Ukraine “Crucified” Between the East and West

By Peter Kuzmic,

I dispatch this column from Kiev, the capital of this country, which approaches its collapse, being “crucified” between Brussels and Moscow. For already three days, I have closely monitored the situation which is extremely dramatic and beyond any control. At times, all this traumatically reminds me of what we had seen in Vukovar in the Fall of 1991 and in Sarajevo several months later. Bloody street fights take place, the buildings are set aflame, the snipers shoot at the innocents from rooftops, Molotov cocktails and bombs burst all around. Some hotels are turned into improvised hospitals, and the Ukraine Hotel on the Independence Square downtown functions as a mortuary wherein the dead are being identified and death toll is being summed up.

It is difficult to predict how and when this uncontrolled sowing of death will end and how many victims will succumb before the Ukrainian people welcome a pro-European liberty it desires and the extreme nationalists on both sides are disarmed. The Ukrainian colleagues and friends (there are some Russians among them, too) claim that I should not believe in official reports and already terrifying statistics on the number of dead and wounded, for the figures of sufferers are quite larger than the ones reported by the media. My former Osijek students (there are totally 50-odd of them in Ukraine) that have experienced a sanguine drama of Yugoslavia’s collapse together with us compare their Yanukovych to Milošević, hoping for a rapid and efficacious intervention of Europe and America.

Some ask me how I happened to be here at all, in the very epicenter of a massive and partly violent people’s insurgence against a heavy usurpation of power and an even more violent suppression thereof. I have to admit that I have been also surprised by dramatic calls I received in Osijek toward the middle of the last week, urging that I should leave everything else as to join some of my acquaintances, knowledge, and experience to a (too) little team of inter-confessional experts in conflict prevention and peace-making. Morally observed, it is impossible to reject the invitations to such a noble mission, though I still had to multiply the weight the fear of my family and other benevolent people.

A number of these calls are connected to recent encounters in Washington, DC. I have to admit that at the beginning of February, when I socialized with Ukrainian and Russian politicians and the high ecclesiastic dignitaries within the framework of the (Inter)national Prayer Breakfast and related events and meetings in Washington, DC, we could not predict an explosion of violence and a belligerent situation that would follow toward the end of the month. Thus, in the column Through Prayer to Peace you will not find Ukraine, although we have worriedly discussed about it and prayed for it a lot and at several places in the US capital.

I have considered myself honored when the Ukrainians, whom I always cherished, invited me on February 5 in Washington, DC to join them to celebrate their national holiday and sing Christian hymns and pray for Ukraine on the square, in front of an impressive monument to their giant Taras Shevchenko. It was a very impressive encounter and a truly ecumenical event, for there were also Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists and Pentecostals among us in addition to an Orthodox majority although the prayer was officially led by the Kiev-based Orthodox patriarch Philaret and the patriarch of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church Sviatislav.

In Washington, DC, Patriarch Philaret, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—Kievan Patriarchate attracted a tremendous attention, in addition to some acrimonious objections on the Russian side. During informal fellowshipping and at a round table, he assured us that a war cannot break out because Christians, who pray to the same God, are on both sides. Those who protest on the Maidan (there was no lethal violence then) as well as those in power believe in God, and all of them, emphasized the Patriarch in the style of a preacher, have a sacred obligation to profess their faith by their deeds. When asked what will happen if there should be an escalation and the baptised Christians start killing each other (like in the territory of ex-Yugoslavia), the Patriarch stopped for a while as to respond to us verbatim: “If someone should claim that s/he is a Christian and s/he kills or issues orders to kill – I ask you what kind of a Christian is s/he then. The murderers will be justly punished sooner or later.” In these talks and in all his public performances, even in front of the politicians and diplomats, the Patriarch insisted that prayer is the most Christians may contribute to solve a tensed situation which inevitably leads to open confrontations, as it was obvious already then.

I have to admit that I may not entirely agree with these and similar exclusive spiritualizations in my capacity as a Scripture-based and contemporarily oriented Christian theologian, for they may in fact be a way of escapism from realities and changes for which the righteous God cares so much instead of a supplication to God. I am being tormented by a question of when a prayer is a really efficacious dialogue with God and when it turns into an expression of superstition by virtue of a spiritual inertia and a mechanically recited rhetoric. Moreover, such a kind of distanced spirituality favours those who criticise Eastern Christianity because of an alleged incapacity to be sufficiently loudly and relevantly engaged in social issues for centuries.

Some twenty years ago, I have personally expounded this sincere ecumenical concern in a discussion with the Serbian Patriarch Pavle, indubitably a saint in many aspects. He surprised me by his attentive listening and his warmth in the comprehension of my benevolent criticism, especially by his emphasis that we should continue a mutually beneficial dialogue about this, between the activist Protestant West and the contemplative East, as he phrased it.

A criticism on the account of numerous Protestant rambles and missed experiments in the area is in any way also in place. In the context of Ukrainian crisis and tensed relations with Russia, I have to express my uneasiness about the belated and grossly incoherent statement issued by the Conference of European Churches (CEC). The inaudible voices uttered from the ecumenical capital of Geneva are not more convincing. It is obvious that the tepid reactions within the CEC and the World Council of Churches are an expression of anxiety towards the reaction of the Russian Orthodox Church, which increasingly becomes more anti-ecumenically active and has unambiguously sided with Putin with regard to this issue, while uncritically supporting his megalomaniac plans to restore Russia as a superpower through the creation of an Eurasian Union that could equally compete with both the EU and the USA.

Let us return to the spot at which I agitatedly meditate on this and other issues of war and peace in a Tolstoy-esque manner. One cannot assert that at Maidan people only shoot, set things to fire, destroy and kill without any mention of a prayer. In front of our very eyes, a priest of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church has just set up a tent chapel jointly consecrated by Roman Catholic and Greek-Catholic clergy. This brave spiritual endeavour happens only two days subsequent to Berkut’s (in this context, the notorious troops of the Ukrainian militia established for the fight against crime) arson of the previous version of an inter-confessional chapel that stood next to the Independence Column. A colleague of mine in the improvised new “chapel” reads aloud a spiritually powerful and solidarity-imbued message by the ecumenical (pan-orthodox) Patriarch Bartholomew. With a bit of irony, I comment that this message will certainly not be read in Moscow and in the Russian Orthodox churches, since Bartholomew is not honoured there as he canonically should be.

While I am writing these lines (Friday around noon), certain signs of provisional hope emerge for the first time. Europe has still learned something from the Yugoslavian tragedy about a high price of an unconsolidated approach and an amoral hesitation. After tedious negotiations by the European Troika with the Ukrainian opposition Troika and then more through intimidations than the promises, accompanied by a confrontation with Yanukovych, a peace accord is yet signed, providing for a temporary fragile hope, though its long-lasting implementation is questionable.

We should not forget that blood has already been shed on the Maidan when the Russian Duma, while singing under the conductorship of the czar Putin, hypocritically warned against the fact that a “Yugoslavian scenario” should not be repeated in Ukraine and blamed Western countries for the sanguine confrontations, like the Belgrade-based Milošević, because they actually continue to realize their expansionist geopolitical goals while instigating the clashes. A few days ago, Yanukovych himself, “bought (off)” and in a versatile manner supported by Moscow, refused all the Western leaders’ appeals to start serious talks with his political adversaries as to prevent further violence escalation.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who now leads the most difficult negotiations of his life, directly and harshly accused Yanukovych on that occasion, whose “refusal to initiate serious talks on a peaceful conflict resolution and implementation of a constitutional reform is a serious error that might be costly to Ukraine.” Our American friend Joe Biden was even more concrete in his direct telephone threats and public statements in behalf of Obama and the US Government, which has befriended Putin and his satellites all too long. A condemnation in the Western countries was unison, unambiguous, and unexpectedly severe. E.g., Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, well-known to us (it seems as if he still learned something during his languorous engagement in our area), proclaimed President Yanukovych accountable for the dead and violence in Kiev in advance, accusing him that his “hands were covered with blood.”

A priority these days was to stop the violence and interconnect a search for democratic solutions thereto, while announcing pre-term presidential and parliamentary elections that should establish a more balanced democratic government. At any rate, many difficult issues to which there are no easy answers remain and Ukraine awaits times of great uncertainty and heavy turbulences as it aspires to preserve the unity of a deeply divided nation. The Western part of the country, oriented in a pro-European fashion, and the East, oriented in a pro-Russian fashion, will be difficult to reconcile. Putin will not sit peacefully, and the semi-autonomous Crimean peninsula, historically connected to Moscow also by virtue of its Russian majority, will probably be the first to launch a secession procedure from Ukraine and its accession to Russia. Thereafter, everything is possible, even some darker Moscow-directed scenarios whereto the West, with the exception of sanctions, may not more efficaciously respond without seriously disturbing a series of international relations and endanger peace in this world of ours, already excessively encumbered by instability and wars. Should it take this direction, then as the Orthodox pray – May God have mercy!

As much as I rejoice over a (temporary?) cessation of violence and a removal of Yanukovych’s semi-imperialistic powers, I am as much nauseated when pondering over a fact that a peace accord was signed with a man whose hands are covered in blood, and who will sooner or later have to be held accountable for the death of the innocent and other misdeeds of his together with his criminal collaborators like the Balkan-based Milošević, Karadžić, and their relatives. Maybe Patriarch Philaret still “prophesied” in Washington, DC by his assertion that (then still potential) “murderers will be justly punished sooner or later.” Justice is too frequently slow but it eventually arrives, better sooner than later, for there is no peace without justice.

Crimea and religious freedom

Originally posted in Russian on Maksym Vasin's Blog Besides the difficulties with citizenship and relationships with mainland Ukraine, many problems in Crimea may arise in delicate areas such as faith. According to official statistics, in the beginning of 2014 in Crimea (Ukraine), there were 2083 religious organizations, among which 674 have the right to engage in religious activities without registering as a legal entity. Another 137 registered religious organizations are in Sevastopol city. However, the right of religious freedom in Crimea is under threat after Russian occupation. This is not solely due to the lawlessness of the self-proclaimed government, which distinguished itself by kidnapping the priest chaplain Fr. Mykola Kvych in Sevastopol, followed by a search of his property and an eight-hour interrogation; an inventory of one of the Orthodox temples of the Kyiv Patriarchate; and threats directed against other Ukrainian priests and their families.  It is known that three Greek Catholic and two Orthodox priests of the Kyiv Patriarchate have already left Crimea. All clergy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and Kyiv Patriarchate were forced to take their families out of the Crimean peninsula. Due to all kinds of difficulties and threats, some pastors of Evangelical Churches and some Roman Catholic clergy have already left the peninsula. Immediately after the Russian occupation, anti-Semitism increased in Simferopol, manifesting as threats against Jews inscribed by vandals on the walls of a synagogue. In addition to this, Russian legislation will be a problem for the Crimean people. Compare the basic positions of the laws concerning religious freedom and religious associations in Ukraine and Russia. Rights concerning religious freedom Ukraine Russia All religions, faiths and religious organizations are equal (Article 5 of the Law) Special role belongs to Orthodoxy. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism are recognized religions (preamble of the Law) Notifying the government of the establishment of a religious community is not obligatory (Article 8) Religious groups may act without registering. But citizens who form a religious group with the intent to further develop it into a religious organization as a legal entity must notify the local authorities at the very beginning (Article 7) A religious community can be registered by a minimum of ten citizens who have reached the age of 18 (Article 14) A local religious organization may be founded by a minimum of ten Russian citizens who have reached the age of 18, who reside in the same locality, who are united in a religious group, with confirmation issued by local authorities of its existence in the territory for at least 15 years, or confirmation of joining the structure of a centralized religious organization of the same faith, issued by that organization. Fee for registering a religious organization as a legal entity is not required. A fee is required for the official registration of religious organization or changes in its charter (Article 11): for the creation of a legal entity, 4000 rubles (~USD 100); for state registration of changes in the charter or liquidation of the legal entity, 800 rubles (~USD 20). Ukrainian legislation does not use the concept of extremism. Instead, liability is incurred for a specific infringement by a specific person. Extremist activities are grounds for the liquidation of a religious organization and legal prohibition of the activities of religious group or organization (Article 14, paragraph 2)   These few examples demonstrate the desire of the Russian authorities to keep the religious sphere under strict control. This is especially apparent in the Federal Law of Russia ‘On Countering Extremist Activities’ and related laws, according to which religious organizations, their literature, and even internet resources may be prohibited. The requirement concerning 15 years of service for religious organization is discriminatory against the current Crimean communities, because those which were registered after 1998 cannot be independent religious communities any longer. From the standpoint of Russian law, they will have to either cease to exist as legal entity or become a part of one of the existing centralized Russian religious associations. By the way, it was recently reported that the Russian Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists was instructed to absorb all the communities of Christian Baptists in Crimea. Other denominations probably received the same orders. The situation is vividly illustrated by the Crimean Tatars allowing Christians to use their mosques for prayers and services if they sense a threat to their temples or if the temples are taken away from them in the next wave of ‘nationalization.’ Moreover, not the Mejlis, but the press secretary of the Kyiv Patriarchate announced  this proposal as a possible means of ensuring the rights of believers in Crimea. On top of everything else, last year President Putin inserted rather contradictory changes to the Criminal Code of Russia and to the Code of Administrative Violations, aimed at countering insult to the religious beliefs and feelings of the citizens. Taking into account the preamble of the Russian law on religious freedom, it is not hard to understand whose feelings will be defended first. Still, we want to believe that religious freedom and peaceful interfaith relations in Crimea will be preserved in spite of migration, financial, and other difficulties. In my opinion, intensive international monitoring by the UN, the OSCE and the Council of Europe of fundamental human rights on the Crimean peninsula can contribute to it. Author: Maksym Vasin, lawyer Translated by Karolina Omelchenko, edited by Robin Rohrback Follow us for getting breaking news on Facebook and Twitter.

Understanding a More Religious and Assertive Russia

By Mark Tooley

In his widely analyzed March 18 speech to the Russian Parliament, Putin cited the baptism of Vladimir the Great over 1000 years ago in Crimea as the seminal event binding Ukraine and Russia. That baptism is considered the birth of Russian Orthodoxy. Orthodox faith has been key to Moscow’s historic self conceived role as defender of all Russians, of Slavs, and of Orthodox, wherever they are.

Putin has formed a close association with Russian Orthodoxy, as Russian rulers typically have across centuries. He is smart to do so, as Russia has experienced somewhat of a spiritual revival. Although regular church goers remain a small minority, strong majorities of Russians now identify as Orthodox. Orthodoxy is widely and understandably seen as the spiritual remedy to the cavernous spiritual vacuum left by over 70 disastrous, often murderous years of Bolshevism.

Resurgent religious traditionalism has fueled Russia’s new law against sexual orientation proselytism to minors and its new anti-abortion law. Both laws also respond to Russia’s demographic struggle with plunging birth rates and monstrously high abortion rates that date to Soviet rule. Some American religious conservatives have looked to Russian religious leaders as allies in international cooperation on pro-family causes.

It remains to be seen whether geopolitical tensions over Putin’s moves in Russia temper this alliance. A few liberal commentators have predictably denounced it as toxic. A few conservative commentators have cautioned against saber rattling against Russia, whose religious revival they hope might counter Western secularism. A realistic perspective should welcome Christian vitality in Russia while recognizing it won’t necessarily mitigate and may in fact reinforce Russia as a strategic competitor with the West. East-West rivalry predates Soviet Communism by a millennium.

Historically Moscow politically and religiously has understood itself as the “third Rome” and the natural successor to Constantinople as protector of Orthodox civilization. The formal schism between Eastern and Western churches a thousand years ago created an unhealed civilizational divide. Western powers have periodically sought Russian alliance against common foes. But just as often Western powers have warred with or at least sought to contain Russia.

The “great game” of which Rudyard Kipling wrote described Britain’s ongoing designs to keep Czarist Russia away from South Asia and warm water ports. Britain’s one major hot war with Russia was ironically in Crimea. In countering Russia, Britain sometimes sided with the Turks against Slavic people’s struggling against Ottoman rule. Gladstone the arch Anglican famously urged British help instead for East European Christians resisting oppressive Muslim rule, while the arch realist Disraeli shrewdly focused instead on British interests in containing Russia.

Britain and France of course, 100 years ago this year, aligned with Russia against Germany, Austria and the Ottomans.  World War I, among its other horrors, replaced Czarist Christian Russia with Bolshevik atheism, mass murder and gulags. Excepting World War II, Russia and the West were again adversaries for 70 years. The Yeltsin era after the Soviet collapse briefly, perhaps superficially brought Russia into political commonality with the West. Putin’s more assertive and authoritarian understanding of Russian nationhood, which he sometimes frosts with religious rhetoric, which might even be sincere, has once again returned Russia into a strategic adversary for the West.

Among Putin’s political emoluments are renewed claims of Moscow as protector for Russian, Slavic and Orthodox people wherever. Hence, Putin sided with the Serbs over Kosovo, putatively with Syria’s Christians and their purported Alawite protectors, with dissident regions in Georgia and Ukraine. His self-identity as counterweight to the West also has aligned him with Iran’s Shiite regime.

In his adopted role as Great Russian Nationalist Putin is not a Stalin or a Hitler but a modern czar resuming old understandings and habits. The “great game” of the 19th century has resumed, with no fewer chess pieces on the board. This game seems archaic, and Secretary Kerry has mocked Putin as a 19th Century figure retro in our own time.

The other once great imperial game players have long since dissolved their empires and exchanged territorial acquisition for democratic market economics. They have also subsumed themselves under the American economic and military umbrella, a subordinate role that does not interest Putin.

Putin’s church, in keeping with its history, is largely supportive of his version of a revived Russia. The Patriarch in Moscow, unlike many pseudo pacifist Western church prelates, does not recoil from blessing even Russia’s nuclear arsenal as instrumental to his nation’s security. Such nationalist loyalties by a bishop seem retrograde and even scary to many Western elites, who dream of a post nation state world.

One shrill liberal religion columnist has bewailed Russian religious and nationalist revival as commensurate with America’s Tea Party, which is the worst kind of insult for a leftist. Some religiously conservative Americans are tempted to minimize Russian authoritarianism and expansionism in homage to renewed Russian religiosity, in contrast with the West’s accelerating Kulturkampf against traditional Christianity.

The challenge is to view an increasingly religious Russia on several interlocking levels that range from ennobling to pernicious to banal. Americans of all ideological stripes more typically prefer clear villains and heroes. Churchill famously proposed that Russia is a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”

Religious moralists, especially American, cringe from acknowledging the intrinsic, pervasive nature of self interest much less national interest. But they will need to try, as it relates to Russia, and to America.

Mark Tooley, President, Institute on Religion and Democracy.    

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Church in Samarkand, Uzbekistan raided

In Samarkand, Uzbekistan, police raided the service of an unregistered Baptist church after a school official reported that the daughter of a church member was distributing Christian literature and invitations to church to her classmates. This girl’s father had already been charged with illegal religious activity in 2010 and 2012. The service raided by the police was attended by 25 people, including 12 children.

The Uzbek constitution guarantees freedom of conscience, but a law passed in 1998 allows only registered religious organizations to conduct religious activity, and limits the number of religious organizations allowed to register. At the moment there are 2225 religious organizations registered in Uzbekistan, of which 2051 are Muslim, and 159 are Christian. Those illegally engaging in religious propaganda, import and distribution of religious literature, and organizing religious education are subject to criminal charges.

Please pray for believers in Uzbekistan as they follow Jesus in increasingly difficult circumstances. Pray for courage and creativity for them in sharing their faith and for strength in persecution.

Original story (in Russian): http://www.fergananews.com/news/21937

Harvest Church liquidated in St. Petersburg, Russia

The decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of March 5, 2014 on the Dissolution of a Local Religious Organization, the Harvest Church of Christians of Evangelical Pentecostals [(ECC(n)], for not possessing a license for educational activities will be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.

The decision will be ready to the full extent in approximately 2-3 weeks. Now we have only the end result – dissolution.

On November 14, 2013, the St. Petersburg City Court ruled on the dissolution of a local religious organization, the Harvest Church of Christians of Evangelical Pentecostals, numbering about two hundred parishioners. The court's decision was appealed to the Judicial Board on Civil Cases of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. However, on March 5, 2014 the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, and the decision to dissolve the church remained unchanged. The interests of the church were represented by attorneys Anatoly Pchelintsev and Sergei Chugunov of the Slavic Legal Center.

The St. Petersburg City Court and the Supreme Court came to the conclusion that the Church carries out educational activities without possessing a license for this, and carries out general educational services that are not part of the charter of the church.

Church community leaders and human rights activists do not agree with the ruling and argue that the church did not carry out educational activities; rather, they only provided space for activities with children who were enrolled in "external studies."

According to the attorneys, the implementation by the church of educational activities without a license and activities not provided for in the church charter was not established as a fact by the court proceedings. The courts misinterpreted the substantive law, they gave their own interpretation of the concept of educational activities, which does not meet the definition of education contained in the Education Act. 

"I am deeply disappointed by this ruling of the Supreme Court," said honorable lawyer of Russia, senior partner of the Law Offices of the Slavic Legal Center, Anatoly Pchelintsev, "In my opinion, it is unjust. The ruling of the St. Petersburg Court, and then by the Supreme Court are disproportionate to the act committed. There's an entire arsenal of measures in the prosecution's response that could have been used in this situation. For example, the prosecutor could have issued a warning or caution, initiated administrative proceedings or compelled the religious organization to restore the violated rights of the affected persons, given the existence of any. But for unknown reasons, the prosecution did not take these measures, rather, they immediately demanded the dissolution of a congregation that had not committed any serious offenses.”

“It is very unfortunate, but we again must appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. I am certain that the ruling of that court will be in favor of the church, although in Europe, they will again perceive us as a primitive society that is incapable of sorting out the basic issues. In any case, we're going to stand up for the church."

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