Letter to Mr Thomas Hammarberg, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights

Lvov, 22 November 2011

Mr Thomas Hammarberg

Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights

Dear Sir,

we have come to learn that from 19 to 26 November You are staying in Ukraine and having meetings with ombudsmen, public representatives, representatives of the Ministries as well as with the victims of human rights violations. You said that Your report would be objective and its fruit would be recommendations directly to the Government of Ukraine, and if the Government did not want to take this recommendations into account, the matter would be addressed to the European Court.

We would like to ask You as Commissioner for Human Rights to deal with the fundamental human rights relating to freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, as provided by international charters as well as by the Constitution and Law of Ukraine.

We would like to ask You to deal with our case too – specifically, with systematic inflammation of religious hatred and discrimination against us as a religious minority, namely against the Ukrainian orthodox Greek-Catholic Church (UOGCC). Our Church is no sect, but we are orthodox Catholic believers separated from the heresies proclaimed by the hierarchy of the UGCC (Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church). This hierarchy which holds the official power abuses state authorities, especially the Ministry of Culture, Religious Affairs Department (Mr Bohutskyi – Head of the Department and his close associates, Mr Lyubchyk, Mr Novychenko, Mr Bondarenko), employees of Regional State Administration (Mr Kurash in Lvov and Mr Kulchytskyi in Ternopol). Discrimination against our religious minority has lasted for two and a half years; we are denied legal registration and exposed to unjust persecution, slandering and even physical violence coupled with threats to life (e.g.: Chortkiv, Probizhna 2010, Lvov – Pluhova Street 2011).

There have been several legal proceedings and verdicts passed in our favour, yet our legal right to registration is still denied. Since our registration is systematically and groundlessly denied, we are artificially kept in a position of a dangerous sect, and this is a crime. There is one reason – our registration is reportedly a thorn in the Vatican’s side. Our Church, however, is independent from the Vatican. The UGCC hierarchy does not want our existence because we would be its competitors.

In July 2011 a violent action took place against our religious minority in Lvov. The UGCC hierarchy and religious incited their faithful against us by blatant lies, who then removed and threw down the cross from the roof of our Church. Archbishop Elijah arrived at the crime scene. By order of the UGCC the police forcibly and ungroundedly detained him instead of the culprits and sentenced him to a symbolic penalty of 51 hryvnias. Basically, it was a frame-up trial in which the victims were turned into culprits. The purpose was to stir up a media campaign against our Church in order to achieve its elimination. Therefore, this case was brought before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Dear Sir, if You plan to visit Ukraine in early 2012 and You are not going to deal with this discrimination as Commissioner for Human Rights, Your arrival in Ukraine has nothing to do with human rights. Unless and until You resolve this question, there is no sense in travelling to Ukraine.

In conclusion, we would like to ask You again to contact the Ministry of Culture as well as to urge our Application in the Court in Strasbourg.

+ Markian Hitiuk OSBMr

Secretary of the Synod of UOGCC

Copies to:

– President of Ukraine V. Yanukovych

– Prime Minister of Ukraine M. Azarov

– The President of the Ukrainian Parliament

– Members of the Ukrainian Parliament

– Head of the Lvov Regional State Administration