UOC KP Metropolitan of Lutsk Mikhail: transitions to the Kyiv Patriarchate and the war in Donbass are two inseparable concepts

UOC KP Metropolitan of Lutsk and Volyn Mikhail is justifiably called the main successor to Patriarch Filaret and No1 candidacy for the post of the Kyiv Patriarchate’s Primate. The person, who within just 3 years moved up the church career ladder from being a lay man to a bishop and ended up with wearing a metropolitan staff, cannot be that mediocre. However, he gained wide popularity not because of his pastoral efforts, but for his bright statements in church sermons and mass media. Calls to violence, scandalous slogans, considerable imagination potential, and military rhetoric – all these work to the best advantage of the metropolitan to single him out from his yellow-blue marked KP counterparts. In his speeches the hierarch does not bother to think up something new: like his “boss” Patriarch Filaret, he keeps repeating the same proven theses about patriotism of the UOC KP and collaborationism of the UOC, but in his case it appears more vivid, poignant, and radical. Quite frequently he manages to perform at the edge of abyss and beyond it.

Yet, the principal difference between him and his “colleagues on shop” is the bishop’s readiness to move from words to deeds. The Volyn diocese which he runs is among the leaders in the number of illegally seized UOC churches. The other day the metropolitan gave a detailed interview to the “Tyzhden’.ua»  (“Week”) magazine, in which an inquisitive reader may find plenty of food for thought and even certain curious conclusions.

Some appalling information: over the service period of UOC-KP metropolitan of Lutsk and Volyn Mikhail (Zinkevych) more than 120 murders, 200 burglaries, 4000 thefts and a great deal of robberies have taken place annually!  

Probably, you’ve raised your brows and opened your mouth to claim indignantly that the Kyiv Patriarchate metropolitan’s pastoral activity can by no means have to do with the criminality rates in the city as well as any other events which are not related to the church life. We could readily share your outrage with regard to somewhat strained fact-matching; however metropolitan Mikhail resorts in his rhetoric to namely such raison d’être.

Having a talk with the “Tyzhden” reporter, Timofey Semionovich (the pastor’s civil name), without any doubts, stated, “They (the UOC representatives) went in 2014 to encourage sailors on the “Lutsk” corvette in the Crimea. They encouraged them so much that after the service on the following day the corvette threw itself upon the mercy of Russians”.

Well, on 20 March 2014 “Lutsk” corvette was actually seized. But on that day the Russian flag was raised above another four Ukrainian ships. According to the logic of the Lutsk metropolitan, these events were caused by negative fluids of the UOC priests, which apparently spread upon other vessels at lightning speeds, and several days later – affected the whole Crimea!  

Yet, the quote cited above is just a “soft and fluffy pet” compared with mature “mastodons” of the metropolitan’s ideas to be encountered in the interview with “Tyzhden” at literally each step.  

As a matter of fact, if one analyses some of his church sermons or interviews, there is an impression that Timofey S. lives not in the Internet era when any uttered word can be easily checked and verified, but in dark times when for many Ukrainians the only information source was kobzars (Ukrainian folk singers playing the string instrument and having moral authority and respect with all people ed.) and pilgrims. What had possessed him to rant on the advantage of the Kyiv Patriarchate before the UOC in terms of the amount of parishioners in Volyn region?  

It is impossible not to check such phrase as “the Kyiv Patriarchate has the majority if to mean the quantity of parishioners. This is mainly cities and southern part of the region”.

Let’s enter native to the Lutsk metropolitan site of the UOC KP Volyn diocese to find out there that the number of parishes as of the beginning of 2016 makes up to 330.    

For the sake of comparison we have the information that the amount of parishes of Volyn and Vladimir-Volyn UOC diocese totals to 605. Taking into account the fact that according to experts in religious studies 30%, while in some regions 50%, of the Kyiv Patriarchate’s parishes  exist just on paper and in imagination of its top management, we can clearly see at least two-fold primacy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Respectively, it’s easy to calculate that the amount of the UOC parishioners in Volyn is twice as much as the UOC KP adherents.

Of course, it may be assumed that vladyka Mikhail, when speaking about his parishioners, meant the results of the poll rather than the number of UOC KP churches. It bears gross similarity to Andrey Yurash, head of the Department for Religions and Nationalities. The latter, to be reminded, accounted for the decision of the Ministry of Culture to transfer Trapeze Church of Saint Sophia to the Kyiv Patriarchate by the results of sociological studies in 2015, according to which the number of KP parishioners by times exceeds that of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. True though, the fact that a prevailing number of the informants attend a church once a year at best – to sanctify their Easter cakes – he “did not remember” to mention. Nor did he recall another fact that several years before 62% of Ukrainian citizens called Patriarch Kiril of the Russian Orthodox Church – Ukrainian.

Anyway, let’s go back to square one – “filaretish” metropolitan Mikhail.  

Sometimes, pondering upon his sermons, it’s impossible to believe they are pronounced by one and the same person. At times he pledges to bury all non-conformists  and a strong word is about to slip off the metropolitan’s tongue to be pushed back with a gargantuan effort. Alternatively, his preaching rhetoric can be sweet and honeylike. There comes to mind willy-nilly Stevenson’s “A strange story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, in which humane and noble doctor Jekyll turned into wicked and tricky Mr. Hyde as a result of the failed scientific experiment.  

How otherwise can one explain the fact that this clergyman gives his parishioners recommendations he is not going to follow himself? For instance, “Everybody has his/her drawbacks and should take efforts to eliminate them. If you talk a lot – keep your mouth shut”.

How wonderful these words are! How much Timofey Semionovich needs them himself!! But what can we actually see? In the same interview with “Tyzhden” magazine the metropolitan urges, “The Moscow Patriarchate representatives claim they are also patriotic and help ATO warriors. They deliver humanitarian aid in a vague direction and then boast about it. There have been such precedents”. In fact, such statement made by the official person can be qualified as defamatory for there is not and cannot be a single proof to his slanderous words! As regards the humanitarian aid, organized by the Kyiv Patriarch’s office of the UOC KP, there has recently appeared the precise information. It turned out that “the nation’s church” – as the Kyiv Patriarchate positions itself – actually sold its well-publicized humanitarian aid which had been donated for the ATO zone citizens at Odessa marketplace “7^th kilometer”! Simultaneously, the KP “entrepreneurs” were engaged in common criminal document forgery! A court trial began on the matter, with the property of the religious organization having been seized.

We might assume that metropolitan Mikhail, though being a KP hierarch, is an ultimately honest man and knew nothing about these frauds. Nor did he know about frauds and scams of the UOC KP chaplain Ginaylo whose name was mentioned in the interview as an ATO hero.

Below is a translated letter written by ATO soldiers on the matter concerned.

Collective address 

We, fighters of 2 MB, 1 MB, 140 MB, want to notify citizens and electorate of Volodymyr-Volynsk city on the following. Having been mobilized by the country to defend our homeland, during the military training on Tuchyn polygon (Rivne city) we met Ginaylo Petr A. who was introduced to us as “chaplain”. Over a 4-month period he appeared as a person who showed absolute disregard for the battalion’s manpower; he decided on his own to be in charge of re-distribution of the humanitarian stuff, kindly donated to our battalion members by volunteers. Finally, he lost his conscience altogether and out battalion fighters did not receive any basic aid (clothes, cigarettes, food, medicines etc.). The cargo did come to our premises, got unloaded, but then vanished from the division territory. Mr. Ginaylo repeatedly humiliated the fighters and mocked at them. For instance, on seeing a weary soldier, he could advise him to undergo a “deworming” procedure to get recovered. However, it did not prevent him from hyping his purported charity activity in social media, earning the reputation of being a patriot, but in fact, disguising his criminal activity. 

Dear residents of Volodymyr-Volynsk! Our subdivision requests you to be sensible and admit the fact that free and independent Ukraine is our common cause. While we are holding our arms here, you should stand there in the way of shameless criminals and looters who are paving their way to the government in order to further benefit on the future of our children and grandchildren. 

We have strong faith in you. Thank you for your support! 

Glory to Ukraine!

As it can be seen, fighters of 140 MB do not think Mr. Ginaylo is a hero or a priest, but an ordinary brazen man and a thief who appropriated clothes and foods being donated for the fighters by volunteers. On top of that, Mr. Ginaylo is a head of charity foundation “Mother of God of Continual Help”, acting, by the way, upon blessing of metropolitan Mikhail. This foundation butters up credulous Germans and operates with multi-million sums, according to the site of the UOC KP Volyn diocese. Still, the metropolitan being a true pastor, has surely nothing to do with this money!

Instead he feels restless again about the issue of where the Ukrainian Orthodox Church directs its humanitarian aid. “They packed the aid, dispatched to Sviatogorsk Lavra, when there were separatists there”.

Yet the question arises – when, in the metropolitan’s opinion, were there separatists? May be, in the spring of 2014, soon after the Maidan? The answer is no, because in April SBU and MIA officials conducted the search and found nobody there. Or, perhaps, vladyka Mikhail believes Ukrainian refugees – over 500 women and children who live in Sviatogorsk Lavra because the war in Donbass deprived them of their homes and took away the lives of their in-laws and close people – to be separatists?!

It’s so disappointing to catch the pastor of thousands of Ukrainians making statements which have nothing in common with actual developments, but the truth, as Plato used to teach, is above all. Considering “voluntary transitions” of the UOC parishes to the Kyiv Patriarchate, Timofey S. makes a number of false messages, to put it mildly. In particular, giving his comments on the situation in Uhryniv village, Horohiv district, Rivne region (where the UOC community, having lost their church, have to huddle in a small priest’s house for over a year), he said that “the priest is purportedly ready to pass to the UOC KP, but nobody wants to accept him there”.   

Further on the hierarch, who has obviously recalled that the church property in Uhryniv does not belong to him yet, begins to complain cynically that senior priest of the church Rostyslav Sapozhnyk who has served in the village for over 16 years, is not willing to leave the church house: “He remains loyal, but he has nowhere else to live and needs provision”. The fact the priest has 2 children under age does not at all embarrass metropolitan Mikhail; nor does it embarrass a senior priest of the newly created community of the Kyiv Patriarchate in Uhryniv that turns to the court with the request to evict the priest’s family from their home without providing them with some other accommodation (underlined with red in the document below).

There is another piece of fantasy from the metropolitan on this matter regarding the number of parishioners who attend worship services in the house of the above mentioned priest: “He (the priest ed.)saw that he would not be allowed into the church and thus began to hold services in his house. In the end only two persons come there. The rest refused from him”.  

In fact, the UOJ reporter, who is aware of the inside-out situation in Uhryniv, can offer totally different information: “From 15 to 20 believers regularly come to services, at holidays there can come around 30; while at the dedication holiday there were 63 people together with children. Usually the same number of the faithful attends the seized church or even fewer than that”.   

Well, “my tongue is my enemy” aptly describes metropolitan Mikhail. Telling about raider attacks of the UOC churches launched by his aides, in one of the passages vladyka calls these crimes “rejuvenation of the Kyiv Patriarchate”, whereas in the next passage he reports that during the Soviet times “churches in Volyn region could belong only to the Russian Orthodox Church, there were no other denominations” in Volyn. So if the Kyiv Patriarchate did not exist then (the KP is really a bit over 20 years), what are you rejuvenating so furiously, Timofey Semionovich?

However, it would be a mistake to fancy metropolitan Mikhail such a windbag. Having a face and build of the heavyweight wrestler, he has the same character. Vladyka is a man of action in the first line. He always reaches the targets he sets despite circumstances or opinion of the people around him. A scandal, evoked by the construction of the seminary next to Lutsk Cathedral, once gained wide publicity. Sure thing, to build a seminary sounds good. There was just one little problem: the seminary was supposed to be constructed on the territory of the historic landmark protected by the state – well-known Romansovka mound. So what if it’s a mound for a goal-oriented man? The excavator did not stop even when THE BUCKET BEGAN TO CRASH HUMAN BONES. On the site there used to be an ancient church cemetery which the metropolitan perfectly knew about before he commenced construction works. Subsequently, the scientists who examined the soil that had been taken away from the pit, discovered the remains of 20 adults and several children.

Quite a significant circumstance: the construction works were carried out at the public costs that were going to be spent on restoration of the historic monument of national importance. This construction activity was executed under the cover of local civil servants and the prosecutor’s office in Lutsk . Generally speaking, the authority and impact of the metropolitan is rather considerable in Volyn. The “Volyn Tabloid” resource ranked his name at the top section of its ratings “The most powerful people of Lutsk” next to businessmen and MPs, portraying him as a person who “is able to agree with municipal and regional functionaries and good at shooting inconvenient troubles”. 

In fact, we can make sure how much he is skilled in having a trade off with civil servants by following raider assaults of churches in Volyn. In all these cases in Grybovytsia, Strelche, and Uhryniv the involvement of administrative resource can be perfectly traced down. Without connivance of the local authorities, which initiate, provoke or exacerbate conflicts, the Kyiv Patriarchate could hardly succeed. It does not take much thinking to guess what “grey cardinal” coordinated their actions.      

And the last but not least. The only rationale of the KP raiders when they try to justify their radical actions is speculations on the newly born “patriotic” ideology. According to this philosophy, representatives of the UOC KP are “light warriors” who are opposed to the dark forces of the “Russian world”. Yet, where and how this dark force reveals itself in routine parish life and what is the evidence of this “Russian world” in, for example, village churches, they fail to explain.  

But the most interesting thing lies in something else. In the same interview with “Tyzhden” Timofey S. incautiously drops a very important phrase: “Pro-Russian moods in the region are minimal. These are random cases of random people”! 

So if the situation is like that, then there is a question – what is this turmoil all about?

Why do you then pit the residents of the same locality against each other, antagonize them, and instigate strife and hatred?! Why do you then do brainwashing with propaganda about separatism, “Russian world” and collaborationism, allegedly nurtured in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church?! Why do you heat up anti-church hysteria?! Why?!                 

Isn’t it done for the sake of your vested interest, in a hugger-mugger way, to pump and enlarge your quasi-religious cardboard empire, taking advantage of the current state in the country? For as the metropolitan let it slip out, “the more intensive the war phase in the East is, the more active the transition to the KP is. Because when it is quiet – people live the life they are accustomed to”. In other words, “strike the iron while it is hot”!   

Conclusions

Primate of the Kyiv Patriarchate Filaret is considerably old. Being 87 years old, one does not need to be seriously ill with something once to go to bed and never to wake up again. Not only the future of such denomination as the UOC KP, but the existence of the whole country of Ukraine depend on his successor. 

Brief analysis of words and actions of UOC KP metropolitan of Lutsk and Volyn proves the fact this hierarch is not particularly concerned about diplomatic content of his messages and does not care about moral conventions. Being essentially a feudal in his Volyn principality and possessing a powerful administrative resource, the metropolitan moves heaven and earth regardless unlawful and even military actions on seizure (take-over) of the “competitor’s” churches. He is now one step ahead of his “line manager” and implements on “his patrimony” what the present chief of the Kyiv Patriarchate only speaks about. If the UOC KP metropolitan of Lutsk and Volyn Mikhail becomes patriarch, who can vouch he will not want to use his skills countrywide? To be sure, Ukraine in its present stance might not be able to survive a religious war.

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