FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
http://www.forum18.org/
The right to believe, to wor****p and witness
The right to change one's belief or religion
The right to join together and express one's belief
======================
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 re****ted 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 re****ted 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/images/5_st_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 pari****oner 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
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MunN2dCqoN0>.
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 ****sk, 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 pari****oners have been concentrating on fini****ng
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
pari****oner 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 sup****t for the Belarusian
Orthodox Church (see F18News 10 August 2006
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=826>).
The Church's
leader****p publicly sup****ted the harsh 2002 Religion Law, under which
home
wor****p 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 wor****p
by local ROCA pari****oners (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 re****ts on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Belarus can
be found at
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=16>.
A survey of the religious freedom decline in the eastern part of the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area is at
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806>.
A printer-friendly map of Belarus is available at
<http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe
&Rootmap=belaru>.
(END)
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F18News http://www.forum18.org/
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