ubhshed by the Ukrainian National Association inc.. a fraternal non-profit association rainian Weekly vol. LVIII No. І THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JANUARY 7,1990 50 cents Hanna Mykhailenko, CHRIST IS BORN independents picked ex-Soviet prisoner, ХРИСТОС РАЖДАЄТЬСЯ as candidates for arrives in Boston Ukraine deputies by Alicia Szendiuch JERSEY ClTYt N.J. - A number of independent activists, including many BOSTON - Hanna Mykhailenko, former political prisoners, have been the prominent Ukrainian dissident nominated as candidates in the March 4 punished with eight years of confine– republican and local elections, reported ment in Soviet psychiatric institutions, the press service of the Ukrainian arrived for the first time in the West on Helsinki Union on December 27. December 29, 1989, on Swissair flight The newly selected candidates repre– 128 at Boston's Logan^international Дігг. sent a block of informal and semi- port to begin several months of medical formal associations, including the treatment and recuperation. UHU, the Popular Movement of U– She was greeted by members of kraine for Perebudova, or Rukh, Me– Amnesty international USA Group 24 morial and the Taras Shevchenko of Cambridge, Mass., who worked on Ukrainian Language Society vying for her behalf since her detention in 1980, seats in these new legislative bodies. and by the Ukrainian Professionals Association of Boston, who are jointly in accordance with a new republican sponsoring her trip. law "On Elections of People's Deputies Ms. Mykhailenko's first words when of the Ukrainian SSR," published in she arrived at Logan expressed concern Pravda Ukrainy on November 1, 1989, for the other dissidents still jailed back candidates were nominated by labor home, "Don't forget the others left collectives, social organizations, collec– behind. There are so many others still tives of vocational-technical, secon– back there," said the 60-year-old acti– dary specialized, and higher educa– vist for Ukrainian national and tional institutions, and meetings of human rights, as she stepped onto voters in their place of residence and American soil. military servicemen in their military Ms. Mykhailenko's arrest in early units stationed in given electoral okruhs 1980 began more than eight years of or districts. incarceration in notorious prison hospi– The deadline for the nomination tals where harsh treatment and power– process was January 4, two months ful drugs were routinely used in an before general elections to both the 450- effort to break her will. She was forcibly seat Ukrainian SSR Congress of (Continued on page 3) People's Deputies and local oblast councils. vyacheslav Chornovil, a UHU exe– UNA announces cutive board member aiid editor of the Ukrainian Herald, was chosen on December 13 as a candidate to the Si.5 million Ukrainian SSR Congress of People's Deputies by the Lviv Hromproyekt in dividends Christmas card from Ukraine by Liudmyla Loboda. (Continued on page 4) JERSEY СІТУ, N.J. - The Ukrai– nian National Association will pay its ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE CONVENT!ON OF THE members S1.5 million in dividends in 1990, it was announced here at the UKRAINIAN NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, INC. fraternal organization's headquarters at the end of December 1989. NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN TO THE SUPREME AND BRANCH OFFICERS AND TO ALL The decision to pay out this record MEMBERS OF THE UKRA1N1AN NATLONAL ASSOCLATLON, THAT THE amount of dividends was made at the final meeting for 1989 of the UNA Supreme Executive Committee, held on 32nd REGULAR CONvENTlON December 3. Among other topics discussed at the meeting was the upcoming 32nd Regu– of the UKRAINIAN NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, INC. lar Convention of the Ukrainian Na– tional Association, slated to begin on will be held in Baltimore, Maryland May 28. at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore Hotel The meeting was chaired by John O. Flis, supreme president, and attended by beginning May 28,1990 Supreme vice-President Myron Kuro– in accordance with the By-Laws of the UNA regarding election of delegates to the Convention, the qualifications pas, Supreme Director for Canada for delegates, the number of delegates from each Branch and the credentials of delegates are as follows: John Hewryk, Supreme vice-Presiden– The election of delegates and their alternates must be held within 60 days of the announcement of the Conven– tess Gloria Paschen, Supreme Secretary tion. Since the Convention was announced on January 3,1990, the 60-day term for election of delegates and their Walter Sochan and Supreme Treasurer alternates ends on March 4th, 1990. Ulana Diachuk. ^^^^"^ (Continued on page 5) (Continued on page 5) ^2 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JANUARY 7,1990 No. 1 A GLIMPSE OF SOVIET REALITY Jewish cemetery desecrated Church and state are split on Ukrainian Catholic issues by Dr. Roman Solchanyk characterizing the so-called Lviv Sobor of March, 1946, which declared the Two weeks after the Council for "self-liquidatioj^ of the Ukrainian Religious Affairs in Kiev announced Catholic Church, as an NKvD affair - that Ukrain an Catholic Church (Uniate i.e., as state-sponsored. or Greek-Catholic) communities would This, in turn, impinges directly on the be permitted to register with the authori– question of the "legality" of the Lviv ties, the newly appointed head of the Sobor, which the Russian Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate's Department of Church has consistently and forcefully Foreign Church Relations, Archbishop defended for more than 40 years, and Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, from which it now appears to be re– insisted that the Ukrainian Catholic treating. Moreover, it lends credence to issue should be resolved through "inter- the demands of Ukrainian Catholic Church dialogue" rather than by "state that their Church be officially rehabili– interference." tated as a victim of Stalinism, a demand Archbishop Kirill's remarks, made in that has also been put forth by the the course of an appearance on Soviet Popular Movement of Ukraine for central television's "Topical interview" Perebudova, or Rukh. program on December 14, represent a Ukrainian Catholics have always reaffirmation of the views that he had argued that the destruction of their already voiced on the eve of Soviet Church was carried out by Stalin. Thus, party and state leader Mikhail Gorba– while welcoming the permission to chev's recent visit to the vatican. in a register Ukrainian Catholic communi– November 25 interview with the Milan ties, Church activists have made it clear Catholic newspaper Awenire, Arch- that they consider the December 1 bishop Kirill balked at the notion that announcement of the Council for Reli– the problem of the Ukrainian Catholic gious Affairs - which has yet to be Church would be solved by Mr. Gorba– published in the Kiev press - as chev and the pope, maintaining that this unsatisfactory.! was a matter for the Russian Orthodox in a statement issued on December 4, Church and the vatican to decide - ivan Gel, head of the Committee in "without the intervention of the Soviet Defense of the Ukrainian Catholic state." Church, and Mykola Muratov, the Archbishop Kirill told the Soviet Committee's legal adviser, maintain television correspondent that the Rus– that "the Committee in Defense of the sian Orthodox Church is fully aware Ukrainian Catholic Church once again that the Ukrainian Catholic issue in– declares that under the term 'legaliza– volves "problems of human rights and tion' it understands not only the formal religious freedom, and that in western registration of the Greek-Catholic Ukraine there are Catholics of the communities, but also the return of all eastern rite who wish to pray in accor– church buildings, including the Cathe– in the spring of 1988, Soviet authorities ordered the destruction of the dance with their inclinations and tradi– dral of St. George fin LvivJ, which Jewish cemetery in Kolomyia, lvano-Frankivske Oblast. Jewish activists tions. And we are deeply convinced that belonged to Greek-Catholics until 1946. say it had been the largest undisturbed cemetery of its kind in Ukraine. these problems should be resolved, in The authorities who organized the Ukrainian residents of Kolomyia offer independent confirmation of the our view there is only one way — the pseudo-council of 1946 should recog– destruction. The activists say instructions to desecrate the cemetery came way of inter-Church dialogue." nize this in the form of a state declara– from the Kolomyia city executive committee, noting it is very unlikely that Of course, he said, the problem could tion - i.e., they should politically committee members would have taken such a step without orders from be solved in a different manner: "One rehabilitate the Ukrainian Catholic higher authorities. could, let us assume, take the path of Church. Until our demands are met, we state interference — the path of formal will continue the struggle for the legali– The activists did not know who gave the specific orders to level the registration of Uniate parishes, the zation of the Ukrainian Catholic graves. The activists quote witnesses as saying workers used bulldozers to Church." push gravestones on toa large pile and excavators to mix the remains of the formal point of view, the point of view dead with the soil. Some of the memorials were thrown on the side of a road of the law." This, according to Russian The view that the Lviv Sobor was a in the Kolomyia area. The activists say the cemetery was established more Archbishop Kirill, would only give rise farce orchestrated by Stalin has now than 200 years ago and was last used before World War ll. Since then, to new problems between the two found its way to the Soviet press, in an Kolomyia's small Jewish community has been laying its dead to rest in the Churches, at the center of which is the article published in Ogonyok in Sep– local city cemetery.