FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
http://www.forum18.org/
Monday 12 May 2008
BELARUS: KGB PRESSURE ORTHODOX NOT TO VENERATE SOVIET-ERA MARTYRS
Belarus discourages the commemoration of Orthodox Christians killed
for their faith by the Soviet Union, Forum 18 News Service has found.
Today's KGB secret police have sought to have icons of the New
Martyrs, as they are known by the Orthodox Church, removed from
Grodno Cathedral. Russian Orthodox Deacon Andrei Kurayev told Forum
18 that "Some comrades from the local KGB asked local clergy why they
were inciting the people in such a way." While there was no official
order to remove the icons - "it was on the level of a chat" - Kurayev
reported that Bishop Artemi (Kishchenko) of Grodno and Volkovysk
refused to take them down. "He told the KGB that he couldn't rewrite
history." KGB officers also often monitor visitors to Kuropaty, where
New Martyrs are probably among mass graves of Stalinist repression
victims, a local Orthodox source told Forum 18. The act of going
there - even to light candles - is "fraught with tension" with the
current Belarusian regime, according to the source. An Orthodox
chapel planned for the site has never been built.
BELARUS: KGB PRESSURE ORTHODOX NOT TO VENERATE SOVIET-ERA MARTYRS
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org
A generation after the Soviet Union's demise, Belarusian state
representatives continue to discourage commemoration of Orthodox
Christians killed for their faith by the Soviet regime, Forum 18 News
Service has found. The KGB secret police have sought to have icons of
the New Martyrs, as they are known by the Orthodox Church, removed
from at least one cathedral. Belarusian Orthodox Church
representatives appear to be nervous about publicly acknowledging New
Martyrs believed to be among the many victims of the Stalin-era
secret police at the mass killing grounds of Kuropaty (Kurapaty) on
the northern edge of the capital Minsk.
The Moscow-based St Tikhon Orthodox University estimates that
approximately 90,000 Orthodox were killed for their faith by the
Soviet state. Over 1,000 New Martyrs were formally canonised by the
Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in August 2000.
In the western city of Grodno [Hrodna], however, the KGB have advised
local Orthodox clergy to remove New Martyr icons depicting Red Army
executioners with rifles from the city's cathedral, leading Russian
Orthodox missionary Deacon Andrei Kurayev told Forum 18 on 5 May.
Visiting Grodno in late 2006, Kurayev learnt that, "Some comrades
from the local KGB asked local clergy why they were inciting the
people in such a way." While there was no official order to remove
the icons from the Cathedral of the Protection of the Holy Veil - "it
was on the level of a chat" - Kurayev also reported that Bishop
Artemi (Kishchenko) of Grodno and Volkovysk refused to take them
down. "He told the KGB that he couldn't rewrite history."
A spokesperson at Grodno's KGB Department refused to provide
information to Forum 18 by telephone on 8 May.
The ten icons in Grodno cathedral depict one-time bishops in Belarus
killed by the Soviet regime elsewhere before the Second World War.
Grodno was at this time in Poland.
"There is a certain circle of people who don't like these icons,"
dean of Grodno Fr Aleksandr Veliseichik would only comment on 5
May. "Similar to Christ in the Gospel," he told Forum 18, "let those
who can read, understand."
Fr Aleksandr did point out to Forum 18 that icons may be removed only
if they are not Orthodox, "but these were painted entirely according
to church canons." He said some of the ten icons were copied from one
in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour painted for the August
2000 canonisation of the New Martyrs and blessed by Patriarch Aleksi
II.
http://days.pravoslavie.ru/Images/im609.htm
Others - such as that of St Pavlin, Bishop of Mogilev (1879-1937) -
are new depictions produced at St Elizabeth Women's Monastery outside
Minsk(http://orthos.org/grodno/gev/june2006/i ... pavl_b.jpg).
Aleksandr Shursky, editor of Grodno's Orthodox diocesan newspaper,
stated to Forum 18 only that there was "no official appeal from KGB
representatives" on 22 April. He acknowledged, however, that "many
Party workers of the old formation could not possibly like such
icons."
The Belarusian KGB - which has not changed its name since Soviet
times - has made no attempt to distance itself from its Soviet past.
It proudly traces its history back to the first Soviet secret police,
the Cheka, which was founded by Felix Dzerzhinsky. In the
1920s "Chekists stood shoulder to shoulder with the entire Belarusian
people in resolving the most difficult and pressing economic and
social tasks before them," its official website maintains, before
claiming that the organisation was actually a victim of Stalin's
purges in the 1930s: "23,000 Chekists were repressed - the very
best professionals, moreover, Dzerzhinsky' s comrades, outstanding
people with rich and sensitive souls, selflessly serving the
Motherland and fighting for a bright future for their country."
KGB officers also often monitor visitors to Kuropaty, a wooded area
on the northern outskirts of Minsk, a local Orthodox source told
Forum 18 on 5 May. Possibly 100,000 victims of Stalin's purges are
thought to have been shot and buried at Kuropaty in 1937-41, but no
archaeological research has been conducted at the site since the
1990s. The act of going there - even to light candles - is "fraught
with tension" with the current regime, according to the source.
During the 1920s-30s over 20 clergy - including 3 bishops - were shot
in Minsk for their faith, states research by local church historian
Fr Feodor Krivonos cited in a 2001 Minsk Orthodox parish directory.
Contacted by Forum 18 on 8 May, Fr Feodor described the question of
whether Kuropaty could be considered a New Martyr burial site
as "very difficult". Other than to confirm that Belarusian New
Martyrs were killed in Belarus as well as Russia, he preferred not to
discuss the subject by telephone.
Andrei Petrashkevich, Minsk Orthodox diocesan press secretary, told
Forum 18 on 8 May that, "We have no information on whether there are
New Martyrs canonised by the Church at Kuropaty."
Local Orthodox parishioner Anatoli Kuznetsov believes Kuropaty to be
a New Martyr burial site. Icons painted on a number of rocks there
include five Belarusian priests martyred in Minsk in 1937-8, he told
Forum 18 on 8 May. "And Kuropaty is where people were shot."
Several icon rocks feature in footage of restoration work at Kuropaty
following vandalism, available at
Visiting Minsk in June 2001, Patriarch Aleksi gave his blessing for
the nearby Orthodox parish of the Resurrection to build a chapel at
Kuropaty. A 2001 directory of Minsk Orthodox churches describes the
parish's affiliate chapel of Our Saviour Not Made by Human Hands
as "being built at the mass burial site of repression victims
(Kuropaty)."
No Orthodox chapel has been built to date, however. An open-
air "chapel" area contains the icon rocks and two high crosses
erected by Anatoli Kuznetsov in February 2006 and May 2007, he told
Forum 18. As Resurrection Orthodox parish's custodian of the site,
Kuznetsov has visited Kuropaty daily for nearly five years.
Plans for a chapel as blessed by the patriarch were altered because
Metropolitan Filaret (Vakhromeyev) of Minsk and Slutsk, who heads the
Belarusian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) , gave a further
blessing for it to be built instead at Resurrection Church -
approximately 1km (half a mile) away in Minsk city - Kuznetsov told
Forum 18. "There was no explanation why - only that it should be
moved."
The initiative of Resurrection parish, the Kuropaty chapel plans have
not been realised because parishioners have been concentrating on
finishing their own church building, the Orthodox Church's press
secretary Petrashkevich told Forum 18. "The question remains open -
although it hasn't been discussed recently," he remarked. "That's all
I can say."
The situation surrounding Kuropaty is in sharp contrast to that at
another site of mass executions at Butovo on the outskirts of Moscow.
Of at least 20,000 Soviet repression victims shot and buried there,
almost 1,000 have so far been verified as martyrs by the Russian
Orthodox Church. Visiting the site in October 2007, then President
Vladimir Putin attended a memorial service led by Patriarch Aleksi at
a church dedicated to the Butovo New Martyrs and Confessors. Hundreds
of clergy attend the annual commemoration of their feast day.
To Forum 18's knowledge, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has
never mentioned Kuropaty publicly.
The 2001 Minsk Orthodox parish directory also states that Resurrection
Church holds services alongside Kuropaty at 2pm on particular days in
the Orthodox calendar set aside for prayer for the dead. On one of
these, Radonitsa (the ninth day after Easter), the memorial service
this year was held at Resurrection Church itself, however, Forum 18
was told by a female parishioner on 6 May. Kuropaty custodian
Kuznetsov told Forum 18 that services are not held at the site
because "the question hasn't arisen."
Orthodox memorial services are usually held in church buildings,
Belarusian Orthodox Church press secretary Petrashkevich maintained to
Forum 18. While acknowledging that Radonitsa services are normally
held at cemeteries or burial sites, "I have no information as to
whether they are held at Kuropaty," he added.
Separated from the Moscow Patriarchate and outside the Soviet Union,
the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) was free to canonise the
New Martyrs in November 1981. The ROCA took the Moscow Patriarchate' s
continued failure to venerate the New Martyrs as a sign of compliance
with Soviet ideology.
It formed one of the main obstacles to reconciliation, finally
overcome in a formal Act of Canonical Communion signed in Moscow on
17 May 2007.
The influence of Soviet-style militant atheism also remains strong
among state officials in Belarus (see F18News 18 November 2003.
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=186
Although President Lukashenko publicly stresses the role of Orthodoxy,
Forum 18 has found little evidence of state support for the Belarusian
Orthodox Church (see F18News 10 August 2006
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=826 ). The Church's
leadership publicly supported the harsh 2002 Religion Law, under
which home worship by its own adherents has been targeted by the
Belarusian state for the first time since the Soviet period (see
F18News 6 June 2007
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=971 ).
Even during the recent reconciliation process between the churches,
Belarusian Orthodox Church representatives have sought to restrict
worship by local ROCA parishioners (see most recently F18News 22
October 2006
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=862 ). (END)
For more background information see Forum 18's Belarus religious
freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=888 .
Full reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Belarus
can be found at
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?quer ... country=16 .