Stuffing "Russian" video: a plan to seize the Lavra or to open a home front?

Does the "Russian" video stuffing by the OCU mean seizure of the Lavra? Photo: UOJ

On November 14, a scandal erupted in Ukraine. One of the most “prominent” clerics of the OCU, Mykhailo Omelian, published on his FB page a video from the Lavra Church of All the Reverend Fathers of the Kyiv Caves, where unknown people sang the following words: “... the ringing bells are rising over Russia, Mother Rus is awakening.”

Omelian accused the UOC of praying for Russia in the Lavra “on the 262nd day of a full-scale Russian invasion.

“Does the heart not shrink and the soul not hurt from what the Russian occupiers did in Bucha, Borodianka, Andriyivka, Mariupol, Kharkiv region and other occupied territories? People, how long will you support those who belong to the ‘church’ of the occupier? Our defenders of the Motherland give their lives defending the state and people, while the UOC, the one that pretends no longer to be of the Moscow Patriarchate, the one that betrayed Ukraine and is now trying to whiten the blood with humanitarian ‘aid’, is still praying for Russia," the priest wrote. According to him, the video was recorded on November 13 by a graduate of the OCU Theological Academy, who ended up in the Lavra church that day.

Omelian's message quickly became viral on social networks and the media, causing thousands of indignant comments calling for the Lavra to be taken away from the UOC, and the monks to be severely punished. The SBU opened a criminal investigation under Part 1 of Art. 436-2 – "justification, recognition of lawfulness, denial of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, glorification of its participants." In turn, the Minister of Culture A. Tkachenko said that "if the video turns out to be authentic, we call for immediate legal proceedings against the leaders of the UOC."

Who is Omelian?

“Priest” Mikhail Omelyan is a senior lecturer in the theology department at the Theological Academy of the OCU. In the Filaret-led Kyiv Patriarchate, he used to be an assistant to the patriarchate, managed the website of the UOC-KP, and worked as an executive editor of the Voice of Orthodoxy newspaper.

Now Omelian is responsible for media work at the OCU. He also took part in several visits to the Phanar and other international contacts of the Dumenko structure.

Mykhailo Omelian and Patriarch Bartholomew. Photo: OCU

In a word, Omelian is one of the political “spin-doctors” of the Kyiv Patriarchate and currently of the OCU. He often appears together with Serhiy Dumenko and, apparently, is one of the "gray cardinals" in his structure.

What is the song “filmed” in the Lavra about?

The song is called "The Song of the Most Holy Theotokos", the author of the text is the modern Russian poetess Nina Borodai (the text was written in 2004), the music was composed by Valery Malyshev.

As the name suggests, this is a prayer glorifying the Mother of God:

"Mother of God, Mother of God,
Mother of light, love and kindness,
You are my hope, Mother of God,
And time for wonderful insights.

The text is quite long and purely prayerful. In it, the author asks Our Lady to pray for her children, to protect them at the Last Judgment. The icons of the Mother of God (Donskaya, Kazanskaya, Iverskaya, Vladimirskaya, etc.) are also mentioned; it is said that temples in different regions of the Holy Rus are dedicated to Her and thus Rus is spiritually reborn. Recall that the prayer was written in the early 2000s, when churches were massively revived and built in the post-Soviet countries.

As you can see, this song is author's and quite recent, which is why it is virtually unknown among believers. The word "Russia" is used in the song only once ("the ringing bells are rising over Russia") at the very end of the song.

Did they sing it or not?

During the war, the mention of an enemy state in the Lavra looks like a betrayal to society. And now no one cares that the chant has nothing to do with politics, let alone war.

On the 16-second video, published by Omelian "on the 262nd day of the war", the word "Russia" was heard. And this is enough for a huge number of people to take the toughest measures against the UOC. But how justified are they?

Three versions of the video’s origin were discussed on social networks.

1. Omelian published a fake, where the sound from one of the Russian churches was superimposed on the video sequence from the Lavra.
2. The video is real, but was recorded in previous years, before the war.
3. The video, as Omelian pointed out, was indeed recorded in November 2022.

The UOC immediately took the video as a fake. The "Myriany" wrote that the sound was superimposed on the "picture" from another source. Archdeacon of the Odessa eparchy Andriy Palchuk adhered to the same version in his video alongside many other clerics of the Church. No one simply could believe that in the fall of 2022, one can sing songs with a mention of the Russian Federation in the Lavra. Of course, it is possible to say that the meaning of the song is not at all about politics, and it was composed 20 years ago, when no one could even think of any war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. But now the situation is different, and any most harmless mention of Russia in the temples of the UOC, in fact, becomes a provocation against the Church. Simply because it is immediately used by Her enemies.

For some time, the version was discussed that the video was archival and was recorded in previous years. But on the afternoon of November 14, on the YouTube channel of the Lavra, its abbot Metropolitan Pavel and Archimandrite Polycarp made an address, where it was indirectly confirmed that this could be an occurence.

The Metropolitan said that the accusations that they pray for the Russian Federation in the Lavra are not true, and the Lavra’s headmaster, Archimandrite Polycarp, specified that people who sing spiritual hymns come to the Church of the Saints of the Kyiv Caves: “This prayer service is always served by one priest, with all the attendees singing. After the prayer service, they are anointed by the priest with holy oil from the icon, and since there are a lot of people, a group of activists sing various spiritual hymns while venerating the icon.”

The Archimandrite added that Hieromonk Zacharias, who performed the prayer service, was busy: he performed the anointing, communicated with the parishioners and simply did not hear what words the believers were singing.

It turns out that the“Russian” singing did take place, so should “actions be taken” against the Lavra, the leadership of the UOC and the entire Church?

One “drops the ball” on all, but all are responsible for one?

With the advent of war, there has been a persevering attempt to impose the principle of collective responsibility on the Church. Like, if someone was caught collaborating with the occupiers, then the entire UOC should be banned. Recently the acting head of the SBU announced 23 investigations against the clergy of the UOC (despite the fact that the guilt of none of them has yet been proven), for which reason many are trying to claim that the whole Church is guilty of collaborationism. But is it?

Since February 24, law enforcement officers have been reporting hundreds and thousands of cases of collaboration between officials and the same police officers. Does this mean that it is necessary to ban, for example, the entire National Police or the Verkhovna Rada (there are also traitors among MPs)? Everyone understands that this is absurd. But with regard to the Church, for some reason, such calls are taken for granted. And the case in the Lavra proves the case.

Archbishop Victor (Kotsaba) recalled that the official position of the UOC on any issues can only be expressed by the hierarchy and only through its official resources. Regarding the attitude towards the invasion of the Russian Federation, several official statements were made, for example, by the Primate of the UOC on February 24, by the Synod of the UOC on May 12, by the Council of the UOC on May 27. All of these statements condemn the Russian aggression in the most categorical form.

Is the singing of several laywomen (without the blessing of the priest) the official position of the UOC? The answer is obvious. And here we need to return to the question of why it was published.

Fake or not?

Even if the “Russian” (it sounds like something!) “Song of the Virgin” was performed in the Lavra, the question of a fake in Omelian’s publication remains open. Let us recall his quote: "... the UOC, the one that pretends no longer to be of the Moscow Patriarchate, the one that betrayed Ukraine and is now trying to whiten the blood with humanitarian ‘aid’ is still praying for Russia."

We will not evaluate here the words that the UOC betrayed Ukraine. Let us turn to the phrase that there is “a prayer for Russia” in the Lavra. In ordinary peaceful life, accusations of praying for someone look absurd, because praying for a Christian is as natural as breathing. But in this case, Omelian accuses the UOC of "working for the enemy." Was there such a job?

1. Even if you read the text of the "Song of the Virgin", it is easy to see that there is not a word about the "Russian world", the exaltation of the Russian Federation or the glorification of "Russian World" values.
2. As already mentioned, this song is a personal initiative of several activists, who have nothing to do with the position of the UOC.

In other words, Omelian's thesis about the UOC "praying for Russia" is a fake.

Did Omelian know about this? Undoubtedly. Why then did he publish this text?

Possession is nine points of the law

Almost every day there are reports in Ukraine about the seizure of UOC temples by the OCU. All this is taking place under the slogans of the need to transfer from the "Moscow" Church to the "Ukrainian". The seized temples remain empty afterwards, but Dumenko does not care. Although there are hundreds of such cases, the main shrines remain with the UOC.

Dumenko has repeatedly declared claims to the Kyiv-Pechersk and Pochaiv Lavras. Moreover, in the summer, the “synod” of the OCU announced the creation of the “Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Monastery” and demanded that the authorities transfer one of the temples of the Upper Lavra to them. There was no response from the state. Rather, the answer can be found in the speech of the head of the State Ethnic Policy Elena Bogdan, where she actually pointed that the OCU does not have a sufficient number of monks to populate the Lavra, nor crowds of parishioners who would fill in those churches in Kyiv that Dumenko has now. The head of the OCU answered her with an angry tirade that it is not the business of state officials to count how many monks someone has.

But now the situation is changing. After Omelian's stuffing, the SBU launched an investigation, and Poroshenko's henchmen developed frenzied activity. Oleksiy Honcharenko drafted a deputy request to the head of government D. Shmyhal with a demand to break the lease agreement with the UOC and give the Lavra to the OCU.

There is no doubt that this is only the first sign. Now the Dumenko-Poroshenko “allies” will fire from all guns. Their goal is simple – to grab the Lavra from the UOC and, in general, to destroy it altogether. To do this, one needs to incite hatred for the “competitor” as much as possible by any means. This is exactly why Omelian made the publication. While the parishioners of the UOC are fighting the enemy at the front, an information war is being waged at home with their Church.

On top of that, Poroshenko's people do it not only out of love for Dumenko. There are also more global goals.

In recent weeks, one cannot fail to notice that the forces that built the Tomos campaign for the OCU before the 2019 presidential elections (but eventually lost the elections) are now trying to take revenge. MPs of the European Solidarity party Pavlenko, Knyazhytsky, Honcharenko in a short time made several striking statements, the essence of which is the same – the need to ban the UOC. Round tables are held, articles are cropped, bills are drafted. Parallel to this, a sly thesis is thrown into the media that the ban scenario will not cause a split and confrontation in society, since the UOC is supposedly marginal and small.

In other words, society is literally being pushed to open a "home front." Such efforts, as history shows, often result in a change in the government of the country. Why Poroshenko and his subordinates are doing this is a rhetorical question, the answer is too obvious. Yet, are the current authorities aware of this evidence?

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