The delegation of Soviet churchmen which arrived in the U. S. on Feb. 16,1975, sans Patriarch Pimen and Metropolitan Nikodem (the latter, incidentally, is a Soviet agent, as has been confirmed by Deryabin, a former member of the Soviet secret police), is not a representative of any Church and should not be treated as such.
The true representatives of the Christian Churches in the Soviet Union to-day are either imprisoned or exiled or murdered. Those who came to the United States under the leadership of Metropolitan Filaret are representatives of the Soviet Government and the Communist Party, thus, in effect they represent NOT the Church, but the Oppressors of the Church.
The National Council of Churches, in U. S. A. i. e., the body which issued the invitation to these Soviet churchmen, refuses to recognize the Martydomof the Christian Churches in the Soviet Union, particularly that of the Ukrainian Catholic Church whose martyrs are truly legion. Here are some names of Ukrainian Catholic Bishops who died as martyrs and confessors of the faith:
Josaphat Kocylovsky, died in prison, August 21, 1947.
Hryhory Khomyshyn, died in prison, January 17, 1947.
Nykyta Budka, died in exile in Siberia, October 6, 1949.
Hryhory Lakota, died in exile in Siberia in 1951.
Ivan Latyshevsky, died of exhaustion and wounds following 10 years of imprisonment,
ec. 1957.
Nicholas Charneckyj, died after 12 years of imprisonment, April 2, 1959.
Petro Verhun, died February 7, 1957 in Siberia.
Theodor Romzha, murdered by Russian troops, November 1, 1947.
Pavlo Goydych, died in concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, July 19, 1960.
But the martyrdom of these Ukrainian prelates is of no interest to the leaders of the World Council of Churches. They, similarly as their Catholic counterparts, the proponents of the Moscow-Vatican dialogue, deny the existence of the SILENT CHURCH OF THE CATACOMBS and ignore the suffering and persecution of her faithful behind the Iron Curtain. While the latter are being tortured and sentenced to death, the official representatives of the Soviet Churches (perhaps even the same ones who denounced the others), are being feted with great pomp and circumstances in the United States to-day.
In the face of overwhelming historical evidence of the martyrdom of the Ukrainian Catholic Church at the hands of the Soviet regime, Metropolitan Filaret speaks about “the voluntary return of the Ukrainian faithful to the fold of the Moscow Orthodoxy” and about the “total religious freedom in the Soviet Union”. To be sure, one is accustomed to hear such wanton and malicious distortions of historical truth from Soviet officials and thus, in the final analysis, why indeed should Soviet churchmen speak with a different, perhaps a less-forked tongue? After all, the entire administration of the Russian Orthodox Church, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn pointed out, i. e., “the appointment of priests and bishops (including churchmen who make it easier to deride and destroy the Church), all this is secretly managed by the Council for Religious Affairs, a Soviet Government Agency. Thus, to quote Solzhenitsyn again, the Russian Orthodox Church is “a Church dictatorially ruled by atheists”.
The Society for the Patriarchal System in the Ukrainian Catholic Church wishes to express its sadness and disappointment concerning the fact, that the National Council of Churches is now IN THE SERVICE OF THE RED STAR.
The Society feels that the policies pursued by the National Council of Churches are detrimental to the spiritual well-being of believers everywhere and it urges all religious people to oppose them vigorously.
We ask all people of good will not to allow the HAMMER and SICLE to take the place of the CROSS.
