Lviv, often described as Ukraine’s cultural soul, is also its most actively religious city, where, as Lindsley noted, “on a Sunday morning, even during an air raid, churches are packed, and priests chant the creed in Latin as the walls shake.” He continued, “This is what the media have missed – Lviv is not Orthodox, but Greek Catholic, in union with the Pope but eastern in ritual. According to The Wall Street Journal, Russia has sought to “erase Evangelical churches from occupied Ukraine.” The Russian Orthodox Church, re-established by Joseph Stalin in 1943 as a tool of state control, remains deeply entwined with the FSB, serving as both a spiritual and political arm of the Kremlin. When Slaviansk was under control of pro-Russia separatists, the four men â from left, Deacon Vladimir Velichko, Albert Pavenko, Ruvim Pavenko, and Deacon Victor Brodarsky â were taken away by masked armed men from the church on June 8, were killed the next day and at least two were buried in a mass grave of 14 bodies near a memorial to the Ukrainian civil war of a century ago in Slaviansk.
Author: David Kirichenko, Contributor, David Kirichenko, Contributor https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkirichenko/
Published at: 2025-10-05 21:55:00
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