KYIV – Thousands of Orthodox believers who participated in a controversial religious procession organized by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) gathered in Kyiv on July 27 to mark the 1,028th anniversary of Kyivan Rus’s acceptance of Christianity.
Some Ukrainian officials and activists have said the marches are a Moscow-orchestrated plot to incite unrest and assert that the rights of ethnic Russians, Russian-speakers and members of the Moscow-based church are restricted in Ukraine.
Nearly 9,000 people gathered on St. Volodymyr Hill after marching for weeks from across the country to the capital.
The event was held under tight security, following threats of violence from groups who see the procession as a provocation by Moscow.
More than 1,000 people, divided into two columns, have been marching since the beginning of the month toward Kyiv from the country’s west and east in processions led by the UOC-MP, an affiliate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The event was promoted by Patriarch Kirill, the Moscow-based head of the Russian Orthodox Church, as a day of Orthodox religious unity.
Speaking to journalists in Kyiv, however, Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate said the procession aims “to use a church guise to incite unrest, to destabilize Ukrainian society, and to set one Church against another.”
Ukraine’s Orthodox Christian majority is split among three major churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov on July 26 said the procession would not be allowed to march into Kyiv because of security concerns after two grenades and several fake mines were found on the marchers’ route in the western outskirts of the city.
“The fake mines and real grenades discovered this morning made it clear for us that the threats and provocations are real,” Mr. Avakov said on his Facebook page. “The safety of citizens is more important than religious rituals,” he said.
Authorities said the participants would be ferried from the Sviatoshynsky district on the capital’s outskirts to their destination on buses.
On July 25, some 150 Ukrainian nationalists and veterans of the war in the east temporarily blocked the column of marchers coming from the east outside Boryspil, some 35 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, calling them “agents of Moscow.”
Christopher Miller of RFE/RL reported that Verkhovna Rada Chair Andriy Parubiy accused Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, of planning to use the marches to destabilize Ukraine by fomenting unrest in the streets of Kyiv and creating “an artificial political crisis.”
“Together with peaceful believers, [the FSB] are bringing provocateurs with prohibited symbols and symbols of the aggressor country… including athletic youths who have a history of participating in church-related attacks,” Mr. Parubiy alleged in a recent telecast. He said authorities had gathered intelligence that proved his concerns legitimate, but he did not present evidence of his claims.
The RFE/RL correspondent also noted that marchers in the processions have been seen wearing orange-and-black St. George ribbons, a symbol of Soviet military valor that has been adopted by pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine as a sign of resistance to Kyiv, and carrying flags adorned with images of Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia. The symbols irk many in Ukraine, which has gone to great lengths to step out of the shadow of its giant neighbor and former ruler.
Archbishop Yevstratiy, secretary of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, told Ukraine’s EspresoTV that he believes the motive for the procession is to show that there is broad support in Ukraine for “Russkiy Mir,” or the Russian World – a term that has been used by President Vladimir Putin and other Russians to describe what they claim as Russia’s sphere of cultural, spiritual and political influence – at a time when Ukrainian church-goers are increasingly leaving the Moscow Patriarchate for the Kyiv Patriarchate.
The procession from the west began at the Pochayiv Monastery in the Ternopil region on July 9, while the other started at the Sviatohirsk Monastery in the east, near Sloviansk.
With reporting by UNIAN and Interfax.
The story above is a compilation of information from two stories posted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, www.rferl.org (see http://www.rferl.org/content/controversial-orthodox-church-procession-enters-kyiv/27884402.html and http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-orthodox-church-procession-barred-kyiv/27881366.html).