LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (05/24/98)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Important to hear all sides of the story

Dear Editor:

I echo Roma Lisovich's thanks (April 26) for continuing to print letters concerning developments in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. Your newspaper is one of the few ways issues and concerns can be aired publicly. The UOC has its monthly publication, with no assigned space for letters to the editor, and it is difficult to compete with the pulpit.

In his letter supporting recent events, Mr. Bazylevsky states that our Church "was never sobornopravna." Yet the Rev. Nakonachny defines the sobor as "the supreme organ of government of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States of America ..." I cite this as one example of the confusion and misunderstanding among the faithful. The late Metropolitan llarion (Ohienko) wrote numerous articles about the importance of sobors, and how they were instrumental in maintaining the tradition and purity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In fact, he writes that the resolutions of the Russian Orthodox Church became unbinding when it eliminated its sobors, replacing them with the Holy Synod in 1686. I stress these comments because I fear that in the near future the UOC will try to curtail or limit our sobors.

In his response to Mr. Rud's commentary, the Rev. Nakonachny states that it is "simply and absolutely not true" that the clergy of the UOC-U.S.A. cannot serve with the clergy of either the UAOC or UOC-KP. In fact, he dismisses Protocol 967 - I guess to him it's unimportant, a non-issue, perhaps some fan mail between two patriarchs. However, the important question remains: can our hierarchs concelebrate the liturgy (not a memorial service, or a moleben) with the Ukrainian hierarchs? A direct question begs a direct answer.

Also, the Rev. Nakonachny writes that a meeting was held between the Vatican and the Moscow patriarch to discuss the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine with no representative from the Ukrainian Catholic Church present and "no letters were written to The Weekly urging Ukrainian Catholics to leave Rome." I have no doubt we would see a strong, well-organized, clergy-supported protest if a protocol was published stating that the Vatican considers the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Ukraine a schismatic Church, and recognizes only the Roman Catholic Church under the jurisdiction of the Polish primate. And I am positive that after such a protocol was published, the priests and bishops remaining loyal to the Vatican would be called traitors. I am sure because in western Ukraine there is a well-developed sense of patriotism, nationalism, self-identity and pride.

Simon T. Nahnybida
Basking Ridge, N.J.

Recommend LOC transliteration system

Dear Editor:

On the margin of the letter by Andrij D. Solczanyk in The Ukrainian Weekly of March 5:

Much confusion is created by the lack of use of a uniform system of transliteration. As an example of such a muddle is a street sign in an American city: "Honorary Bishop Jaroslav..." Was there ever a bishop "ÑÊ¦ÓÒÎ¦,?" One could guess that this is the misspelled Polish name "Jaroslaw," or the misspelled Ukrainian üÓÒÎ¦,, (Yaroslav).

Why not accept a system established by specialists - the U.S. Library of Congress (LOC) system? Some sounds of Ukrainian words, if transliterated for a text in French, Polish or other languages, may have different forms than for the English text. For Ukrainians, the Cyrillic alphabet is sufficient. Instead of pronounciation puzzles for readers of an English text, the use of LOC symbols may help communication.

S. Zmurkevych, Ph.D., B.L.Sc.
Chicago

UOC pastoral letter inspiring

Dear Editor:

I am profoundly inspired by the paschal pastoral letter of the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the diaspora, "Let us be reborn, strengthened by faith" (April 19). Its theological depth is in the connection made from scriptural accounts of the crucifixion, resurrection and, especially, glorified presence of the Lord, and the eucharistic liturgy (divine liturgy in our Byzantine tradition). It is in the eucharistic liturgy that Christians summarily do all that the Lord instructed them to do: love God and people, the two being inseparable. It is in the liturgy that we at once, continuously and constantly share in the crucifixion and resurrection, and in the hope of eternal glorification. The holy Eucharist is the perfect sign and symbol of effecting what it symbolizes, union with God through service to humanity - what Eastern theology calls deification.

Thanks to The Ukrainian Weekly for priting the pastoral letter and thereby sharing that eternal message with our entire community. I am a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic, that is Ukrainian Orthodox in union with the bishop of Rome, and may not otherwise have had the benefit of reading that important reaffirmation of truth. Our community, however, far too often substitutes ecclesiology for truth in faith. We as a nation - the majority of us, anyway - are declared Christians called to be one in the faith, that is one in service to each other - and only then Ukrainian Orthodox of one of the four jurisdictions in Ukraine plus diaspora, or Ukrainian Greek-Catholic divided according to calendar, or Ukrainian Protestant of many denominations, etc.

Much - perhaps too much - has been written in The Ukrainian Weekly about our ecclesial affairs (the Rev. John Nakonachny, Dr. Myron Kuropas, Andrew Estocin, Alla Heretz and others). I can't recall anyone saying explicitly, although Mr. Estocin came very close, that at the core of our ecclesial divisions and diminishing numbers (at least in the diaspora) is lack of the essential faith. Small wonder that we remain fractious and diminished when we fail to sustain the hungry human spirit. That spirit by design seeks truth, and will find it elsewhere.

Jesus' promise to be with us always stands good only if we want Him among us. We do have the existential option of rejection (also by design), and seem to be making the negative choice.

Wishing you all the joy of our continuing paschal mystery celebration, Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!

Oles Cheren
Mansfield, Ohio

Support for plight of Tibetan people

Dear Editor:

I am a Ukrainian American, born in the United States, and have been actively researching for two decades the plight of the Tibetan people. Their situation is not unlike that of our forefathers in the 1930s where genocide was being perpetrated by a Soviet Communist regime, monasteries destroyed, monks and nuns murdered and raped, people imprisoned.The list of trauma and inhuman activity inflicted by the Communist Chinese is equally grotesque. Since 1959 there has been a media blackout in the West of this situation. Ignorance of the plight of these religious people reminds us of the West ignoring our starving peasants during the 1933 Famine. Only in the last few years has the general public become aware of actions that they must take to change the dire situation in Tibet.

As fellow Ukrainians, I believe that you can understand the deplorable effects of aggressive, imperialistic Communist repression. It is my hope that the Ukrainian community can rally spiritually, morally, and in any way possible to assist the government-in-exile of the Dalai Lama, and alleviate the plight of the Tibetan refugees in India. They are struggling to maintain their ethnic identity and to some day return to their land which is currently being ravaged at an unprecedented rate by the ruthless and technologically superior Communist Chinese invaders. The least little bit of help is an act of Christian charity and true compassion.

We can petition the governments of both the U.S. and Ukraine to support neutral groups such as the Red Cross and Amnesty International in their efforts to monitor human rights in Chinese territory.

We can contact Roman Bilewicz of OHM Productions at http://www.logiconnect.com/ who has committed a part of the purchase price of his unique T-shirts toward the Tibetan cause.

Readers interested in assisting the Tibetan cause can contact: Office of Tibet, 241 East 32nd St., New York, NY 10016; (212) 213-5010; or Amnesty International, 322 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10001.

Orest Pelechaty
Short Hills, N.J.

Environmentally sensitive development

Dear Editor:

Several years ago I had an opportunity to be with 15 environmental officials from Ukraine during their training tour in California, Maine and Washington. This group was very impressed by the high level of environmental care in the U.S.

In reading Roman Woronowycz's informative article on "Doing business in Ukraine: Mecca for golfers planned in Kyiv," (January 18) I am interested to know how the question of environmental impact of such a project on the Dnipro River was being resolved. The proposed project, a country club, condominiums and golf course to be located on an island in the Dnipro River, south of Kyiv could serve as an ideal case to illustrate which environmental laws of Ukraine are applicable to the protection of the river, which government agencies in Ukraine are responsible for the implementation of such laws, and how a developer like Mr. Prochorenko could be assisted with his project.

Unfortunately, this question could not be addressed in the article because Mr. Prochorenko, in the course of two months, had not been able to get a response from the Pleso Company, the intermediary between the developer and the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Water Resources of Ukraine. The Pleso Company also failed to respond to The Weekly correspondent.

It would be very useful to know, for those who want to do business in Ukraine, how the environmental issues related to a proposed golf course complex on an island in the Dnipro River are being, or were resolved. Perhaps Mr. Woronowycz could do a follow-up article on this question at some point. Such an article could illustrate how demands for economic development are being reconciled with environmental protection.

The success in the economic development of Ukraine within the context of how the environmental protection questions are resolved in each instance will determine the quality of life in Ukraine as a whole. The road to such success is not an easy one, as we see from the environmental issues with which we deal on regular and ongoing basis in the U.S. The needs of the economy and the environment have to be addressed simultaneously. The 15 visiting environmental officials from Ukraine were given this message. The environmental achievements they saw were a result of conflict, compromise and cooperation between the business sector, the government and advocates of environmental protection.

Nadia M. Derkach
San Francisco

AJC notes correction to Kuropas award

Dear Editor:

In your April 19 edition, an article on a Toronto presentation by Dr. Myron Kuropas reported inaccurately that the American Jewish Committee gave Dr. Kuropas an award in 1996. That award, named in memory of the late David Roth, a long-time AJC professional, came from the Illinois Ethnic Coalition, which the AJC spawned many years ago and which now operates independently.

Jeffrey Weintraub
Washington

The writer is director of the American Jewish Committee's Center for American Pluralism.

The Weekly reaches Luhansk students

Dear Editor:

On behalf of the English Department of Luhansk Pedagogical Institute, I'd like to thank you for the honor of being among The Ukrainian Weekly's numerous readers. The newspaper gives students and teachers of the department a good chance to acquire information that we don't have in our home newspapers.

Every issue of The Ukrainian Weekly is delivered to our English-language study room, where both teachers and students can read or borrow copies. The newspaper also is put to use in our English classes as we analyze the political vocabulary and the newspaper style of the language.

Thank you so much for your attention and regular delivery.

Irina Nedainova
Luhansk, Ukraine

The writer is a teacher in the English Department of the Luhansk Pedagogical Institute.