Bohdan talks about the uncomfortable truth of Ukrainian Orthodoxy
The former DESS head urged journalists not to be afraid to report honestly on the religious issue in Ukraine.
The former head of the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (DESS), Olena Bohdan, called on journalists to honestly show the uncomfortable truth about Ukrainian Orthodoxy. She wrote about this in an article posted on the Dialog.tut website.
The inconvenient truth that Ukrainian media ignores, according to Olena Bohdan, is the information about UOC believers who came in large numbers to the liturgy at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and had to pray in the cold yard because they were expelled from the Refectory Church where they used to pray and which accommodated them.
Olena Bohdan also called the situation in Bilohorodka, where UOC believers pray in a basement room after the media reported that the religious community had unanimously switched to the OCU, the uncomfortable truth.
Bohdan says that the media show the situation around the eviction of the UOC from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra from one side only. According to her, there is no one to occupy the Lavra in the OCU.
"Just across the road from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is the Church of Theodosius of Pechersk and the Holy Theodosius Monastery of the OCU. And if believers did not regularly fit into the Church of Theodosius of Pechersk and if there were dozens of monks who did not fit in the monastery buildings, this would have long been in the news feeds of the OCU and telethon as an argument in favour of transferring the Lavra to the OCU," she wrote.
"Are the media ready to find out what is in the buildings of the Holy Theodosius Monastery and why there are not many monks at its services? All of this is part of the uncomfortable truth about Ukrainian Orthodoxy. Let this be a call to action for honest professional journalists. And there is no need to be afraid that your honesty will play into the hands of Russian propaganda: an honest look is one of the strongest long-term investments in national security.
The sooner Ukrainian society begins to pay attention to the uncomfortable truth about Ukrainian Orthodoxy in all its aspects, the more civilized, united, and strong it will be," Bohdan resumed.
As previously reported, Elena Bohdan noted that true spiritual independence has a completely different face – a more honest, thoughtful, and humane one.
