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Kateryna Yushchenko Presents Repressed Spirituality Exhibition in Lviv

October 6, 2009, Head of the Supervisory Board of the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation Kateryna Yushchenko took part in the presentation of the Repressed Spirituality: Destroying the Church, Religion, and Traditional Rites in Ukraine by the Communist Regime exhibition, created by the Ukraine 3000 Foundation as part of its Lessons in History program.

The presentation, hosted by the Ukrainian Catholic University, was part of the Second Ecumenical Social Week. Among its participants were Deputy Director of the Archive Department at the Security Service of Ukraine Alina Shpak, renowned historian and human rights activist Ivan Hel, and head of the History Lessons Program Olesia Stasiuk.

Addressing the audience, Mrs. Kateryna said that the exhibition’s goal is “showing the great losses suffered by our spirituality and traditional culture.” “The repressions included destroying and ruining churches, persecuting the clergy, prohibiting administering,” she said. “As a result of the 80 years of the Soviet power, the clergy and parishioners of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church had been repressed. 50% of Greek-Catholic priests were killed, and those surviving had to emigrate to save their lives or to conduct their service in the underground. Hundreds of churches had been destroyed, the monuments of not only religious but cultural significance.”  

Mrs. Yushchenko called on representatives of all creeds to initiate creating a museum of Ukrainian spirituality. “This museum, if it is created, will become a monument to the indestructible spirit of the Ukrainian church,” she said. Also, in Mrs. Kateryna’s words, this museum could become a uniting idea for Ukrainian Christians of all creeds and an important step toward creating a United Local Ukrainian Church.

The participants and guests of the presentation toured the exhibition, accompanied by head of the History Lessons Program Olesia Stasiuk.

The Repressed Spirituality: Destroying the Church, Religion, and Traditional Rites in Ukraine by the Communist Regime scientific and documentary exhibition includes 20 posters and consists of three parts. The first part offers an insight unto the history, reasons, and methods of the anti-church terror. The second part highlights the destroying of churches and their further fate, the liquidation of UAOC and UGCC, repressions against the clergy, and the Ukrainians’ opposition against the Communist regime’s anti-church measures. The third part covers the consequences of the Soviet anti-religious policy for the Ukrainian spirituality, the history of the revival of UAOC and UGCC in 1988-1989, and the reasons and circumstances of the formation of UOC Moscow and Kyiv Patriarchies. The exhibition climaxes in the idea to create a United Local Ukrainian Church.

The exhibition is based on archive documents, photographs, research materials, and oral history. To prepare the exhibition, materials from the State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine, Kyiv Research and Methodic Center for Preservation, Restoration, and Employment of Monuments of History, Culture, and Preserves, Kyiv City Organization of the Memorial Vasyl Stus All-Ukrainian Society, Museum of the History of Religion, and Ivan Honchar Museum National Center of Folk Culture were used.

Mrs. Yushchenko is taking part in the Second Ecumenical Social Week in Lviv. Earlier she made a speech at the On the Past for Future’s Sake: Historical Truth of the Soviet Period plenary session.

October 6, Mrs. Kateryna attended We Are Back show by META Theater at the Prison in Lontsky St. museum.