Thirty years ago, on October 28, 1990, thousands of people were involved in a clash at the site of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv between adherents of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (later identified as the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate or UOC-MP, as it became known) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
Just a week prior, on October 21, Patriarch Mstyslav of the UAOC had celebrated a moleben at the cathedral.
Faithful of the UAOC linked arms in a chain at entrances to the complex as well as at streets leading to St. Sophia Square. Members of the UOC-MP came to the cathedral to participate in a religious service.
The protests originated when it was learned that Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Alexy had planned to conduct a special liturgy at St. Sophia Cathedral, which is part of a museum complex and is the historic seat of the UAOC, where it was to be announced that Metropolitan Filaret would head the UOC-MP.
During its congress, the Popular Movement of Ukraine (Rukh) sent a telegram on October 26 to Patriarch Alexy, which called the patriarch’s decision to hold a service at St. Sophia Cathedral “a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty declaration” and an act that could be construed only as political in nature. The telegram proposed that the service should be held at another church in Kyiv, St. Volodymyr Cathedral, the seat of the UOC-MP.
UAOC faithful, with the support of Ukrainian Catholics, announced that they would attempt to “defend” St. Sophia Cathedral by blocking all of the entrances to the cathedral and preventing ROC Patriarch Alexy and Metropolitan Filaret from entering the complex.
Eyewitnesses reported that in the early morning hours, between 7 and 8 a.m., police began to brutalize the protesters in an attempt to force them to disperse from St. Sophia Square. Among those injured were National Deputies of the Verkhovna Rada Serhiy Holovaty, Mykola Porovsky, Stepan Khmara and Larysa Skoryk. In a last-ditch effort, Mykhailo Horyn and Oles Shevchenko, also national deputies, laid down in the path of Patriarch Alexy’s limousine, but were dragged away by police.
When Patriarch Alexy and Metropolitan Filaret were inside the cathedral, protesters outside chanted slogans: “Down with the party clerics,” “Alexy out of Sophia,” “Out of the cathedral.”
Provocateurs were seen pushing and shoving protesters, as a busload of riot police waited on streets just off the square.
Following the service, a banquet was held in honor of Patriarch Alexy and Metropolitan Filaret. At the banquet, a group of national deputies succeeded in delivering a statement to the patriarch, noting his “ill-timed arrival” in Kyiv and his decision to hold a religious service in St. Sophia Cathedral, “the historic center of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church,” and characterized the patriarch’s decision as showing “contempt for religious and national sentiment in Ukraine and interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs.”
At the Rukh congress, Oleksander Mosiyuk, vice-chairman of the Kyiv City Council, stressed that the ROC had been warned that its decision to hold the liturgy at St. Sophia was “an imperial provocation,” and said that Patriarch Alexy is “a man more interested in politics than religion.” He also noted the undue use of force against the protesters by the police.
Mr. Horyn, vice-chairman of Rukh and chairman of its Political Council, added: “Particularly today, on the last day of our congress, and one week after the arrival of Patriarch Mstyslav, this is seen as a purely political action aimed at keeping Ukraine within the bounds of the empire. This is a farce.”
The Weekly’s editorial of November 4, 1990, expressed the hope of the time: “…it is sincerely hoped that the people of Ukraine will see the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Catholic Church as the religious institutions they have been in the past, as the spiritual force so needed in a country striving for its freedom and independence.”
Source: “Thousands in Kiev attempt to block St. Sophia Sobor,” by Roma Hadzewycz, The Ukrainian Weekly, November 4, 1990.