Ukrainian Orthodox to back Communists at elections

[尼古拉前执事]

28 January 2006, 11:36
Ukrainian Orthodox group to back Communists at elections

Kiev, January 28, Interfax - Orthodox Choice, an organization formed by the Society of Orthodox Brotherhoods, will support the Communist Party in the Ukrainian parliamentary elections in March 2006, Society head Valentin Lukiyanyk said on Friday.

Orthodox Choice was set up in 2005, with taking part in the elections one of the reasons for its existence, Lukiyanyk told a news conference in Kiev.

"To date we are becoming actively involved in campaigning for the Ukrainian Communist Party," Lukiyanyk said.

The party's principles are close to Orthodoxy in spirit, he said.

He called the Our Ukraine party, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the Socialists, and the Popular Rukh party "anti-Orthodox forces" because, he said, their programs contradicted the principles of the Orthodox Church.

The chairman of the Orthodox Choice coordinating committee, Yury Yegorov, told the conference that the Communist Party was consistently defending Orthodox values and was "closer to the people."

The Communist Party "proposed that we join their election ticket," he said.

Yegorov said Orthodox Choice's cooperation with the Communists was based on the two groups' "similar" social principles - combating illegal enrichment, seeking a unification of Slavic peoples, supporting the use of the Russian language in Ukraine and a negative attitude towards NATO.

[Kollyvas]

Pecualiarly, in the press, it is never reported that the MAJORITY of ukrainian uniate heretics back neo-nazi openly russophobe parties, that when their candidates come to power they openly and sometimes brutally persecute the Orthodox. Ukrainian politics are a corrupt mess of ignorance and baseness. Here 2 organizations, backing the marxists (who are now indeed pro-Orthodox and not discriminatory like the uniate neo-nazi or "democrat" parties), DO indeed come as a shock to the general Orthodox believer but it is necessary to hasten to add that they are just two organizations and in no way represent any sort of political bias of the Orthodox Church in the Ukraine, but the political views of some believers...I would hasten to add, that I as a Russian monarchist and one who loves the legacy of Rus', might also be swayed into a vote for these "reformed democratic socialists" AS A VOTE AGAINST unia AND FOR ALL-RUSSIAN UNITY. LOL! One of the lessons we must appreciate of our diasporan Russian church is that the Church is neither red, nor white, nor green, but Christ for all colours unto all times.
R

[Kollyvas]

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6894

Russian Orthodox activist deported from Ukraine

Moscow, January 27, Interfax - Press secretary of the Union of Orthodox Citizens, CIS Countries Institute expert Kirill Frolov has told Interfax that he has been barred from entering Ukraine.

Frolov was travelling to the Crimea to lecture, but was presented with a Ukrainian Border Service document at border control saying that he was denied the right to cross the border.

He was then put on an Arkhangelsk Airlines plane to Moscow.

"I was not given the opportunity to contact the representatives of our institute in the Crimea or the Russian Consulate General," Frolov said.

"I interpret this as repression and a violation of the Russian- Ukrainian agreement on the free movement of these countries' citizens," Frolov said.

"Referring to Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk, the Ukrainian media reported that a list of Russian scientists, politicians and political experts that are to be considered personae non gratae in Ukraine was being composed. I am on that black list," Frolov said.

He claimed the reason behind this was his statement about "Ukraine becoming an anti-Russian state."

"Tomorrow, any Russian citizen, any scientist who heads there for a lecture or any person traveling to the Crimea for a vacation could be deported just like that," Frolov said.

[Kollyvas]

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6893

Orthodox Church NGOs throw support behind Communists
5tv.com - Kyiv,Ukraine

Two Orthodox Church organizations loyal to Moscow declared support on Friday for the supposedly atheist Communist party ahead of the elections.

Representatives from the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods and the Orthodox Choice civic union announced that their organizations will support the party that once condemned religion as the "opiate of the people." In defense of their decision, Orthodox activists explained that among all politicians, the Communists are the most humane and honest. Yuriy Yegorov, head of Orthodox Choice, explained that the Communists defend Orthodoxy, the Orthodox civilization and unity of "brotherly people." Other parties, notably the Nataliya Vitrenko bloc, are also courting voters who recognize the Orthodox patriarchate in Moscow.

[Kollyvas]

http://www.risu.org.ua/eng/news/article;8846/

UOC-MP Orthodox Metropolitan Heads Party of Regions Election List in Odesa
27.01.2006, [11:05] // Church-state relations //

Odesa – Metropolitan Ahafanhel (Savvin) of Odesa and Izmail of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOK-MP) is at the top of the election list of the Party of Regions of Ukraine (PRU) for the Regional Council in southern Ukraine’s Odesa region. This means that, based on the PRU’s success in the March elections, the metropolitan is the first in line to be asked to serve in the government. Religare.ru posted the news on 25 January 2006.

The list was approved at a session of the regional organization of the UPR on 24 January 2006.

Metropolitan Ahafanhel actively participated in the 2004 presidential elections, defending the interests of Viktor Yanukovych, who was then the candidate of the standing government. Yanukovych now heads the opposition party, the UPR. In Soviet times, the metropolitan was a national deputy in the Ukrainian Parliament.

Source:

• http://www.religare.ru/news2527.htm

[Kollyvas]

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6903

Russian Bishop believes attempts to ban communist ideology senseless

Moscow, January 30, Interfax - Bishop Longin, administrator of the Saratov diocese, believes the attempts of PACE deputies to ban the ideology of communism to be senseless.

‘The Church does not support the communist ideology, nor can she sympathize with it by definition. But one of the temptations of our time is that we struggle with what is senseless to struggle with and reconcile ourselves with what should be struggled with’, the bishop stated in an interview to Interfax.

‘I believe that if it were done before 1990, it would have a certain sense. But today it can provoke no feeling except that of perplexity’, he added.

[Kollyvas]

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/mod/ne ... le_id=6932

Basic Orthodox Culture is the best antidote for an ‘orange revolution’ in Russia - Natalia Vitrenko

Moscow, February 1, Interfax - Natalia Vitrenko, leader of the Ukrainian Progressive Socialist Party, warns that the establishment of an independent Local Church in Ukraine will turn the country into a ‘center of intrigues’ against Russia.

‘It has to be stated straightforward: the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is an integral part of the Moscow Patriarchate, is the principal force restraining and preventing Ukraine’s turning into an anti-Russian base’, Vitrenko states in her message to the Christmas Readings taking place in Moscow. Its text has been conveyed to Interfax on Wednesday.

The leader of a Ukrainian opposition party believes that ‘a forcible separation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Moscow Patriarchate and Ukraine’s joining in NATO are links of the same chain of spiritual and geopolitical disasters called to destroy the age-old unity of Old Russia’s nations’.

She explains that she implies the issue of ‘orange revolution’ as presented in the textbooks on history published with support from the Soros Foundation, ‘in which Russia is presented as Ukraine’s chief historical enemy’.

“The attempts to repeat ‘the orange revolution’ in Russia have not been stopped. They all begin with the humanitarian, especially, educational sphere. Those who oppose the introduction of Basic Orthodox Culture in schools are heralds of an ‘orange revolution’. Do learn our lessons”, Vitrenko urged.