UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH FACES NEW STRUGGLES, U.S. ARCHBISHOP SAYS
from: Grandin Media

(28 Oct.) Addressing an audience at Georgetown University, Metropolitan-Archbishop Borys Gudziak, the leader of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the United States,said the world news in Washington is as "Ukrainian as it ever has been."

But although he made reference to the current political interest in Ukraine, he also said "no one in Washington would give (the country) the time of day had there not been a July phone conversation," referring to U.S. President Donald Trump's conversation, now under congressional investigation, with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine's president.

The church leader was not at the college campus to talk politics, but to address the role of Catholic social teaching in Ukraine during Soviet occupation and the church's continued role both in the country and for the Ukrainian diaspora throughout the world.

After the Second World War, he said, the Ukrainian Catholic Church provided spiritual support and aided tens of thousands in resettling, establishing schools, orphanages and junior colleges in other countries. Now, it's a different story. The church is no longer the leading group of support, especially as "secularism undermines religion," Gudziak said, noting that this current movement away from the church is something he is just beginning to learn and understand. "I'm all ears for suggestions," he said.

When the Ukrainian Catholic Church was legal again in 1989, its leaders issued pastoral letters and multiple documents on social justice, always emphasizing human dignity. Now Gudziak said there is a "need to go back to basics." [read more~~]

LUHANSK, DONBAS: WORSHIP BANS, CLERGY BANS, PUNISHMENTS
by Felix Corley: Forum 18 News Service

(23 Oct.) Worship is banned in all Protestant churches, as the unrecognised Luhansk People's Republic bans exercising freedom of religion or belief without permission. Courts punish those leading unapproved worship. Prosecutors are investigating an Orthodox priest on criminal charges of "extremism." With no permanent resident priest, Catholics hold Mass by Skype. With bans on clergy visiting, many communities suffer isolation. "Our churches lie empty," one Protestant lamented to Forum 18.

The rebel authorities have also banned many religious leaders from outside their territory from visiting their fellow believers. Officials have barred access by the Greek Catholic bishop and a Greek Catholic priest, the bishop of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and many Protestant leaders. This has left their local communities feeling isolated.

The one Catholic priest still allowed access can stay for a maximum of three months, with the next three months out of the territory. This means that in the months when he is denied access, Mass has to be relayed to the congregation over the internet, depriving churchgoers of the opportunity to receive Communion. Receiving Communion is for Catholics an integral part of participating in Mass. Prosecutors are pursuing an "extremism" investigation against a priest in Luhansk of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, who is in his seventies. For five months he was banned from leaving the territory.

Courts continue to punish individuals who lead worship meetings in defiance of official bans. Of the six known cases in 2019 – all of them from various Baptist denominations - two have been fined about one month's average wages each, one was given a 20-hour community work order and the other three were left with no punishment. The most recent known fine was of Pastor Pyotr Tatarenko on 7 October. [read more~~]

METROPOLITAN EPIFANIY SPOKE IN THE USA ABOUT THE PERSECUTION OF THE OCU IN CRIMEA AND DONBAS
from: Religious Information Service of Ukraine

(25 Oct.) Metropolitan Epifaniy, Primate of the OCU, spoke at the US Institute of Peace, where he spoke about the tasks and challenges facing the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, as reported by the press service of the OCU.

"The meeting of Metropolitan Epifaniy with the experts of the Institute of Peace and the invited participants was held in the format of a round table. His Beatitude spoke about various aspects of the formation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as an autocephalous church, about relations with other churches and religious organizations in Ukraine and abroad. Separately, it referred to the persecution suffered by the communities and priests of the OCU in the Russian-occupied territories – in the Crimea and Donbas," the report said.

It is noted that during his speech Epifaniy called the All Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, which unites 17 members, including Orthodox, Greek and Roman Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical Churches, as well as Jewish and Muslim religious associations, an example of fruitful cooperation and interaction of various faiths. The Council represents more than 90% of the entire religious network of Ukraine.

According to the press-service of OCU, the official delegation of the Ukrainian Church expressed gratitude to the U.S. Institute of Peace for to support and work towards a just peace in the East of Ukraine and returning of annexed Crimea and hope for further fruitful cooperation in the protection of freedom of religion. [read more~~]

ESTONIAN CONSERVATIVES URGE AUTHORITIES TO DEPRIVE LGBT GROUPS OF STATE FINANCING
from: Interfax-Religion

(29 Oct.) The Conservative People's Party of Estonia which is a part of the governing coalition urges the government to stop financing LGBT associations. "We believe it unacceptable that earlier parties of power built up a network of ideological civil associations which are supported by taxpayers," officials of the party's authorized council wrote in their address.

Leaders of the conservatives note that the Ministry of Social Affairs, chaired by representatives of the Social Democratic Party "has given the state's hand to a number of homosexual organizations which are almost entirely financed by taxpayers." Eventually, for the recent six years state support of the Estonian LGBT movement, it has increased 16 fold: from 6,000 in 2013 to 96,000 in 2019.

"We believe that Estonian taxpayers should not finance associations which promote homo and gender ideology and strive to change moral principles and positions of the society, including attitude to marriage and family," conservatives say underlining that the Constitution obliges the state authorities to protect a traditional family as a foundation of the society. [read more~~]

'GODLESS UTOPIA: THE ANTI-RELIGIOUS CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIA'
from: The Moscow Times

(12 Oct.) In October 1917, Lenin's Bolshevik Party seized power and inaugurated the first communist workers' state, founded on the principles of Karl Marx's Das Kapital. Almost immediately, the race was on to turn antiquated, almost feudal imperial Russia into a communist utopia. It was a tall order in Russia: the vast majority of the population of the nascent Soviet state were illiterate peasants, for whom the traditions and tenants of Orthodox Christianity were the sole cultural and spiritual bedrock. Replacing it with the more complicated economic and social principles of Marxism took ingenuity, dedication and ruthlessness.

The state embarked on a nationwide campaign to discredit all deities, confessions and religious traditions throughout the former empire. They closed all religious-affiliated schools, closed monasteries and sanctioned wholesale destruction of church property. The effort would span decades until it simply ran out of steam in the 1980s. But at its height, the anti-religious campaign was a highly effective arm of the state, which harnessed a powerful medium — graphic art and the propaganda poster — to communicate its core message that religion had no place in communist life.

The anti-religious campaign and its vibrant iconography is the subject of Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda, a fascinating new book by Roland Elliott Brown, published by Fuel Design & Media, which examines the anti-religious campaign through a collection of illustrations, posters, and the cover art of two prominent atheist magazines. The illustrations are accompanied by full translations of their slogans, but it is telling that these are almost superfluous, so compelling are the images of idealized Soviet workers doing battle with, and eradicating outmoded representatives of the Orthodox Church, Judaism, Buddhism, and to a lesser extent, Islam.

Stalin defended the crushing of the church to foreigners. Meeting a delegation of American trade unionists in late 1927, he contrasted Soviet "freedom of anti-religious propaganda" with cases such as recently occurred in America in which Darwinists were prosecuted in court. He was referring to the 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial, in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, had faced charges for breaking a Tennessee law against teaching evolution. Scopes was fined $100, but the state supreme court overturned the verdict on a technicality. Since the Communist Party stood for science, Stalin said, such cases "cannot occur here."

More substantial — and ominous — was his appeal to class warfare: "The Party cannot be neutral towards the bearers of religious prejudices, towards the reactionary clergy who poison the minds of the toiling masses. Have we suppressed the reactionary clergy? Yes, we have. The unfortunate thing is that it has not been completely liquidated." [read more~~]

UZBEKISTAN: RAIDS, EVICTION THREAT FOR URGENCH BAPTISTS
by Mushfig Bayram: Forum 18 News Service

(22 Oct.) On Sunday 15 September, police from the "Struggle with Extremism and Terrorism Department" raided the home of Pastor Stanislav Kim in Urgench in Uzbekistan's north-western Khorezm Region. The raid targeted the regular Baptist weekly meeting for worship, as has happened many times before to the Urgench congregation.

On 17 September, two days after the Sunday raid, officials summoned Pastor Kim to a meeting at the local mahalla committee (the lowest level of district administration). At the meeting were city and police officials as well as the local state-controlled imam. The mahalla Chair Khayrullo Yunusov was unable to explain to Forum 18 why an official of one belief was invited to a meeting attacking followers of another belief's exercise of freedom of religion and belief.

Officials at the meeting claimed that there was in the mahalla "general discontent of the mahalla with the Baptists," claiming to have had complaints from 89 residents out of about 3,000 people. One of the alleged 89 complainants is known to be a mahalla employee, but the others have not been identified.

The meeting decided Pastor Kim "must leave our mahalla or he should arrange his meetings elsewhere," as well as that he and his family should be evicted from their home if the meetings do not stop. Mahalla Chair Yunusov denied that officials had threatened eviction, but refused to discuss this threat more when Forum 18 quoted from a letter he had sent to Pastor Kim threatening eviction. [read more~~]