Ukrainian Pressures
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
1 Aug 2010
The Catholic University of Ukraine is the only Catholic University in what used to be the U.S.S.R. the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Ukraine is now independent, but the newly elected President Yanukovych is pro-Russian and trying to restore Russian influence.
I recently had lunch with Father Borys Gudziak, Rector of the University, who outlined recent attempts of the SBU, Ukraine's secret police, to recruit or intimidate him.
Ukraine's extraordinary physical suffering in the twentieth century from famine, World War, ethnic cleansing and persecution, when 17,000,000 were killed, has also produced commensurate spiritual damage; what Gudziak calls a "moral Chernobyl" (the nuclear reactor there which ran amok and poisoned the countryside).
Ukraine's population has declined by 6,000,000 in the last fifteen years to 36,000,000 caused mainly by emigration, abortions and alcoholism.
Most or many Ukrainians are Orthodox. Most Catholics are Greek Catholics, who use St. John Chrysostom's liturgy and have a largely married priesthood. They suffered most under Communist persecution and their clergy numbered only 300 old priests in 1989. Today they have now returned to their former number of 2,500 priests, with 800 seminarians.
Corruption is widespread, needed even for the care of a sick child in hospital. Fear of the authorities is still embedded in the hearts of many people and corrupt authorities fear the people.
The students at Catholic University have been active in the struggle to achieve free and fair elections and the pro-Russian authorities wanted to curb this. The outgoing president Viktor Yushchenko had been poisoned in an earlier election campaign.
On May 18th an SBU official visited Rector Gudziak to warn against illegal political protests and offered him a one page letter to be signed and returned. No copy was to be kept.
Gudziak refused to even read the letter and refused to sign it. The KGB had used this method in the past to either recruit secret agents or to sow discord and disagreement e.g. between staff and students.
An international network of supporters of academic freedom, including the European Catholic Universities, protested against this intimidation, resulting in a recent visit to Gudziak from the head of the SBU and an official of the President's office to apologize for the mishap. This was a welcome development.
It will be impossible for the pro-Russian elements to wind the clock back to the worst of the old days. But it will be interesting to watch and report developments over the next few years.
