"When the communism comes back..."

Maduro is a communist, just see who his friends are...

 

He is acttualy a communist of the old school in the Latin American stile.

 

Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church calls for enforced "reprogramming" of Ukrainians in the occupied territories


Occupied Ukrainians dislike Russia because the "state formation" called Ukraine has turned "native Russian lands" into "a field full of weeds."

The Russian propaganda channel Tsargrad published an interview with the head of the Synodal Missionary Department, Bishop Yevfimiy of Luhovytsia, in which the latter spoke of his plans to work in the occupied territories of Ukraine. This was reported by Religion in Ukraine.

In particular, Bishop Yevfimiy mentioned the creation of the educational project "Orthodoxy" at the end of July, aimed at bringing the training of "Orthodox missionaries" to a "new level". The project was headed by Archpriest Aleksandr Timofeev, who works for the Russian army, builds "marching churches" of the Russian Orthodox Church and provides "spiritual care" to the Russian occupation forces.

One of the tasks assigned to Timofeev is to "reprogram" the residents of the occupied territories who still refuse to accept Russia as their homeland. According to Yevfimiy, "weeds" have grown on the "missionary field" during Ukraine's "domination": "Our Department pays special attention to the military mission. Our employees regularly travel to the area of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and study the peculiarities of the missionary field on the ground. To put it bluntly, after many years of these primordially Russian lands being dominated by the state entity called "Ukraine", this field has become overgrown with weeds. Since there are no other options, we must work in these conditions."

In late June, the PACE adopted a resolution entitled "Countering the erasure of cultural identity in time of war and peace," in which it recognized Russia's genocidal intent in destroying Ukrainian cultural heritage and forcibly changing the identity of Ukrainians. In early June, the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) presented a report proving the involvement of Russian Orthodox Church priests in engaging Ukrainian children deported from orphanages and boarding schools in the occupied Donetsk region in "military-patriotic" activities. According to ISW, the deportation of Ukrainian children with the intention of destroying their Ukrainian identity through Russification projects involving the ROC is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which prohibits the "forcible transfer of children of one group to another group" on the grounds of it constituting an act of genocide.

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Source:
https://risu.ua/en/bishop-of-the-ru...krainians-in-the-occupied-territories_n150144

 

UGCC Churches Evacuated in Myrnohrad, Donetsk Oblast, Under Fire

All parishioners of the UGCC have been evacuated from Myrnohrad in Donetsk region. Only a priest and volunteers working on the evacuation remained at the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Before this, the Church of the Holy Trinity was evacuated and consecrated last year.



Fr. Ivan Vasylenko shared this on his Facebook page.

On August 11, the iconostasis was dismantled in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul and all valuable items were packed for transport to Dnipro.



Among the items to be evacuated, the priest showed a marble angel from 1894, which survived two world wars and now faces another.

“We are beginning the evacuation of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. It hurts; I feel desolate. We have to transport the iconostasis, icons, banners, library, and all the consecrated items from Myrnohrad and the Donetsk region. This church was built for the glory of God and the salvation of human souls. The enemy is already near, so this is all we can do,” said the priest.

“Just today we prayed here, hugged each other, people cried and left. I am the only one left. Now we are going to dismantle the icons with the young man who helped with the construction,” the priest added.

Despite all the events, the parish continues to support local residents with humanitarian aid. At 3:00 PM every day, the church opens a social wardrobe where locals can receive clothes and food.

The UGCC Department for Information

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Source:
https://ugcc.ua/en/data/ugcc-churches-evacuated-in-myrnohrad-donetsk-oblast-under-fire-1165/

 

More here:

Russian forces destroy Catholic church in Ukraine, as another parish prepares for attack

The remains of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church of the Holy Martyr Cyprian and the Martyr Justina in Antonivka, Ukraine are seen after an Aug. 11, 2024 missile strike by Russian forces. (OSV News photo/Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Information Department)

(OSV News) — Russian forces have destroyed another Ukrainian Greek Catholic church, while a priest at a separate parish is hastening to remove sacred items ahead of an expected Russian attack.

On Aug. 11, a Russian rocket leveled the Church of the Holy Martyr Cyprian and the Martyr Justina in Antonivka, located in Ukraine’s Kherson region.

News of the strike, which took place on a Sunday, was reported by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on its information website that same day. The UGCC did not specify if there had been casualties.

Images shared by the UGCC showed the severely damaged remains of the Antonivka church amid rubble. Windows and doors had been completely blown out, with structural framing warped and twisted.

The UGCC noted that the Antonivka church had also been struck Aug. 9 by a Russian drone. Parishioners and area residents had managed to extinguish the resulting flames.

The parish, formed in 2005, originally worshipped in a residence, moving in 2012 to a private chapel in the rectory of Father Igor Makar. The now-ruined church had been newly built shortly thereafter, and was consecrated in May 2014 by Bishop Mykhaylo Bubniy.

In Myrnohrad, a city in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, a priest and a volunteer worked Aug. 11 to save sacred objects and art at the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, as Russian forces have shelled the area.

Father Ivan Vasylenko posted several videos and photos of the effort to his Facebook page, noting that “parishioners (have) all left the city.”

“We consecrated, prayed. … Today, people hugged, cried and already left,” said the priest, who urged Myrnohrad residents seeking shelter to contact the Jesuit Refugee Service.

The “evacuation” of the holy items from the church evoked a “weird double sense,” he said.

In a video included in one Aug. 12 post, Father Vasylensko showed the interior of the church and the items set to be rescued, saying, “Jesus, Lord, Our Savior, Jesus Christ, the Blessed One — it just hurts, my heart is so empty. I don’t even know what’s going on inside. … I don’t know where to start, what to do.”

However, with Russian forces having advanced to nearby Hrodivka, “those church things consecrated for the glory of God must be taken out of the city of Myrnohrad,” he said. “This temple was built for the glory of God and the salvation of human souls in Myrnohrad.”

Icons, banners, the parish library and the iconostasis — a screen of icons used in Byzantine Christian tradition to separate the sanctuary from the nave — are all being extricated with the help of a layman experienced in construction, said Father Vasylenko.

The video, during which the priest can be heard sighing several times, lingered briefly on a statue of Our Lady of Fatima, devotion to whom stresses prayer for the conversion of Russia.

A marble angel crafted in 1894, “which survived two world wars and now faced a new war,” will also be rescued from the church, said the UGCC.

Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — declared a genocide in two major human rights reports by the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights — Russia has destroyed at least 660 religious sites representing several faith confessions. Clergy and faithful of various denominations have been expelled, detained, tortured and, in some cases, killed.

In late June, Ukrainian Catholic priests Father Ivan Levitsky and Father Bohdan Geleta were released after a year and a half of Russian captivity, during which they were reported to be regularly tortured.

Russian occupation officials in the Zaporizhzhia region issued a written order in December 2022 banning the UGCC, the Knights of Columbus and Caritas, the official humanitarian arm of the worldwide Catholic Church.

“Jesus, have mercy on us,” said Father Vasylenko in his Facebook video. “Take care, (my) people. … Praise God for everything.”

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Source:
https://catholicreview.org/russian-...kraine-as-another-parish-prepares-for-attack/

 

My Rosary for all!so very sad

 

Russian preacher could face prison for opposition to war



A Russian preacher who helps the homeless could face years in prison and has been fined by authorities in his home country for opposing the invasion of Ukraine.

Eduard Aleksandrovich Charov, 53, who identifies as Christian of no official church, serves the homeless with his wife Inna Charova at their house in the village of Savinovo in Russia’s Sverdlovsk Region, in the Urals mountains, reported independent Russian news site Takiye Dela.

The couple liquidated their non-profit organization in 2021, formerly a state-registered homeless shelter known as For the Sake of Christ. “You have to pay too much to the state for the right to help your neighbor,” Charov reportedly explained.

His opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in the loss of volunteers who were helping at the shelter, he told Novaya Gazeta Kazakhstan news site. The couple decided to accept the homeless as private guests.

Russian authorities, however, cracked down on Charov, a “sympathetic and caring person,” according to the Rev. Igor Savvateyev, a Savinovo parish priest.

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Source:
https://www.christiandaily.com/news/russian-preacher-could-face-prison-for-opposition-to-war.html

 

My interpretation of when communism comes again -

The original rise was tied into the misery of folks during the industrial revolution by way of capitalism. Today we see the price of goods going higher and higher, people being taxed on more things and at higher rates, insurance costs on home/cars increasing at a fast rate, etc. Additionally we see you folks protesting Gaza, etc etc. I think what is coming in the near future is that the cost of living will explode due to some unforseen shock to the system (financial, political or otherwise). It will impact much of the western world and people will be angry at the 1%s like Bezos and Musk, etc. living flamboyant lives while the rest are scraping by. I think this will cause a groundswell from the youth upwards (especially starting with them as they do not have any experience with what communism is outside of theory) that will lead to revolutions in many countries. The return of communism will be come about by the greed of capitalism (as St. John Paul II said - they are two sides of the same coin) and people will see 'communism' as the answer. But as with the first rise, this new rise will spread quickly throughout the world and will be adopted by so many as an answer to their problems and it will be very, very violent.

 

One bad thing that develops mainly under capitalism is the creation of new needs, things that 20 years ago could have been considered futile, today are seen as basic necessities. For example, I know a lot of people who could easily last a few days without eating but would hardly go 24 hours without accessing certain features on their smartphone or smart TV, I'm talking about virtual services, which are paid for in one way or another. And it is true that these people become violent when they are deprived of such virtual services. But this is also true for physical goods and services, things that are perfectly dispensable.

 

A distinct possibility for individuals with no Godly influences in their lives.

 

Faith and prayer sustained him, says Ukrainian Catholic priest captured, tortured by Russia

Ukrainian Catholic Redemptorist Fathers Ivan Levitsky and Bohdan Geleta are seen in this undated photo posted to the website of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church June 28, 2024. According to the UGCC, the images was taken while both priests were held in a Russian prison. The priests, captured by Russian forces from Berdyansk, Ukraine, in November 2022, were announced as freed by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy June 28. (OSV News/Screen shot from UGCC website)

Faith, prayer and a transcendent hope in Christ sustained a Ukrainian Catholic priest amid more than a year and a half of Russian captivity and torture – and now, he is sharing his story to remind others that God “loves us and wants to save us.”

Redemptorist Father Bohdan Geleta reflected on his experiences in an hourlong interview with host Taras Babenchuk that aired Aug. 20 on Zhyve TV, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s television channel.

In November 2022, Father Geleta and his fellow Redemptorist Father Ivan Levitsky were seized by Russian forces from their parish, Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in Berdyansk, Ukraine.

The two – whose exact locations and conditions were largely unknown to Ukrainian and Church officials for most of their 18-month captivity – were among 10 prisoners returned to Ukraine in late June. Both priests had lost significant amounts of weight, and their heads had been shaved.

Father Geleta confirmed that he and Father Levitsky had been subjected to both psychological and physical torture at the hands of Russian forces, confirming reports that Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the UGCC, had received within the first weeks of the priests’ capture, which took place a full nine months after Russian troops took over Berdyansk.

Initially, the two priests had been able to continue their pastoral ministry after the Russian occupation, celebrating Divine Liturgy, praying and taking in refugees, said Father Geleta.

In fact, the refugees motivated them to stay, he said, and provide both spiritual and material support.

Yet prayers for peace had to be done “very delicately” since “it was dangerous to express such a sentiment there,” he said – and a car marked with the letter “Z,” a symbol of Russian troops in Ukraine, circled the Church “several times” as “a sign” that Russian occupiers were watching.

On Nov. 16, 2022, the occupiers made their move in broad daylight. Father Geleta had just returned from a burial and was preparing to celebrate Divine Liturgy; Father Levitsky was about to hold an outdoor prayer gathering.

“Two masked people came into the Church. I think they were military. They were carrying weapons, and they came up and said in Russian: ‘Come with us,’” Father Geleta recalled. “I asked them in Ukrainian what they wanted, why they came into the Church dressed like they were. They told me that they did not understand Ukrainian. I switched to Russian. Then I changed my clothes, took off my vestments, and went with them to the central pre-trial detention center in Berdyansk … And there they drew up a report that Father Ivan and I had violated some rules. We had to take permission from the authorities to pray in the city.”

The charge is a typical one for Russian occupation forces in Ukraine, who have broadly sought to suppress all faiths except Russian-aligned Orthodox groups by destroying houses of worship; detaining, torturing and killing clergy; and creating laws – in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the imposition of outside rule by occupying forces – to restrict religious practice. In Zaporizhzhia, the region surrounding Berdyansk, Russian occupation officials issued a written decree banning the UGCC as well as the Knights of Columbus and Caritas, the official humanitarian arm of the worldwide Catholic Church.

Father Geleta and Father Levitsky, who were kept separate for most of their imprisonment, were first taken to damp basement cells where they “could also hear screams from our cell in the corridors,” as captives were tortured. One of Father Geleta’s cellmates had been electrically shocked and forced to learn the Russian national anthem – or face execution.

The priests were first offered an opportunity to cooperate with employees of the FSB, Russia’s security bureau, which has in some cases sought to recruit religious leaders to promote Russia’s grip in occupied areas of Ukraine.

“They said if we agreed, they would show us around and tell us what we needed to do,” said Father Geleta. “But we refused.”

The priests were also questioned on camera by Russian propagandists, he said, noting that his inquisitors “really don’t like the word ‘war,’” but instead prefer the Kremlin’s euphemism, “special military operation” to describe their attacks on Ukraine, which began in 2014 and which have been determined to constitute genocide, according to two major reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights.

Yet “neither Father Ivan nor I compromised,” said Father Geleta. “We just told the truth, that it was a war, that they were criminals, to their faces,” he said, adding that it was clear they would be “punished” for their stance.

Their captors, Father Geleta said, “forgot about us for four months,” after which they accused the priests of storing weapons in their Church, a charge for which they were to be tried and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The two were transferred for five more months to Russian penal colony No. 77 in Berdyansk, where Father Geleta was moved to a solitary cell with a speaker that was “was blaring Soviet songs all day long,” which he was forced to listen to.

“I realized then how a person goes crazy, I realized why people commit suicide then,” said Father Geleta. “And, of course, the Lord God helps, and he gives strength through prayer. God, Jesus Christ, Mary and the angels were all present. Prayer was salvation. And as I was saying, I felt the prayer of the Church.”

The priests were moved once more – driven handcuffed and blindfolded, with bags on their heads – to another penal colony in Horlivka, located in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where prisoners were “harmed almost every day … the admission was very terrible, very cruel,” said Father Geleta.

 

(Cont.)

Those who had fought in Ukraine’s Azov regiment, which along with civilians had defied Russia’s occupation of Mariupol until the city fell in May 2022, were “very much abused there,” he said.

The priests were also abused multiple times. “I was almost never beaten during the admission, but Father Ivan was beaten so severely that he lost consciousness twice,” Father Geleta said.

The Ukrainian priest said that while he was being tortured – something “you can’t get used to” – he “remembered Jesus Christ, his cross, his suffering.”

“And such strength and grace poured in that, that I was saying: Lord, I can sympathize with you,” he said. “When they were taking me somewhere, I was already preparing internally, praying and asking God to give me strength. I did not know whether I would survive or not.”

He and Father Levitsky shared a cell for just 15 days of their 10-month imprisonment at Horlivka, where according to the priest about 2,000 prisoners of war were held.

“We had the opportunity to get to know a lot of people,” said Father Geleta. “They told us a lot, and they were looking for help from the inside, spiritual help.”

While unable to celebrate liturgy, Father Geleta said he began holding morning and evening prayer meetings of about five minutes each, reading a passage from a Russian-language Bible, reciting the Our Father and Hail Mary, and then praying for prisoners’ intentions.

“It was enough to “spiritually gain such energy and go on living,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that it was some kind of propaganda or preaching, because the Our Father and the Hail Mary are common Christian prayers. … The warders didn’t even come in and see us.”

Father Geleta said he was also able to hear Confessions, and sensed that “the whole Church” prayed for the priests’ release.

He said his captors considered UGCC Catholics as “sect that split from Orthodoxy,” and that the UGCC and its priests must be “eradicated, isolated from society, and purified.”

“They genuinely praise God. Genuinely, yet they beat people, you know?” Father Geleta said of his captors. “It’s such religious fanaticism.”

When the June prisoner exchange was arranged, he and Father Levitsky thought they were possibly being moved to Siberia, said Father Geleta, who felt “profoundly grateful” upon regaining his freedom.

“Even now I cannot digest it all, realize it. It is still … coming to me,” he said.

As he readjusts to freedom, Father Geleta has discerned the hand of the divine in the sufferings he and Father Levitsky endured.

“Together with Father Ivan we sympathized and bore this cross with those prisoners who fought for freedom, for a free Ukraine, for winning this happiness of not only living like people, but being close to God, to the salvation of the Lord,” he said.

“And it will probably remain there, this particle, for a lifetime, you know, as long as I live on earth,” he acknowledged.

“And I want to tell all the others, and especially those families, those mothers, wives, who have their sons, their fathers, their sisters in captivity, not to lose hope, to pray, to turn to God, and everything will be all right. The Lord God knows that even through these sufferings he leads everyone to himself. We do not know this, it is a mystery. Otherwise, a person might not be able to bear it,” Father Geleta said.

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Source:
https://www.cathstan.org/us-world/f...n-catholic-priest-captured-tortured-by-russia

 

Russia blocks Catholic, other religious websites amid war in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin is pictured in a file photo sitting in front of a computer at his residence outside Moscow. Human rights monitor Forum 18 reports that Russia continues to block a wide range of religious websites in Russia and in occupied areas of Ukraine, including Katolik.Life from Belarus and the Religious Information Service of Ukraine, founded at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. (OSV News photo/Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin, Kremlin via Reuters)

October 14, 2024
By Gina Christian
OSV News

Amid its war on Ukraine, Russia continues to block a number of external religious websites, social media accounts and apps from several countries, preventing believers of various faiths from accessing information and engaging in dialogue, according to a human rights watch group.

Forum 18 — a news service that partners with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee in defending freedom of religion, thought and conscience — posted an updated list of affected sites Oct. 4.

“I think it illustrates the Russian authorities’ … obsessions, if you like, in blocking what they call extremist content,” Felix Corley, Forum 18 editor and researcher, told OSV News, noting that the bans are also operative in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

Among the outlets that can no longer be accessed in Russia is the Belarusian website Katolik.Life, a private, voluntary initiative by an unnamed individual depicting current and historical Catholic life in that nation.


A church destroyed by Russian shelling is pictured in Lukashivka, Ukraine, April 27, 2022. (OSV News photo/Zohra Bensemra, Reuters)
Forum 18 said in its report that while the exact start date of the blockage was unknown, “some users in Russia have reported being unable to access it since June 2024.” Several users in Moscow told Forum 18 the site fails to load, and recent analytics show that visits have shifted from Russian to Norwegian IP addresses, suggesting that visitors are using VPNs to access the site.

Katolik.Life — which said it had averaged more than 1,000 visitors per day — reported in a July 15 post that it had also been blocked within Belarus itself due to “a decision by the Ministry of Information.

“The reasons have not been officially reported, but they are obvious to us — we talk not only about the positive, but also about the closed Red Church (the Church of SS. Simon and Helen in Minsk, closed by the Belarusian government in October 2022), about the arrests of priests (by Belarusian officials for unexplained reasons), about how believers are experiencing the war,” said the site’s author in the post. “After all, this, unfortunately, has also become a part of ‘Catholic life’ for many.”

Though technically an independent country, Belarus under the three-decade tenure of Alexander Lukashenko has become a mirror image of Moscow, with dissent effectively silenced. Russia and Belarus signed a Union State agreement in 1999, and Belarus was a launchpad for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which was declared a genocide in two joint reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights. Belarusian officials and civilians have colluded with Russia to abduct at least 2,442 Ukrainian children, housing them in reeducation camps in Belarus, in violation of international law.

Also blocked by Russia since March 2022 is the site for the Religious Information Service of Ukraine, or RISU, which was founded by the Institute of Religion and Society of the Ukrainian Catholic University.

Corley told OSV News that RISU “produces reports, news items, comments and so on in a very neutral way, (so that) one can read it and either agree or not agree with the publications. It’s not a site that encourages or incites anyone.”

Forum 18 found that Russia’s ban extends to sites “related to Jehovah’s Witnesses … Muslim sites related to theologian Said Nursi (blocked as “extremist”); a website supporting LGBT+ people in religious communities; religious sites criticizing Russia’s war against Ukraine, including Christians Against War, and Christianity Today,” as well as “Ukrainian religious sites … social media sites of those opposing the war on religious grounds … and news and NGO sites which include coverage of freedom of religion or belief violations.”

Through the online access tool GlobalCheck, OSV News has confirmed that at present its website is apparently still able to be accessed within Russia.

Corley told OSV News that in some cases it can be “very difficult to work out” the exact process by which a given site is banned by Russia.

The Russian state agency Roskomnadzor — established in 2008 to oversee telecommunications licensing and mass media supervision — was mandated in 2012 to publish a website blacklist, known as the “Unified Registry,” listing prohibited sites.

Previously, Roskomnadzor would “indicate which government agency has ordered a block, whether it’s a court, whether it’s a general prosecutor’s office or another government agency,” said Corley. “But quite often these days they don’t indicate which (agency). It just says that the state body is not identified, so you just don’t know who has actually ordered the block.”

Roskomnadzor has not responded to Forum 18’s request for comment, said Corley, adding that “there is a certain chaos within the (Russian) regime” regarding its prioritization of banning sites.

“We just don’t know,” he said. “They don’t explain themselves. They don’t see why they should explain themselves.”

Yet the results of the bans are evident — and damaging, said Corley.

“It really hampers people’s possibilities to find out about their faith and other people’s faith, and to have a free exchange of ideas in the area of religion,” he said. “All these human rights are very interlinked, and part of freedom of religion or belief is being able to discuss your faith, being able to discuss other people’s faith, and to find out about news in the area of religion.”

Katolik.Life stated in its July post the ban will not impact the site’s operations, and urged readers to use a workaround to access the site’s content.

“The author pays for the site’s maintenance costs from his personal funds. All content is created by only one person in his free time and perceives it as a service to God and people,” said the post. “We will continue to do this in the future. You can read our publications using VPN services installed on your smartphone. … Using VPN in Belarus is not prohibited. On your computer, you can easily install any VPN plugin in your browser (via Google search).”

For those who cannot sidestep the blockage, Katolik.Life will “provide the maximum amount of information on important topics in posts in our Telegram and in Catholic (publications),” the post stated.

“We entrust ourselves, you, the entire Church, our beloved Belarus and all those who suffer unjustly in it to the Almighty Loving God,” said the author of Katolik.Life.

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Source:
https://catholicreview.org/russia-blocks-catholic-other-religious-websites-amid-war-in-ukraine/

 

Persecution of 10 Catholic bishops in China intensified after Vatican-China deal, report says


A new report sheds light on the repression faced by 10 Catholic bishops in China who have resisted the Chinese Communist Party’s attempt to exert control over religious matters since the 2018 China-Vatican agreement on the appointment of bishops.

The report, authored by Nina Shea for the Hudson Institute, documents the harrowing experiences of Vatican-approved bishops who have suffered detention without due process, surveillance, police investigations, and banishments from their dioceses for refusal to submit to the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), a state-managed group controlled by the CCP’s United Front Work Department.

More here:
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...ensified-after-vatican-china-deal-report-says

 

Vatican and Chinese Communist Party extend agreement on appointment of bishops

 

Ukrainian [Catholic] priest in Russian detention: ‘Their goal was to break us’
Nearly two years ago, two Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Redemptorists, Fr. Bohdan Geleta and Fr. Ivan Levytskyi, were arrested in Berdiansk, a southeasern Ukrainian city occcupied by Russian troops.


When Russian forces detained them on Nov. 16, 2022, the priests had been assigned for some nine months to ministry at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish, where parishioners lived in chaos and fear amid the Russian occupation.

After the priests were detained, their Redemptorist order had little information about their their whereabouts or physical condition. But whispers of hope persisted, even as the men remained imprisoned for a harrowing year-and-a-half.

The priests were released from Russian detention on June 28, 2024. While details remain unclear, it is widely believed that diplomats from the Holy See played a pivotal role in securing their freedom.

Both priests are now undergoing physical and psychological rehabilitation, as their period of detention left them with significant trauma.

Fr. Geleta told The Pillar that the priests arrived in Berdiansk in 2019, following the Redemptorist practice of rotating confreres every four years, and it was their turn to serve in southeastern Ukraine.

Geleta explained that the southeastern region of Ukraine is distinct, influenced by decades of Soviet atheist propaganda, which has left many people distanced from religion.

“We had different people in our parish,” Geleta told The Pillar. “There were ‘hereditary’ Greek Catholics — who had moved from western Ukraine at various times — who formed the backbone of our community and kept coming. There were also those who came to our church out of curiosity and ultimately discovered faith. Others included transplants from Donbas who had relocated after 2014, when the war began there.”

Geleta told The Pillar there was tension in the city on the eve of the 2022 invasion, although it didn’t escalate into open conflict. Some people, influenced by Russian propaganda, were anticipating the arrival of the “Russkyi mir.” But the outbreak of a full-scale war came as a shock to everyone.

“From the first day of the occupation on February 27, when invading troops entered Berdiansk, people began fleeing from Mariupol and Melitopol. They came to Berdiansk, where columns of buses and cars formed and departed toward Zaporizhzhia. Many people passed through—some families even spent the night with us before leaving. There was a lot of talk about destroyed houses and apartments. Some had lost friends,” the priest said.

“People were terrified; there was panic. People were dying. They didn’t know what to do or how to live, and the future was entirely uncertain. In those first weeks, we could have left safely, and we, too, felt fear and panic. But we were determined to stay here, to continue serving God and the people. We resolved to remain until the end. I offered Masses in the Roman Catholic church in Berdiansk and also offered Divine Liturgies in our church. Meanwhile, Fr. Ivan offered the liturgy in our church and went downtown to pray with people on the street,” Fr. Geleta recalled.

The priest said that in the early days after the invasion, fear and uncertainty drew local people to his parish — many of whom had previously seemed indifferent to religion.

And for their part, Russian occupation authorities did not interfere with parish activities for the first nine months.

But in November 2022, Russian authorities began police actions against religious communities, specifically targeting Greek Catholics and Protestants. During that time, three other UGCC priests in neighboring Melitopol were arrested and taken to the front line, where they were ordered to leave their parish communities, and move toward the Ukrainian troops.

"The people who remained came to [our parish], sharing various fears. Someone had been beaten, someone else killed, an apartment robbed—there was always something,” Fr. Geleta recalled.

“For nine months, we waited and prepared ourselves for when they would eventually come for us. We didn’t know when, but we were ready. And the people prepared us, too. It’s difficult to put it into words, but there was this inner feeling, a sense of faith. We were afraid, like everyone else, but this fear was controlled."

 

[cont.]

On November 16, 2022, both priests were arrested by Russian authorities.

On November 24, the Russian military-owned propaganda channel Zvezda announced that Russian special forces had found weapons and explosives in a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Redemptorist house. At the time of the arrest, only Fr. Geleta was actually in that house, while Fr. Ivan was in the city center praying with people.

“That day, I was in the church, already vested to offer the liturgy. The arrest was very simple. Two men came in, masked and holding guns. They said they would check my documents and that I should go with them, and then I could return and continue [the liturgy]. And that was it,”Geleta recalled.

“At first, they couldn’t determine how to treat us—whether as religious persons or otherwise. They tried to convince us to cooperate, and when we refused, they accused us of terrorist activities. The investigator told me I would face 25 years in prison.”

According to Fr. Geleta, the most difficult part leading up to the arrest was the uncertainty of what lay ahead.

“When I was arrested, there was a sense of relief that it had finally happened, and that whatever would come, I would let it happen as God willed. Yet the uncertainty and anxiety continued, especially about Fr. Ivan, who had been arrested separately. We didn’t know about each other until four months later, when we were transported to another prison and were together for the first time in the transfer vehicle.”

“In the early days, the experiences were very intense because there was a torture chamber across from the cell, and we could hear voices and moans. I imagine Father Ivan was thinking about me, as I was thinking about him, wondering if I might hear his voice, if he was being tortured. I think that was the hardest part. The psychological pressure was immense.”

From the moment of their arrest, the priests were held separately in Berdiansk.

Father Geleta was placed in a two-person cell which held six to eight people at a time, so sometimes he had to sleep on the floor. Most of his cellmates were detained on suspicion of pro-Ukrainian activities, refusal to accept a Russian passport, or refusal to complete documentation for business, as well as retired military officers etc..

“In Berdiansk, we were not forbidden to pray, so we prayed in the cell. We talked about religious topics, about God, and we prayed constantly,” Geleta recalled.

“People sometimes asked difficult questions: Why did all of this happen? Where is God in it? It was very hard to answer. Actually, I didn’t even try to convince anyone. It’s very difficult to reason with someone when they’ve lost a loved one or endured tragedy and misfortune. Sometimes, it’s better to just sit in silence with them. But despite everything, I believe the Lord still worked through us.”

“There’s a kind of fear, almost animal-like, the fear of death, but the Lord always gives a person the strength to overcome it. In those moments, I’d feel this inner voice— ‘Stop, don’t be afraid; there’s nothing to fear. It’s all a test, an illusion.’”

“In that environment, we choose whether or not we’re afraid because we have an eternal soul. Fear often surfaces when we stray from truth, when we stop praying, or when we’re consumed with questions: Why? How? Why is there such injustice? That’s when true tragedy can settle within the soul, and the psyche may not be able to withstand it.”

According to the priest, during his entire imprisonment, he was never able to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, not even privately.

Cell inspections were thorough, with all items carefully checked whenever prisoners were taken out for brief half-hour walks, making it impossible to hide anything.

Prisoners also lacked access to reliable information about events outside; their only source of news was the sound of artillery, which indicated that Ukraine was still resisting Russian occupation.

After their time in Berdiansk, the priests were transferred to Horlivka, where they were held in a prison camp containing approximately 2,000 captured Ukrainian soldiers.

Reflecting on his time in Berdiansk, Fr. Geleta described the hardest experience as being in the so-called “music room”—a solitary confinement cell in Colony 77 where Soviet music played all day.

The priest spent four months there.

“It was a concrete cell with a door like an iron safe. The whole place resonated, and it was incredibly hard. They would turn the music off only at night, from one to six in the morning. I could feel, even physically, that the vibrations were affecting me negatively. But when a person prays, there’s a different kind of vibration that becomes a barrier against this. Their goal was to break us. The struggle was constant. I even felt I might go crazy.”

In Horlivka, as in Berdiansk, moral pressure continued, with physical abuse added, the priest claimed. After a 15-day quarantine spent together with Fr. Levytskyi, Fr. Geleta was placed in the third barrack and Fr. Levytsky in the eighth.

Although it was impossible to celebrate the Divine Liturgy or pray the canonical hours, Fr. Geleta would hear the prisoners' confessions whenever there was opportunity and desire. Sometimes, penitents were practicing Catholics, while others came to confess for the first time in their lives.

“There were those who came and said: ‘We want to try to unite with God.’ We always had a very human relationship because they were [Ukrainian] soldiers.”

The priest said that detention was often a catalyst for faith — and that his period of detention deepened his own faith..

“Prison provides a strong incentive for reflection. Many people contemplate their lives and plans for when they return home—what they will do and how they will realize their potential for their families. Prison is an environment where a person comes to understand that time should not be wasted. While I feel physically and psychologically broken, this time has strengthened my faith. The doubts I once had, not about God but about my vocation, have disappeared. I now know what I am going to do and how I am going to do it. I have clarity and purpose. My faith in my work here on earth has deepened.”

A few days before their release, the priests were transported from Horlivka to Rostov-on-Don and then to Moscow.

“They put us on a plane, and we flew sitting on the floor of a military cargo plane with over 100 people. No one knew where we were going. Our hands and eyes were blindfolded. Then, in Rostov, Fr. Ivan and I were separated from the others. We thought we were being transported somewhere in Russia, to one of the prison camps. Instead, they took us to Moscow and handed us over to the FSB, where we spent another three days in their prison.”

Father Levytskyi celebrated their first liturgy, soon after their release.

The priest said that liturgy was an extraordinary experience.

“When I realized that I was free, the first feeling was gratitude. Gratitude to God. I just wanted to breathe, hold my head high, look into people's eyes. I just wanted to walk around, smell the flowers, the grass.”

For Fr. Geleta, the road to recovery after his detention will be long. But he remains convinced of the faith which has sustained him.

“I don’t know how to convey this yet, but I want to. That love is real. Christ is truly with us. All these trials that happen every day, along with our doubts, prevent us from realizing this. But it is possible.”

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Source:
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/ukrainian-priest-in-russian-detention

 

What saints. God bless them. Incredible story of courage. Even in the worst fear. They felt God didn’t let it overcome them

 

Thank you for these posts of our persecuted clergy. I can only pray for their courage and perseverance to be a light to the rest of us.

 

[Catholic] Church in Ukraine has lost half of its parishes in areas occupied by Russia, bishop says


More than two and a half years after the Russian invasion, the Church in Ukraine has lost more than half of the parishes in the occupied regions, said Maksym Ryabukha, the new Greek Catholic bishop of the Donetsk exarchate.

Speaking to the Italian daily Avvenire, the 44-year-old prelate said “the situation is increasingly worrying” since the war began in February 2022.

“We have already lost more than half of the parishes. And with the advancing Russian army, dozens of other churches have been evacuated,” added Ryabukha, whose diocese is partly under Moscow’s control, divided by over 300 miles of trenches.

According to the Italian media, in the churches of Pokrovsk, Mirnohrad, and Kostiantynivka — areas taken by Russian forces — there are no more remaining liturgical furnishings, pews, or adornments.

The new bishop of the Donetsk exarchate said the priests “stay close to the population and visit the refugees who have left their homes.” In his case, he said he is now “a bishop in a time of pain, drama, injustice, and helplessness” as he sees his Church suffering.

Ryabukha said that in the Russian-occupied areas, “those who openly call themselves Catholics disappear: Some are shot, others are imprisoned. There is no right to freely profess the faith. Our faithful keep saying: ‘We’re holding up, but it’s like being locked up in a prison.’”

Among the painful experiences, the prelate recalled the imprisonment of his priests Bohdan Geleta and Ivan Levitskyi, who were held for more than a year after being captured by the Russians in Berdyansk.

Both were released in June, and Ryabukha said their stories “show how the power of prayer is a vital support in the midst of atrocities.”

“Our two priests felt the closeness of the Church that allowed them to hold up under the evil, the torture, the inhumanity they experienced in Russian cells. And it’s with prayer that I also can be close to the communities that they prevent me from visiting. Every day I ask the Lord to protect them,” he said.

The bishop, who regularly visits Ukrainian soldiers, said that many of them, before the war, “were simple fathers or even former Salesian students. They put aside their plans to defend the country.”

“We know that the war will end. But we all want this to happen as soon as possible and with peace in the name of justice,” he added.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Source:
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...ishes-in-areas-occupied-by-russia-says-bishop