Orthodox and Catholic faithful commemorate Chornobyl closing

by Helen Smindak

NEW YORK - Hundreds of worshippers of the Ukrainian Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic faiths crowded St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Manhattan on Sunday, January 14, for a special prayer service commemorating the closing of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant.

Archbishop Antony, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Consistory of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of U.S.A., and Bishop Basil Losten of the Stamford Eparchy of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, concelebrated the solemn moleben. Both prelates recalled the horrifying effects of the Chornobyl explosion on Ukraine and prayed that the nation would never again be visited by devastation.

The main speaker, Ihor Sybiha, vice-consul of Ukraine's Consulate General in New York, said the act of closure "marked the termination of an object that has entered into history as the greatest techno-genic catastrophe with the most terrifying consequences ... a catastrophe that equals such destructive cataclysms as Pompeii and Hiroshima, affecting almost 3.5 million people and 10 percent of our land, necessitating the evacuation of 160,000 people from their homes, and already costing the country $130 million."

Assisting clergy included the Rev. Mitrai Dubovici of the Stamford Eparchy, the pastors of Ukrainian Orthodox parishes in New York City - the Rev. John Lyszyk, St. Vladimir's Cathedral; the Rev. Todor Mazur, Holy Trinity Cathedral; and Rev. Andrei Kulyk, All Saints' Church - as well as Hieromonk Swiatoslaw, Very Rev. Serhiy Neprel, Protodeacons Volodymyr Zelinsky and Ireneusz Dziadyk, and seminarians of the Ukrainian Orthodox Consistory in South Bound Brook, N.J.

The Dumka Chorus of New York, directed by Vasyl Hrechynsky, sang the responses.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 21, 2001, No. 3, Vol. LXIX

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