan Kalynuyk refused to follow into the schism and continues to serves in the Church.

Yes, Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine has been terribly persecuted. But this is not the reason to abandon a Canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of USA. The current leader of UOC-KP during his 25 years of service as an Exarch of MP in Ukraine persecuted any pro-autocephaly expression. UOC-KP has been organized with the violation of the statutes of both UAOC and UOC-MP. This problem has been pointed out by Mr. Serhiy Holovaty, then the President of Ukrainian Legal Foundation (Ukrains'ka Pravnycha Fundatsia), and later Minister of Justice of Ukraine. This particular fact has been described at the annual calendar of UOC-MP for the year of 1996.

His Holiness Patriarch Mstyslav (Skrypnyk) of blessed memory has been elected as the Patriarch of UOC-KP, however never served with the aforementioned current leader of UOC-KP.

We need the unity of Orthodox Church both in USA and Ukraine. As for USA, it is necessary to belong to Canonical Jurisdictions, to those, who maintain the communion with the worldwide Orthodoxy.

Well I've tried to stay out this but I just can't anymore.

Will people plese stop with the specious statements that Russia suffered just as much as Ukraine did under communism?! Did atrocities occur against Russians, yes, but no where on the scale that occurred in Ukraine plain and simple. No matter what former KGB people tell you its not the case.

Also, perhaps people can point out for me where and when there were organized efforts of outlawing the Russian language? Go to cities like Kharkiv and Donetsk in Ukraine today and explain to me why Russian is spoken there so much. Do you think this was an organic and peaceful development that brought this about? How many cities in Russia were forced to speak Ukrainian and how many people were sent to Siberia for not complying with the state?

My final question would be, what are the unabashed supporters of Moscow going to do if Patriarch Filaret's eventual replacement is someone who didn't persecute the UGCC and UAOC in the past, why they'll have to actually talk about issues and not about the person in the Patriarch's chair?!

A unified church would be a great development in Ukraine, a good starting place would be for Moscow to cease subjugating Ukraine in one way or the other like it has for the past several hundred years.

Monomakh

Oh, I think Russia suffered just as much as Ukraine. The numbers don't lie. What makes Ukraine unique in the history of the Soviet Union was the manner in which Stalin sought systematically to eradicate the Ukrainians as a nation and people.

You supported my point with the second half of your statement (and by the way it was more than Uncle Joe who systematically tried this)

I'd be curious what your numbers are based on, if they're the KGB estimates I wouldn't even give them the time of day.

I'm still curious for examples in Russia where cities were forced to speak Ukrainian? Where in Russia today do the majoirty of the people in a Russian city speak Ukrainian? Gee, I wonder why that only occurred in Ukraine.....hmmmmmmmm.......


Monomakh

Most certainly, the terrible genocide against Ukraine took place. Most certainly, anti-Ukrainian cruelties were not limited to the times of Uncle Joe. My relatives were among the victims.

But this is not the reason to leave [b]Ukrainian Orthodox [/b]Church [b]of USA[/b] in 2009.

A number of studies have been released in the past two decades. I got my figures from The Black Book of Communism, which is perhaps the most comprehensive survey of that depraved ideology. The Soviet Union killed approximately 15-20 million people in the Revolution and Civil War. Stalin did in another 20 million or so through the purges and run-of-the-mill terror between the early thirties and his death in 1953. Hitler killed some 20 million Russians, Ukrainians and Belorusians on top of this. The best estimate for the Hodomor is 3.5-4.0 million, from starvation, disease, torture and execution.

That we are sitting here, rationally discussing these numbers validates Stalin's aphorism that one death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic. On that note, for comparative purposes, Mao Tse-Tung was responsible for the deaths of some 60 million Chinese, from the Communist Revolution through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

This is what man is capable of doing when he forgets God.

Russian was forced due to expediency rather than some kind of hatred for the Ukrainian language.

Hatred against Ukrainian language flourished in both Romanov's and Communist totalitarian empires. Of course, I am not blaming the entire other nation - the representatives of the ruling circles were responsible.

As for the total number of Holodomor victims, various sources provide even significantly higher numbers - over 7 and even over 8 millions, destroyed in that genocide.

Excellent point!

Deacon Borislav,

I think your numbers are a bit off, it was between 7-10 million Ukrainians that perished as a result of the famine.
For those of you unfamilair with the Communist man-made famine that killed 7-10 million Ukrainians 1932-33 please see the following sites: http://www.holodomorct.org/history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_recognized.png
http://ukraineblogg.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-many-ukrainians-died-in-holodomor.html

Deacon Borislav, do you belive the holodomor was a man-made forced famine on the Ukrainian people imposed by the Soviet regime? Or do you believe it is more pro-ukrainian anti-russian propoganda?

Bohdan, nowhere did I quote any numbers of the people who parished in the MAN-MADE famine in Ukraine or question the figures you gave in any way form or shape. However, I did point out and will continue to point out the fact that Russia suffered from Communism just as badly as Ukraine. Period.

To say that the famine was perpetrated by Russians alone is simply wrong. In fact the people who perpetrated the Holodomor were of all ethnic backgrounds including Ukrainian Communists.

As someone who was born in Ukraine and grew up there I can tell you that 99.9% of the folks in the Communist Party in my home city were ethnic Ukrainians.

The Holodomor was a man-made famine forced on Ukraine by Communists. The same Communists that murdered hundreds of thousands of Russian Clergy. The same Communists that starved a million people in Kazakhstan. The same Communists that executed the royal family in Russia. The same Communists who purged hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Moscow and St. Petersburg. All of these crimes against humanity INCLUDING the Holodomor were perpetrated by a Godless and murderous satanic regime, and not by the God loving people of Russia.

Also if you carefully read the link that you yourself posted you will see that the Holodomor was perpetrated not because the Communists hated Ukrainians, but rather because the freedom loving Ukrainian people refused to collectivize. Thus they were perceived as IDEOLOGICAL enemies to be destroyed.


Either way, here are the figures of the crimes committed by the Godless ones in the former USSR. Granted the numbers who died in Ukraine may be actually higher, but it is still worth looking at. This information is quoted by Wikipidia and taken from the Black Book of Communism which is a fairly reliable resource.



In conclusion I think it extremely unprofitable to point fingers at each other and argue about who the biggest victim was. What we need to do is pray for one another. Talk to one another. Try to understand each other. The Russian and Ukrainian peoples are brothers and sisters, united by the Precious Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and I pray for the day when we can really come together without accusations, nastyness and diabolical division based on politics and ethnicity.