On Language Matters Within Our Church

By Askold S. Lozynskyj                  

In mid December last year, St. George Ukrainian Catholic School and St. George Academy in New York put on a Christmas concert at the Church consisting of carols and verse. Children sang and recited. The program was bilingual, Ukrainian and English, since the schools include many non-Ukrainian students of various ethnic backgrounds, including two Russian pupils. An international flavour was added to the concert with some German, Italian, Spanish, Serbian, Polish and even Russian, not once, but twice.

In a non-Ukrainian environment the smattering of Russian verse would have gone unnoticed. However, in this case, I and many other spectators were offended by the inclusion of the Russian language. I broached this matter with several of the teachers, Sister Principal, and Father Pastor, who according to the teachers was the final authority on whether to allow Russian into the program. In the course of my inquiry, I learned that neither the two Russian pupils nor their parents initiated the Russian programming. In fact, the school gave them the laborious task of finding and preparing to recite two Russian verses appropriate for Christmas. When I confronted Father Pastor directly, he replied, “Russian is merely a language. The Bishop agrees with me. Besides, who’s going to protest?”  I later learned that Bishop Paul of Stamford did agree.

This Russian-language performance was not the first in St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church in New York. Approximately, one year earlier, following an evening liturgy, Father Pastor introduced a group of young people from Russia who were travelling in the United States. I am unfamiliar with the details of their visit, for example who sponsored them, but I do know from eyewitnesses that this group performed at the church in Russian. Father Pastor announced a collection for their benefit and invited them to a reception. Admittedly, had the group been from Bosnia and performed in Serbian or Croatian, no negative reaction would have ensued. However, in this instance, some people left the Church in protest and many who sat through the performance subsequently voiced their disapproval.

But it appears that no one confronted Father Pastor and nothing appeared in the Ukrainian diaspora press. The Parish Board of Trustees did not take on this issue. It is not surprising, then, that one year later when I confronted Father Pastor on the Russian-language issue after a subsequent occurrence his reply was: “Who’s going to protest?”

For us Ukrainians, the Russian language is not simply a foreign language. For 350 years, the Russian language was a tool of Russification, oppression and destruction. Beginning practically with the infamous Treaty of Pereyaslav and formally with the Ems Ukaz and similar decrees, the Russian language has been a weapon used to destroy us as a nation by repressing our fundamental attributes: our language, culture and spirituality. The Russian language politically represents physical oppression by a barbaric enemy. The Holodomor of 1932-33 was implemented as a state policy through several decrees in the Russian language. In fact, a review of the now available archives of the CHEKA, GPU, NKVD and the KGB reveals that, almost without exception, Russian is the language of those “killing documents.” Even today, the Russian language remains a tool undermining our independence and often manifests itself in tandem with physical brutality. You may recall the murder of Ihor Bilozir in the City of Lviv no less several years back. More recently, on December 21, 2006 Serhij Melnyczuk, a student from Luhansk was brutally attacked by a deputy of the Luhansk City Council, a member of the Regions Party, Arsen Klinchaev, who simultaneously hurled a Russian-language diatribe. Serhij was appearing on a radio program in connection with his recent court victory permitting him to pursue studies in the Ukrainian language. Serhij suffered a concussion.

In October 2006, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate issued a press release on a recent meeting between that Church’s Primate in Ukraine and the Head of the Consistory of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada (UOCC). The press release intimated that the UOCC representative had somehow acknowledged the need by the UOCC for the pastoral guidance of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate. The UOCC representative immediately set the record straight disavowing any such acknowledgement. This refutation appeared to have satisfied the Ukrainian diaspora community as well as the diaspora press. In fact, the diaspora press rarely concerns itself with investigative journalism. In the case of a church or religious issue, at least to my best recollection, the Ukrainian press has never pursued an investigation.

Nevertheless, I was deeply disturbed but not so much by the UOC-MP press release, which I readily attributed to a Soviet style propaganda of an institution very much a remnant and contemporarily a fifth column in Ukraine. I was more distraught over the meeting itself. Why did a representative of the UOCC meet with the UOC-MP at all? As President of the Ukrainian World Congress, I voiced my concern in a letter to the Primate of the UOCC stressing the impropriety of a meeting with an institution that is hardly a church and nothing more than an agent of Moscow in Ukraine. Receiving no response for roughly a month, I telephoned the Consistory Head and had a most pleasant conversation. He assured me that the meeting was not initiated by him but was pursuant to a directive and that a formal reply to my letter was forthcoming.  Finally, I received a reply that acknowledged the meeting between the Head of the Church’s Consistory and Metropolitan Volodymyr Sabadan of the UOC-MP. In fact, the Church’s letter, signed by the secretary of the Church’s Primate-Metropolitan, stressed that since 1993 the Church has been meeting and conversing on church matters in the spirit of orthodox unity with all segments of the orthodox church in Ukraine including the Moscow Patriarchate. As pointed out in the letter, the most recent meeting was limited to the UOC-MP and not the other churches due to time constraints. The reply letter did not spell out what “church matters” were the subject of the meeting.

My own investigation through internal confidential sources, has produced information not included in the letter. There are disparate philosophies within the UOCC, which may be ascribed geographically along eastern and western Canadian divides. The western segment directed a certain committee at the Church to communicate with the UOC-MP on the subject of appointing bishops for the Church in Canada. The eastern segment went along. The UOCC letter of reply is accurate but not complete. The appointment of bishops comes within “church matters.” 

The events at St. George Church in New York made me angry, but the politics within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada were shocking. Even worse, attempts to cover-up actual intentions, convinced me that at least some of the leadership of the UOCC, both religious and lay, is aware that what it is doing is wrong. However, the lack of community opprobrium or simply a lack of courage to confront the Church leaders, allows this matter to develop.

Who is behind this?  To Bishop Paul of Stamford and Father Pastor of St. George in New York who has introduced the Russian language into our Ukrainian Catholic Church in New York, I would like to say. Even though you personally have experienced neither the spiritual oppression nor the physical assault that the Russian language has effected upon our people, please be sensitive to the emotional suffering of your brothers and sisters and, particularly, your parishioners. Do not cause them additional trauma.  To the clergy and faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada, I can say only: Wake up before it is too late!