Permanent Seliger youth base planned for monastery grounds

Pro-Kremlin youth might soon start "camping" at Lake Seliger all year round, as the specially protected grounds of a local monastery are expected to be handed over to the Federal Youth Agency.
A letter to the governor of the Tver region, where the agency has been holding its annual summer forum since 2000, has been endorsed by Sports, Tourism and Youth Policy Minister Vitaly Mutko.
"The camp is developing, they want to tidy it up and stop living in tents,"
Hordes of young people have been descending on Lake Seliger's vicinity since 2000. And their numbers grew dramatically after gatherings of Kremlin-supporters from the Nashi and Idushchiye Vmeste movements were transformed into the All-Russian Educational Forum in 2009.
But camp-like gathering are soon to become history, as permanent facilities might be erected on an 18.76 hectare site, which was previously owned by the Nilov-Stolbensky Monastery, sources at the regional administration and the Sports Ministry told Izvestia.
Construction, which is expected to start in 2013 if not earlier, would cost just 125 million rubles. No information about the development project has been revealed so far but the funding seems to be rather modest, given that 200 million roubles have been allocated from the state budget for this year's forum.
The news about the looming construction has caused a stir in the region. "Local residents have become worried about the situation. That's why we've asked officials to give us with a clear answer about the monastery's lands," A Just Russia Duma Deputy Alexei Chepa,said. Chepa is drawing up a request to official bodies to check the legal grounds of the project.
The representatives of the monastery, however, don't seem to have a shared opinion on the matter. "We know nothing about it. Officially we haven't given the lands away," Father Pyotr, the monastery's spokesman told.
The head of the monastery, Father Arkady, told Izvestia that the territory could be passed to another owner.
"I have no concerns about it. I've always supported [the Seliger forum]. We've agreed to transfer the lands," he said.
Chepa was suspicious about the monks' position. "They are far from the political background of the story, in the first place. And secondly, it's likely that they have been pressured by the local authorities,"

Ukraine’s First Mosque With Minaret Inaugurated

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's first grand mosque Ar-Rahma, stands for mercy, accompanied with a minaret is inaugurated on Saturday following a ceremony in capital Kiev on the twentieth anniversary of the independence of Ukraine.

Anna Herman, representative to Ukraine president said in her address at the opening ceremony "On the occasion of the inauguration of this mosque, I congratulate all Muslims in Kiev and Ukraine.

This occurrence is a symbol of Ukraine's and Ukraine constitution's protection of human rights and liberty of conscience. This is the success of our democratic state."

"In the 20th anniversary of the independence of Ukraine we have proved that one can live without religious disputes, conflicting with complaisance and tolerance, respect to other cultures, religion and high moral values." added Anna.

Herman concluded her speech as "I want tranquility in this house (mosque), in the houses in Ukraine and all over the world."

Available to accommodate three thousand prayers, the mosque was reportedly under construction since 1994 when the first foundation was laid in Tatarka district atop Shchekavitsya hill.

The first attempts to build a mosque in Kiev were at the end of 19th century and at the beginning of 20th.

However two World wars and the October revolution in 1917 completely impeded progress.

The next attempt to build a mosque was made only in 1991.

Before that Muslims were forced to hold mass gatherings in apartments, libraries, and sports complexes.

Huge Mosque for Moscow

The cathedral mosque that was demolished in September is to be replaced with one of the largest mosques in Europe.

The new massive white and green mosque will have an area of 300,000 square meters and hold 5,000 believers, with space for a further 15,000-18,000 worshipers on its grounds. The mosque is to reach a height of 75 meters.

The Mosque is to be equipped with climate control, an elevator, and even video broadcasting facilities. Plans call for the building to be finished by 2014, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported on Thursday, citing the press secretary for the Mufti Council of Russia.

An Evangelical Preacher’s Message Catches Fire In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Every Sunday, thousands of worshipers crowd into an arena here for a rollicking evangelical Christian service. A choir and rock band belt out gospel tunes in Russian.
People sing along and clap and shimmy in the aisles. They dash up to the stage for a chance to grab the microphone and declare how their new faith has changed their lives.

It is as if a Sunbelt megachurch had been transplanted to Kiev, birthplace of Slavic Orthodoxy, land of onion-domed cathedrals and incense-shrouded icons.

But the preacher at the podium has little if any connection to the United States. Could there be a more unlikely success story in the former Soviet Union than the Rev. Sunday Adelaja, an immigrant from Nigeria who has developed an ardent — and enormous — following across Ukraine?

From his start with a prayer group in a ramshackle apartment soon after the Soviet collapse two decades ago, Mr. Adelaja has built a vast religious organization under the banner of his church, Embassy of God.

He has become one of Ukraine’s best known public figures, advocating a Christianity that pairs evangelical tenets with an up-from-the-bootstraps philosophy found in religiously oriented self-help books. (Several of which Mr. Adelaja has published.)

He has throngs of admirers, but is also reviled by some in the Ukrainian establishment who resent a black man from Africa luring white Slavs away from their religious traditions.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church calls him a cult leader, and law enforcement officials have repeatedly investigated him, once accusing him of involvement in a pyramid scheme. Around Kiev, it is not hard to find racial caricatures of him.

The Russian government, too, has taken offense, barring him from entering the country, though he has a growing number of adherents in Russia.

Mr. Adelaja said he believed that he was declared persona non grata because he was a staunch supporter of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the pro-Western uprising in 2004 that the Kremlin opposed.

Mr. Adelaja, who has a boisterous laugh and a relentlessly sunny personality, tries to brush aside the insults. He said his church’s popularity showed that Ukrainians were on a spiritual quest after having weathered the state-mandated atheism of the Soviet era.

He said that more than 100,000 people attended services regularly at the main arena in Kiev or his affiliates across Ukraine, which has a population of 46 million.

“I came to this country disadvantaged as a black person,” he said in an interview, adding that he was blistered with slurs and epithets. “But still, with all my disadvantages, with my accented Russian language, I went out and said, ‘Hey, this will help you.’ And people have responded to it.”

Mr. Adelaja, 43, arrived in the Soviet Union in 1986 as a college student, then stayed after the Soviet collapse in 1991, later moving to Kiev. His wife, Bose, is also Nigerian and often conducts services at the church.

They speak fluent Russian, which is the native language for many here and is understood by most speakers of Ukrainian, the country’s other main language.

Embassy of God has sprouted affiliates throughout the world, and Mr. Adelaja has been praised by some American evangelicals for bringing their brand of Christianity to the former Soviet Union.

In Ukraine, Embassy of God undertakes a wide array of charitable activities, feeding thousands of people a month at soup kitchens and running treatment centers for alcohol and drug addiction.

But it has also thrived because Mr. Adelaja has tapped into a desire of people in formerly Communist countries to learn entrepreneurial skills and make money.

Mr. Adelaja did not study in the United States, but says he has learned from the teachings of American pastors. His views sometimes reflect the so-called prosperity gospel — a belief among some strains of evangelical Christianity that God wants the faithful to attain material wealth.

On a recent Saturday night here, Mr. Adelaja conducted a seminar with a few dozen people in a church annex. Reading from an iPad, he recited passages from the Bible and discussed how Christian principles could assist in business.

Mr. Adelaja and a parishioner, Ishtvan Birov, 35, bantered about how to innovate in life, personally and professionally. The conversation veered from Jesus to Steve Jobs, the Apple chief executive, back to Jesus again.

“Apple takes a model and keeps improving on it,” Mr. Birov said.

Mr. Adelaja responded, “That is the principle of God — to always keep making it better.”

He added, “God is strategy, God is strategic thinking.”

After the seminar, Mr. Adelaja explained that in the post-Soviet era, Ukrainians at first had only one major choice, the Orthodox church. But he maintained that many were turned off by Orthodox services because they were conducted by solemn, bearded priests chanting complicated liturgical texts.

“We are always thinking, how can we make the Bible still relevant?” he said. “The same values, the same product. But not doing it in the Orthodox old style. I don’t want to go to a church where I am just standing there and don’t know what is going on. We must make it interesting. We must change the packaging. Not communicate it in a way that pushes them away, but draws them close.”

Mr. Adelaja has never sought Ukrainian citizenship because he said he did not want to raise suspicions that he was interested in obtaining political power.

Because he is not a citizen, the authorities could deport him at any time. But he said that they feared doing so because of a potential backlash from his many parishioners.

Prosecutors also seem reluctant to move forward on a 2009 criminal case against him, which alleges that he took part in a fraud scheme whose victims included his church members.

Mr. Adelaja said the charges amounted to a political vendetta, and the case did not appear to have diminished his standing here.

In the interview, Mr. Adelaja said he did not live a life of luxury. He said his parishioners were encouraged to donate 10 percent of their salaries to the church, though there is no requirement that they do so to attend services, and many do not.

Mr. Adelaja said that money goes toward the church’s activities, including plans for a new $50 million headquarters here. He earns a living largely from sales of his books, he said.

His opponents said whether or not he was exploiting parishioners financially, he was promoting false Christian ideals.

“His methodology, his Biblical views are twisted,” said Dmitri A. Rozet, who runs a Web site called Adelaja Watch. “He wants to use God for human benefit. That does not correspond to anything that Christians have believed for almost 2,000 years.”

Still, at services on a recent Sunday, many parishioners seemed enthralled.

“Before, I was depressed, and my life was a nightmare,” said Anna Vdovenko, 63. “Now, I am living. And it is all thanks to Pastor Sunday.”

Siberia’s dead are on the move

The dead may not be walking the earth yet, but beneath the surface they have been travelling up to 10 metres from their final resting place.

However, those fearing it's another apocalyptic sign in a summer of fire and drought should rest assured – there’s nothing unnatural, far less supernatural about these roaming bones.

Instead it’s simply a case of loose soil and water causing turbulence beneath the surface.

That’s little comfort to many whose loved ones are buried in cemeteries in the Siberian capital Novosibirsk, however.

Recently the city has seen a surge of requests for exhumations, with locals wanting to cremate corpses following the opening of the city’s first crematorium.

But once the digging started, workmen regularly found that the graves on the ground did not match the people buried below.

“During the exhumation, relatives identify the body only from the clothes or personal items,” undertaker Rodion Yakushin told the city’s funeral museum. “When it is impossible to identify the body...the relatives receive the remains found directly under the grave, but some of them may belong to another person.”

Typically Russians have buried their dead, and the Orthodox church has frowned upon cremation as a means of disposing of corpses.

But as the population grows there is an increasing need to free up space in overflowing cemeteries, meaning city’s like Novosibirsk (population 1.5 million) have started opening crematoriums.

LDS Church Members Celebrate Kiev, Ukraine Temple Dedication

KIEV, Ukraine -- President Thomas S. Monson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in Ukraine this weekend to dedicate a new temple in the country.
Thousands of Church members gathered for a cultural celebration Saturday. They sang and danced in traditional costumes to express their joy over the new Kiev temple.

Young people from nine countries in the temple district, which includes Eastern Russia, Moldova and others in the former Soviet Bloc, traveled thousands of miles to attend. Church leaders say the temple is a miracle.

"To see the people, feel the people, feel their love, their testimony -- it's just a miracle," said President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the Church's First Presidency. "It's just wonderful to be here. How much we're grateful for President Monson, for the love he expended tonight to these people."

Sunday, President Monson will lead three dedicatory services in the capitol city's newest landmark.

This is the first LDS temple built in Eastern Europe. It is the Church's 134th operating temple worldwide and the 11th in Europe. The temple was announced in 1998 and ground was broken for its construction in 2007.

The temple will serve close to 31,000 members of the faith beginning Aug. 30.

Vladimir Putin, Moscow Mayor And Patriarch Kirill Promote Russian Interests In Ukraine

WASHINGTON, DC -- Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, Moscow Mayor, Yury Luzhkov, and Patriarch Kirill flocked to Ukraine last week.
While the official goals of the visits were different, each promoted the Kremlin’s ideology of a single Russian worldview and personally congratulated President, Viktor Yanukovych on his birthday, the man who made it possible for them to preach this ideology in Ukraine.

His predecessor, the nationalist President, Viktor Yushchenko, and Putin, shunned each other. Relations between Kyiv and Kirill’s church were strained, while Luzhkov was persona non grata in Ukraine. These relationships have dramatically changed under Yanukovych.

The guests from Moscow literally felt at home during their visit.

Putin’s July 24 visit to Yanukovych’s summer residence in the Crimea had a rather symbolic meaning. Commenting on a plea by Ukrainian pipe makers to open up the Russian market, Putin nonchalantly dismissed the business dispute as a “family matter,” suggesting that his “special relations with Yanukovych” might help solve it.

The most spectacular event involving Putin’s participation, covered by the Ukrainian and Russian media, was his visit to a bikers’ festival near Sevastopol, a city where the Russian Black Sea Fleet will stay until 2042 and possibly beyond (rather than until 2017 thanks to the gas-for-fleet agreement reached with Yanukovych last April).

Putin played the macho leader, as he likes to do before a domestic audience. Putin drove a Harley-Davidson and addressed bikers, many of whom arrived from Russia, with a speech praising freedom.
Luzhkov’s visit raised controversy even before his arrival. He told a press conference in Moscow on July 19 that he would not change his view on the status of Sevastopol which is “a Russian city,” adding that “We must never leave either Sevastopol or the Crimea;” since losing Sevastopol which is strategically important “would be tantamount to losing the south of Russia,” he told naval officers in Moscow three days later.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry promptly criticized Luzhkov for the statements which “contradicted the recently established atmosphere of constructive and good-neighborly relations between Ukraine and Russia”. This did not prevent him from visiting Sevastopol.

In 2008, Kyiv declared Luzhkov persona non grata for his repeated calls to return Sevastopol to Russia. However, in June 2010, Yanukovych revoked that decision. Luzhkov publicly expressed his gratitude to Yanukovych speaking in Sevastopol’s main square.

He praised Yanukovych’s team for “the atmosphere of friendship and cooperation” and also told the cheering crowd that “the Russian Black Sea Fleet will stay in Sevastopol forever”.

Unlike Putin and Luzhkov, who visited only the Crimea, Patriarch Kirill went to several places including Kyiv. This visit was unlike last year’s, when Kyiv protested Kirill and characterized him as an unwanted guest.
From among the two largest rival Orthodox churches, the Kyiv Patriarchate and the Moscow Patriarchate, Yushchenko clearly favored Kyiv on the basis that he wanted to establish a single national church independent from Moscow.

However, Yanukovych openly sided with the Moscow Patriarchate, whose clergy backed his victorious presidential election campaign in 2009-2010.

From the Moscow Patriarchate’s point of view, Kirill’s July 20-28 tour of Ukraine was a home visit, because the Moscow church is more popular than the Kyiv church among the Orthodox communities in the densely populated and largely pro-Russian east and south.

Kirill pointedly ignored Kyiv Patriarch Filaret who was excommunicated by Kirill’s predecessors for setting up the Kyiv Patriarchate in 1992. Last year, Filaret tried to meet Kirill, but was ignored. The current government made it clear that it supports Kirill, allowing him to preside over a mass in St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Kyiv on July 26.

Prior to his visit, only ecumenical services were allowed there annually, as the cathedral, the cradle of Ukrainian Christianity, has museum status. Filaret’s representatives said they would demand that the government also permit them to serve in St. Sophia’s church in the future.

Yanukovych is unlikely to make such a concession to Filaret, especially after Kirill, who on July 23 decorated him with the Russian Orthodox Church’s highest award, the order of the Holy Prince Vladimir, emphasized that his church was “the absolute antipode” to Filaret’s.
Kirill also ruled out any reconciliation with the Kyiv Patriarchate during the synod which he chaired in Kyiv on July 26. Instead, the synod called on Filaret’s “schismatic’s” to “return to the canonical church through repentance.”

The synod criticized the authorities for interfering in church matters in the past, possibly referring to Yushchenko’s idea of an Orthodox Church independent from Moscow It also stated that nothing should now prevent the followers of Filaret from “repentance”.

Russia: Ukraine: Arrests And Bans During Patriarch Kirill's Visit To Ukraine

MOSCOW, Russia -- Down with the Moscow pope", is the slogan repeated by nationalist demonstrators every time the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia visits Ukraine.
In fact it was brandished again today in Kiev, where Patriarch Kirill is on an official visit and were he opened the Synod of the Russian-Orthodox Church. Eight people were arrested for demonstrating against the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In Dnipropetrovsk, however, the authorities have even banned any kind of street protests against Kirill, on this his third trip to the country since being elected in 2009.

In the Patriarch’s attempts to unify the various Orthodox Churches in Ukraine, bringing them back under the spiritual leadership of Moscow, the nationalists glimpse the political objective of the Kremlin to reassert its influence on the former satellite republic.

In Russia the "tour of Ukraine" by Kirill is being closely followed by TV and newspapers, as if it were a state visit. In fact at the very same time, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.

After the fall of the USSR in 1991, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine underwent a schism, with some bishops declaring their independence from Moscow.

So far, the Russian Patriarchate has been able to avert their recognition by the global Orthodox hierarchy.

In Ukraine, 80 percent of the 46 million inhabitants are Orthodox Christian, with a third referring to the Moscow Patriarchate.

Beyond the controversy, Kirill’s visit confirms that the unity of the Eastern Orthodox Church is one of his key objectives.

During trip which touched several cities, the Patriarch made the most significant statement on the issue to date in the city of Odessa, tracing what the Russian media have called his "third path".

In the city home to the Kremlin’s Black Sea fleet, where the majority of the population is Russian and relations with the Ukrainian minority are always tense, Kirill spoke for the first time against nationalism as a "dangerous instrument for building societies" which instead, end up living under the "continuing threat of violence."

The alternative to a fanaticism of boundaries, race and ethnicity is "a Western-style multicultural society, but based on a solid structure." "Even in the most multi-ethnic societies like the U.S. – he said - there is always a dominant culture, in this particular case the Anglo-Saxon culture: for Russia and Ukraine it is the Orthodox culture."

And the Patriarch has also listed its core values: "Goodness, the absence of ill will, the spirit of sacrifice and willingness to help others."

The "third path" is realized, then, in a society whose members live according to the "divine law of love."

Moscow Patriarch’s Visit To Ukraine Proving Counterproductive

KIEV, Ukraine -- Instead of generating pressure for an end to the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Russian church leader’s latest visit is in fact “provoking the growth of autocephalous attitudes” in Ukraine, according to an expert on religious affairs.
In a commentary on Portal-credo.ru, Aleksey Malyutin argues that Kirill does not understand that his repeated visits to Ukraine and his use of terms denigrating the independence of that country and its religious communities are having “exactly the opposite” impact the Russian patriarch intends.

It is one thing for Orthodox people in Ukraine “to have the Patriarch as a banner and symbol far away,” Malyutin says, but it is “an entirely different thing to constantly have to cope with his administrative interference,” the scandals involving his limousines and security details, and his “unsuccessful political declarations.”

“All this,” the commentator says, “inevitably leads to the devaluation of [Kirill as] the bright symbol of ‘church unity’ and to the undermining of the very idea of this unity.”

Indeed, Malyutin points out, “not one of the hierarchs likes such constant interference in his see,” whatever Kirill may think.

And as a result the very “frequency and length of the visits” of Kirill to Ukraine “deprive them of the exclusiveness or if one likes sensational quality and gradually reduce them to the level of protocol ritual,” a trend that means his current visit, all the hype of the Russian press notwithstanding “will be less successful than the one he made last year.”

In short, Malyutin suggests, Kirill is overplaying his hand in the religious sphere even more than Vladimir Putin is doing so in the political one, pursuing an approach that is so Moscow-centric that even those who would be willing to cooperate with the Russian center more closely are being driven away.

One reason for the counterproductive nature for Kirill’s approach, the religious affairs specialist says, is that the Russian churchman has shown no interest in going to Western Ukraine, “an inalienable part of his ‘canonical territory’” and the location of a large fraction of Orthodox parishes in Ukraine.

Kirill has tried to reach out to the faithful there by opening a Ukrainian-language version of the official site of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate this month, but the patriarch has shown no interest in going to a place where Ukrainian national identity is strong and where few people would accept his ideas about a single “Russian world.”

Another reason for judging his visit counterproductive, Malyutin suggests, is that despite his reputation for diplomatic skill, Patriarch Kirill in this case is pushing too hard and too quickly for the “resolution of questions,” forgetting that the new rapprochement between Moscow and Kyiv is not proceeding as fast or as consistently as he may want to believe.

An example of such haste is Kirill’s designation of Kyiv as “synodical capital of the Moscow patriarchate” and Odessa as “one of his residences.”

Such statements are “paradoxical” given that “all this is taking place on the territory of the most independent part of the Moscow Patriarchate which independently creates sees, forms bishoprics, and elects a leader.”

As specialists have “frequently and justly noted,” Malyutin notes, “the level of the real independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox church of the Moscow Patriarchate exceeds the analogous measure not only in autonomous but even in autocephalous churches of ‘world Orthodoxy,’” something Kirill has failed to take into consideration.

Moreover, “the Ukrainian church question is very delicate, much more delicate than the question about the relations between Yanukovich and Putin.” That is because historically the Kyiv metropolitanate has been the “mother” see for the Moscow Patriarchate and because Moscow’s subordination of it in 1686 was anything but transparently legal.

Support for Ukrainian autocephaly has “deep roots” extending back to the 19th century and, after Ukraine regained its independence in 1991, these attitudes have only increased.

There is no going back, Malyutin argues, because “in the history of humanity there has not yet been a single empire which has not been subject to dismantling.”

And by his actions, Malyutin continues, Patriarch Kirill is “strengthening autocephalous attitudes within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate,” something that Kirill appears unable to understand given “the deeply rooted imperial stereotypes in the Moscow mentality in relation to Ukraine.”

But in Ukraine, he notes, people “perfectly well understand that the Ukrainian Orthodox church of the Moscow Patriarchate is the most powerful ‘symbolic capital’ of Ukraine because the 17,000 Ukrainian Orthodox parishes (of which almost 12,000 are part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate) can tilt the balance in Orthodoxy as a whole.”

Consequently, “the latest change in the foreign policy conjunction hardly will lead mechanically to the destruction de facto of the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.”

Indeed, Malyutin says, “the canonical status of the Ukrainian Church is more stable and fixed than the state status of Ukraine itself.”

Russian Patriarch Begins 9-Day Visit To Ukraine

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill will make a nine-day pastoral trip to neighboring Ukraine on July 20 in line with a new tradition launched last year to make annual visits.
"Ukraine is very close to my heart for many reasons", Patriarch Kirill told Ukrainian media, adding that "quite positive" changes have occurred in Ukraine over recent months.

"It is these changes in the Ukrainian social life that I would like to see for myself", Patriarch Kirill said.

His first stop will be in Odessa in southern Ukraine.

Patriarch Kirill will then spend July 24 and 25 in Ukraine's third largest city, Dnepropetrovsk, and on the evening of July 25, he will travel to the capital Kiev where he will return to Moscow from.

The visit is no ordinary visit as the Patriarch is going to meet his congregation, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Russian Orthodox Church's Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations, said before the Patriarch's visit.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine split.

The Moscow Patriarchate still controls most parishes but the Kiev Patriarchate has managed to attract a large number of followers.

Drive is on to save wooden churches in western Ukraine

Ukrainian architect Andrij Kutnyi hopes his research on the nation’s wooden churches will bring the country closer to ensuring it does not lose one of the most recognized symbols of its cultural heritage.

“The churches need to be preserved, they are important for Ukraine,” Kutnyi said, referring to the many wooden churches that dot western Ukraine’s landscape. “The restoration of wooden churches has been problematic in recent years. But you have to understand them. It’s like dialysis.”

Kutnyi, who teaches architecture at Munich’s Technical University, has spent years traveling western Ukraine to learn about the complex architectural construction of the country’s wooden churches and documenting their centuries-old histories.

On June 11, Kutnyi was rewarded for his efforts when he received the prestigious European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Awards at a ceremony held in Istanbul, Turkey. One of 29 awardees from 15 countries, Kutnyi is the first Ukrainian to be presented with the honor.

Established in 2002, the prize is awarded annually. It highlights some of Europe’s best achievements and showcases remarkable efforts made in safeguarding Europe’s landscape, archaeological and artistic heritage. Kutnyi was awarded for his research project entitled, “Sacred Timber Architecture in the Carpathians: Building Archaeology of Selected Objects in Western Ukraine.”

Internationally recognized, Ukraine’s wooden churches have become one of the country’s most iconic symbols. Although their exact number is unknown, the wooden churches are found in a relatively small geographic area – in western Ukraine, parts of Romania, notably in the Bukovyna region, and areas of Russia. Many of the churches are centuries old and have served as spiritual centers for often remote communities.

The wooden churches are known for their unique architectural style, as well as construction methods that include using few nails.

Largely through human neglect, and sometimes arson, however, Ukraine’s churches are disappearing. The country is losing an average of 5 to 8 churches annually. Lviv Oblast alone lost 17 structures in recent years, according to Kutnyi.

One of the big problems is that, instead of restoring the wooden churches, communities are tearing them down to build new elaborate brick buildings.

“There is a very low culture in our people,” said Mykhailo Kubai, assistant head of restoration at the State Historical Architectural Preserve in Zhokva, which is located 22 kilometers outside Lviv. “They disregard what they have.”

Priests can also create problems because they are the ones who oversee the churches, said Mykola Bevz, who heads the department of restoration and reconstruction of architectural complexes at Lviv’s Polytechnic University.

“In one church that was burned down, we suspect the priest was involved,” he said.

Sometimes, priests will encourage arson in order to cover up the theft of icons or the iconostasis, the wall of icons and religious paintings which separate the nave from the sanctuary in a church. Many of these objects are centuries old and were built for each church respectively.

Additionally, reconstruction efforts are expensive and are beyond the financial means of many communities. When conservation efforts are undertaken, though, communities will often choose the cheapest option and use a building firm that has no background in restoration practices.

“The wooden churches are not restored properly and those that are being restored are not professionally done,” Kutnyi said. “If conservation efforts are not done correctly, a church can fall apart.”

The movement to seriously begin conserving Ukraine’s wooden churches began in 2002, after members of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) began discussions about adding 10 Ukrainian wooden churches to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List. The list includes 890 properties world-wide that form part of the cultural and natural heritage that UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value.

Several Ukrainian sites are currently on the list, including Lviv’s historic center ensemble, Kyiv’s St. Sophia and its related monastic buildings and the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra.

The wooden church initiative, however, did not receive adequate support from the Ukrainian government, Kutnyi said. Since 2002, two of the churches that were meant to be included on the UNESCO list have been removed: a church in the small town of Horodok was burned down in January 2009, while another church in Potelych was badly restored.

The Troitska Church in Zhokva, however, is an example of how a wooden church can be saved, said Kubai. Unlike many of Ukraine’s wooden churches, this particular structure is owned by the state, but is run by the local community. The priest, Vasyl Batiuk, has done significant outreach to the community to ensure people understand the church’s importance; he is personally involved in its upkeep.

“We’ve had all the appropriate inspections,” he said on a warm June evening, as the smell of warm wood and field flowers filled the church chamber. “We want to be part of UNESCO.”

Vohneborets, a firm from Lviv, donated time and resources to treat the building with the proper chemicals so it can withstand a fire, Batiuk said. The proper wiring has been installed and alarm systems are in place to ensure priceless 17th and 18th century icons are not stolen.

“This is our historical legacy and it must be taken care of,” Batiuk said.

Patriarch Kirill Speaks Up for Gays

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said Wednesday that although the church views homosexuality as a sin, gays should not face discrimination.
Kirill said “those who sin” must not be punished and therefore the church opposes any discrimination. Same-sex unions, however, should not be considered equal to heterosexual marriages, he said.
“We accept all the choices a person makes — in terms of their sexuality as well,” the patriarch said, RIA-Novosti reported.
Gay rights advocates argue that homosexuality is not wrong because it is an in-born orientation, but the church insists that it is a choice.
It was unclear to what extent the patriarch was easing church dogma in his carefully chosen statements, made during a meeting with visiting Council of Europe Secretary-General Thorbjorn Jagland.
Opposition to gay rights remains widespread in Russia, where homosexuality was decriminalized only in 1993.
Several high-profile Russian politicians have spoken against gay rights. Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov once described gays as “sodomites” and has blamed them for spreading AIDS.
Kirill, who was elected patriarch in January, has been seen as a modernizer and a politically savvy figure, but so far he has made no major statements that would signal a shift in the church’s conservative views on homosexuality and abortion.

Russia and the Vatican establish full diplomatic ties

Russia and the Vatican have agreed to establish full diplomatic relations, the Kremlin has announced.
Until now, Moscow only had an office of representation at the Vatican. The new status means full-fledged embassies will be established in Moscow and Rome.
The announcement comes after President Dmitry Medvedev met Pope Benedict XVI while on a visit to Italy.
The move follows improvements in relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican.
Decades of distrust
"President Medvedev told Pope Benedict at today's meeting that he signed a decree concerning the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the Vatican," presidential spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told reporters.
"He asked the foreign ministry to lead discussions to establish the relations and raise the level of representation to apostolic nuncio and embassy," she added.
The political detente follows decades of distrust between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches.
The Orthodox Church has long accused the Catholic Church of seeking to convert Russians to Catholicism.
The Vatican says its activities in the country cater largely for traditional Catholic minorities like Poles, Germans and Lithuanians, who have faced discrimination and persecution in the past.

Kirill's Visit Exposes Dangers In Moscow-Kiev Ties

MOSCOW, Russia -- Wittingly or not, a just-completed 10-day visit to Ukraine by Kirill I, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has exposed the dangers lurking in relations between Russia and Ukraine, the two most populous nations to emerge from the breakup of the Soviet Union.

was Kirill’s first trip to Ukraine since he was elected patriarch in January. The visit opened on July 27 with an affirmation of Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood in Kiev, regarded as the cradle of Russian Orthodoxy. Prince Vladimir adopted Orthodoxy from Byzantium for himself and his subjects, who were baptized en masse in the Dnieper River in 988.“If you will, Kiev is our common Jerusalem, from which our Orthodox faith came,” Kirill said after a service dedicated to the prince, St. Vladimir. “Praying here, we, the heirs of Vladimir’s baptism, living in different states, inviolately preserve the spiritual unity bestowed by him upon us.”But if the call to unity was a constant theme, and Kirill even offered to take out Ukrainian citizenship, it was clouded both by demonstrators hostile to a visit they saw as an attempt to assert Russian domination, and by political, religious and military tensions that have festered and in some ways grown since the Soviet collapse in 1991.Top church officials at a news conference in Moscow on Thursday depicted the trip as a triumph that strengthened the transnational character of the Russian Orthodox Church. Protesters represented marginal, isolated groups “that dislike the patriarch simply because of their anti-Russian sentiments,” said Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk. “There is no real opposition to the Russian church today,” he said of Ukraine.The Reverend Vsevolod Chaplin said that what he called Kirill’s pilgrimage underscored that the church extended far beyond geopolitical borders or terminology. “We are not the church only of the Russian Federation , nor only, as sometimes said, of the Russian people,” he said. “‘Russian’ in the name of the church refers not to the ethnic definition ‘Russian,’ but to the concept ‘Rus,’ which is not political but rather spiritual.”He said Russia and Ukraine were vital parts of Europe but should not compromise their values and identities to integrate into the modern European system.By contrast, Mykola Tomenko, vice chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament, said in a statement Thursday that Kirill was hijacking the idea of Rus and that he had used his to “test out the idea of a new ideological doctrine of Russia.”Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, has yet to visit Ukraine since he took office 15 months ago. Most pointedly, Mr. Medvedev refused an invitation last year from Ukraine’s president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, to the unveiling of a monument to the millions who died in mass famine under Stalin in the 1930s, which Ukrainians call Holodomor and often regard as genocide inflicted by Russia.Mr. Medvedev railed against the use of distortions of history to cast Russia in a bad light. Kirill, however, visited the monument with Mr. Yushchenko, and used pastoral intonations and personal history — he told of his family’s suffering under Stalin — to cast Stalin’s crimes in a larger context, speaking of famine killing millions across the Soviet Union.“This is the common tragedy of our entire people, who lived in that time in one country,” Kirill said at the monument, according to the Patriarchate Web site. “That’s why there’s nothing surprising in the fact that we are praying for innocent victims, that we are remembering those who died.”Underscoring the importance of Kirill’s trip, Mr. Medvedev received the patriarch Thursday to discuss it.“We’ve had rather complicated relations recently, and we are not happy about this,” Mr. Medvedev said of Ukraine. “That’s why I’m interested in your evaluation.”Mr. Yushchenko has irked Russians by seeking support from the Patriarchate of Constantinople, with which the Russian church jockeys for power, for a unified Ukrainian Orthodox church free of Moscow’s control.Traditionally, religious conflict between Russia and Ukraine has centered on the Uniates in Ukraine, especially its western region, who observe the Byzantine rite but are loyal to Rome. Those tensions have abated but have flared between the rival Orthodox churches. During his tour, Kirill rejected demands for formal independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which accounts for over one third of the Russian Orthodox Church, noting it has near total autonomy.The “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine in 2004 and its turn toward Europe have alarmed the Russian church and the Kremlin. Speaking at a monastery near the border with European Union member Poland, Kirill took care to address Europe, warning it against repeating the Soviet experiment of living without God.His trip took him right across Ukraine, a country of some 46 million roughly the size of France, traveling from Kiev to Donetsk, a mining hub in the east, where many Russian speakers live, to Crimea and to western Ukraine.Perhaps the greatest Russian-Ukrainian tension centers on Crimea, where Russia’s Black Sea fleet is based at Sevastopol. There, laying a wreath at a war memorial, Kirill struck a slightly more ominous tone.Crimea was part of Russia until the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev bestowed it on Ukraine in 1954. When the Soviet Union crumbled, this left Russia’s Black Sea fleet in a different country. Ukraine would like it out after its lease expires in 2017; just days before Kirill’s visit, Russia acknowledged that it had violated treaty stipulations by transporting cruise missiles near the base.At the war monument, as Russian and Ukrainian naval officials listened, Kirill spoke of the potential for escalation and commonalities that might prevent it.“As a result of historical events about which we know and remember, it turned out that there are two fleets here, and not one,” he said. “But in these two fleets serve brothers — brothers in faith, heirs of the Holy Equal-to-the Apostles Prince Vladimir. And today it is my fervent prayer that never and under no circumstances should brothers take aim at each other, because nothing divides brothers so much as spilled blood.”

Church Leader Urges Kiev, Moscow To Avoid Conflict

CHERSONESE, Ukraine -- The Russian Orthodox patriarch yesterday urged Russia and Ukraine to avoid any kind of military conflict, as he held an open air mass on the latest stage of a trip that has angered Ukrainian nationalists.

Patriarch Kirill made the comments in the southern Ukrainian region of Crimea, home to a majority of Orthodox Russian-speakers and also the Russian Black Sea fleet.He lamented that the fact there were now two fleets in Crimea - from the Russian and Ukrainian navies - rather one single force was due “to tragic events about which we all know.”“My impassioned prayer today is that never should brothers look at each other through the crosshairs, that never should the hand of one brother rise up against another,” he said after holding the mass in the port of Sevastopol.“Nothing divides brothers like the spilling of blood,” he added, the Interfax news agency reported.Thousands had earlier attended an open-air mass led by Kirill, who also described as “devilish” attempts to unify peoples by the making-up of false enemies.Crimea was originally taken over by Russia in the 18th century and then formally handed over to Soviet Ukraine in 1954 by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.At that time internal Soviet borders hardly mattered but now many Crimeans yearn for a union with Russia and a key part of the Russian navy is in a foreign country.Kirill’s visit has been hugely sensitive since Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians are split between parishes loyal to his Moscow Patriarchate and an autonomous Ukrainian church that broke off from Moscow in the 1990s.Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has voiced support for having an single independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church and clashed publicly with Kirill on the issue.The visit has been marked by protests from religious nationalists telling the patriarch to go home and calling for a unified Ukrainian church. After Sevastopol, Kirill had been scheduled to visit Rivne in Ukraine’s nationalist and anti-Russian west, but the trip was canceled at the request of Yushchenko’s office, the chief diplomat of the Russian church said.The presidency “informed us that we had to change itinerary for security reasons,” the chief diplomat, Illarion, was quoted as saying by Interfax.Relations between Russia and Ukraine have steadily deteriorated under the pro-Western Yushchenko, who wants his country to join the European Union and Nato much to Moscow’s irritation.

Russian Patriarch Kirill: No Independent Church In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- The head of the Russian Orthodox Church rejected calls from Ukraine's president to create a local Orthodox church that would be independent from Moscow, saying he firmly supports the status quo.

Patriarch Kirill arrived in Ukraine for a prolonged visit, which observers say is aimed at reasserting Moscow's religious and political influence over this predominantly Orthodox nation of 46 million, which is trying to integrate with the West.President Viktor Yushchenko has led a campaign to win recognition of a separatist church that broke away from the Moscow Patriarchate in the 1990s.''The main aspiration of the Ukrainian people is to live in a united, self-governing Apostolic Orthodox church,'' Yushchenko said in a speech, standing alongside Kirill.Kirill was quick to stress that the dominant Orthodox church in Ukraine, which answers to Moscow, is the only legitimate church here.''This church, Mr. President, already exists,'' Kirill said. ''If it didn't exist today, Ukraine wouldn't exist either.''''But wounds have formed in this church and these wounds must be healed,'' he said.The two leaders made the statements after laying flowers at a memorial commemorating the victims of a 1932-33 famine that killed millions which was engineered by Soviet authorities to abolish private land ownership.Yushchenko is also leading a campaign to win recognition of the famine as an act of genocide; Moscow counters that the campaign was not aimed specifically at Ukrainians.Kirill said that he mourns the tragedy and prays for all those who perished, but stressed that other ethnic groups, including Russians, also suffered.The Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the Kremlin, worry about losing dominance in Ukraine.The mainstream, Moscow-aligned church claims about 28 million believers, while the separatist Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kiev Patriarchate claims about 14 million followers. Opinion polls show the splinter church's popularity is growing.Earlier Monday, Kirill led a service on St. Volodymyr Hill in central Kiev near the statue of Prince Volodymyr, who launched the Slavic world's conversion to Christianity in 988. Kirill called for friendship, brotherhood and unity.Yushchenko, who has sought to break free from Russia's centuries-old political dominance and integrate with the European Union and NATO, has appealed to the spiritual leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox believers, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, to recognize the separatist church.Bartholomew, who visited Kiev last summer, has not given a clear response.Kirill is to visit a number of Ukrainian cities during a prolonged visit that his office says is devoted strictly to pilgrimage. But observers note that his trips to such strongholds of pro-Russian support as the eastern coal-mining city of Donetsk and the port of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula have clear political undertones.Before Kirill led the prayers, a group of nationalist activists shouting ''Moscow priest get out!'' briefly scuffled with his supporters near the St. Volodymyr Hill. The scuffle was broken up by police.

Russian Patriarch Visits Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has begun a visit to neighbouring Ukraine.

He will meet the country's President, Viktor Yushchenko, in Kiev, before travelling to the east of the country.Like Russia, Ukraine is a predominantly Orthodox country, but the Orthodox Church itself in Ukraine is split.Some Ukrainian Orthodox believers think Patriarch Kirill's visit is aimed primarily at boosting political Russian influence in their country.After arriving in Kiev on Monday, Patriarch Kirill set off in a motorcade to visit the holiest sites in the capital. He will later travel to the industrial heartlands of eastern Ukraine.What makes this trip so controversial is Patriarch Kirill's vision.He is a relative newcomer to the post, having been elected in February.He has articulated a vision of Orthodoxy's future, in which the Russian Orthodox Church holds the dominant, first position among the scattered branches of Orthodoxy.This makes the visit highly sensitive.DivisionsIt raises questions of spheres of religious and political influence, which often cross what are the region's relatively new state borders.After 1991, when Ukraine gained its independence, the Orthodox church there split, with the Moscow patriarchate controlling the larger branch of Ukrainian Orthodoxy.Meanwhile, believers from the smaller Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate think the Russian-backed church does not support Ukrainian independence, culture or language.Furthermore, there are political divisions inside Ukraine.In Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill will be seen as the head of one big family.But in western Ukraine, nationalist groups have protested against what they say is his treatment of Ukraine as his own country.President Yushchenko says he wants unity of the Orthodox churches.Moscow arguably wants church unity on its terms.The Russian Orthodox Church, after all, has a powerful role at the heart of Russia, aimed both at strengthening the state, and restoring its influence abroad.

Are Ukrainian Journalists Missing The Real Story?

KIEV, Ukraine — Merely saying the forest’s name — Bykivnya — can cause strong emotions for millions of Ukrainians. This is where the secret police of Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin buried 100,000 of their victims between 1937 and 1941 in a mass grave northeast of Kiev.
President Victor Yushchenko did not mince words during his recent speech there, on Ukraine’s Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression.“Here, at Bykivnya, Stalin and his monstrous hangmen killed the bloom of Ukraine. There is no forgiveness and there will be none,” he told several thousand mourners and, of course, Ukrainian journalists.The mourners wept, while processing through the site behind Orthodox clergy who carried liturgical banners containing iconic images of Jesus and Mary.“Because of the national symbolism of this ceremony, the priests there may not be important,” said Victor Yelensky, a sociologist of religion associated with the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences.“But the priests have to be there because this is Ukraine and this is a ceremony that is about a great tragedy in the history of Ukraine.“So the priests are there. It is part ... of a civil religion.”This is where the story gets complicated. In the Ukrainian media, photographs and video images showed the clergy, with their dramatic banners and colorful vestments. However, in their reporting, journalists never mentioned what the clergy said or did.Mainstream media reports also failed to mention which Orthodoxy body or bodies were represented. This is an important gap because of the tense and complicated nature of the religious marketplace in this historically Eastern Orthodox culture.It would have been big news, for example, if clergy from the giant Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) — with direct ties to Moscow — had taken part in a ceremony that featured Yushchenko, who, as usual, aimed angry words to the north.But what if the clergy were exclusively from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate), born after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 and linked to declarations of Ukrainian independence? What if there were also clergy from a third body, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, born early in the 20th century?A rite featuring clergy from one or both of these newer churches also would have been symbolic. After all, these days almost anything can create tensions between Ukraine and Russia, from natural gas prices to efforts to emphasize the Ukrainian language, from exhibits of uniquely Ukrainian art to decisions about which statues are torn down or which are erected.But it’s hard for Ukrainian journalists to ask these kinds of questions and print what they learn when people answer them, according to a circle of journalists — secular and religious — at a Kiev forum last week focusing on trends in religion news in their nation. I was one of the speakers, along with another colleague from the Oxford Centre for Religion & Public Life.As in America, Ukrainian journalists often assume that politics is the only faith that matters in life. The journalists in Kiev also said that they struggle to escape Soviet-era rules stating that religion was bad, irrelevant or, at best, merely private. Many journalists lack historical knowledge required to do accurate coverage of religion, while others do not care, because they shun organized religion.“Many would say that, if we do not play the violin, we really should not attempt to comment on how others play the violin,” said Yuri Makarov, editor in chief of Ukrainian Week, speaking through a translator.This blind spot is unfortunate, because Ukrainian journalists may have missed a crucial piece of the Bykivnya story, said Yelensky. It’s hard to understand the soul of Ukraine without grasping the power of religion.“For many Orthodox people in western Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to live in any way under the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate. At the same time, for many Orthodox in eastern Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to not to be associated and in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. In the middle are places like Kiev. ...“This is a division that is inside Ukrainian society. Is it based on religion? No. Is religion right there in the heart of it? Yes.”