UOC-MP Rep Comments on President Yanukovych's Statement on Holodomor at PACE

KYIV – The press secretary of the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, protopriest Heorhii Kovalenko, commented to www.rusk.ru on the statement of President Yanukovych at the latest session of PACE that it would be unfair to recognize the Holodomor as a genocide of a particular nation.

"It was the reaction of the president to a question of one of the deputies of the European Parliament regarding the publication of the draft resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly on the mass famine in the former Soviet Union. PACE recognizes the Holodomor as the greatest tragedy and calls the countries of the former Soviet Union to open archive materials of the time. The position of the president of Ukraine can be evaluated as an attempt to depoliticize the issue.  The position is in line with that of the Most Holy Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus during his visit to Ukraine. Despite the political discussions about Holodomor, His Holiness visited the monument to the victims of Holodomor in Ukraine, prayed for the innocent victims, and called to prayerful remembrance of the victims of the famine in the whole space of the former Soviet Union. Patriarch Kirill's relatives also died of this dreadful famine (he mentioned that while in Ukraine). Therefore, it is our common pain, common memory and we should pray for the repose of the victims of this tragedy together.

“In this sense, how it should be called was never a main question for the church. The church believes that historic events and the very realization of the historic past should be a pretext for reconciliation and unification and the Holodomor can become the pretext for unification of our nations. The statement of Viktor Yanukovych, when he did not insist on the formulations which previously provoked mixed responses in different countries and with different political forces, can open a new page in this issue. The statement of our president is aimed exactly at immortalizing the memory of the victims of the Holodomor and now, joint remembrance of the victims, immortalizing their memory and therefore complete depoliticization of this question is possible in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, in all the countries where people suffered from this great tragedy."