by Askold Lozynskyj
I am in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. It has been said that the Apostle Andrew visited the hills of Kyiv and blessed them for Christ, planting a wooden cross. The City of Kyiv was actually founded in the late 5th century. It flourished as a commercial centre since it was located on a major waterway running from what is now the middle of Belarus to the Black Sea, the Dnipro River. From the Black Sea you could travel and trade almost anywhere.
By the middle of the 9th century Kyiv had grown into a state with adjacent lands and rulers, initially two brothers Askold and Dyr who during one of their forays to Constantinople took on Christianity and spared the City, protected by the Holy Mother. The State of Kyiv and its people did not officially become Christian until the reign of Prince Volodymyr the Great in 988 who himself was baptized in Crimea. The Kyiv empire stretched as far south as parts of Crimea.
Whenever I am in Kyiv I observe Sunday service at a Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral named after Prince Volodymyr who is recognized as a saint by all the Ukrainian Christian denominations. The prelate of the Church is Patriarch Filaret, not of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine blessed by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Kyiv, like the rest of Ukraine, is panoramic and diverse in its religions, including a variety of Christians, Jews, Muslims. The people are very religious and managed to endure communist atheism retaining their belief in God. It has been said that in Ukraine during Soviet times, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was unable to deal effectively with this opiate as Lenin referred to religion so his successor Stalin created his own Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate. That institution has been an agency of the Russian government ever since.
This Sunday, September 15, 2024 was no different. The service was long by my Catholic standards, but notwithstanding the duration Patriarch Filaret 95 years old con-celebrated throughout. The Church was packed. There were many children and soldiers on leave. The choir as usual in Ukrainian culture was very moving. There was much audience participation. Unfortunately, of course, there were no women priests, only elderly women commanding the front rows.
Several days earlier I witnessed the unveiling of a sculpture honouring Ukraine’s preeminent film screenwriter and director, of global acclaim, on the 130th anniversary of his birth. Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s best works were “Zvenyhora,” “Arsenal” and “Zemlya” (Earth). The film “Zemlya” is considered one of the best silent films of all time in the entire world. The Dovzhenko film studio where the sculpture sits, is located one mile up the hill from the St. Volodymyr Cathedral. Such cinematic gems as “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” and “Famine 33” were produced by that Studio.
These two venues and events serve as magnificent reminders of the length and breath of Ukrainian culture and unfortunately, serve as tragic motivation for Russian aggression, war crimes and ongoing genocide. “Ukrainians have to be wiped off the face of the earth”, said one Russian religious leader.
It is that history which Russian strongman Vladimir Putin referred to in his perverse account of Russian and Ukrainian history in July 2021. There is so much more, but in microcosm, the Kyivan Prince Saint Volodymyr and the much persecuted by the Soviets Ukrainian film genius Oleksandr Dovzhenko manifest the long and glorious, albeit tragic history of the Ukrainian nation which is at the heart of Russian hatred and evil. Muscovy as a village in the swamps dates to the 12th century and the Russian empire came into existence only in the 18th century. That will never change and Ukrainian history and culture will go on.
September 15, 2024