Mr. Dri??anyj

Security Service of Ukraine

Dear Mr. Dri??anyj,

we are turning to You in a serious matter. At the beginning we are presenting You some necessary information: We are members of the Order of St. Basil the Great (Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church - UGCC) living in the monastery in Pidhirci – one Ukrainian and two citizens of the Czech Republic.  Last year there rose an internal pressure within the Church in consequence of which we were illegally punished. In that cause we turned to the Supreme ecclesiastic tribunal in Rome which is inquiring into this matter.

In relation to this, the Head of the UGCC Card. L. Huzar and the superiors of our order unfortunately in a sharp contrast with the Church laws turned to state authorities by a letter № 399/2003 from 6th August 2004 so that through the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) the whole situation should be settled by deporting us from Ukraine. The orange revolution stopped this effort; however, short thereafter, under the influence of the Church hierarchy, this “activity” was renewed. We supposed that state authorities would ignore the request by the Church representatives for a deportation since the Church is separated from state and we had not broken any state laws. Yet in May 2005, the SSU Lviv passed a list of names of 23 citizens of the Czech and Slovak Republics (CR and SR) to the employees of the frontier guard service of Ukraine, informing them that they should prevent these citizens from entering Ukraine for a period of 3 years. This list of the citizens of CR and SR (predominantly students) had been passed to them in 2004 by Card. L. Huzar and the superiors of the Order of St. Basil the Great. Five of them have already been stopped at the frontier and had their passports stamped with a 3-year prohibition of entrance in Ukraine. Several times we turned to the Head of the UGCC Card. L. Huzar and to the state authorities of Ukraine but this unjust prohibition was not withdrawn! In regard to this affair the citizens of Ukraine Fr. Roman V. Šelepko, OSBM (the former superior of the Pidhirci monastery) and Fr. Markian V. Hitiuk, OSBM, were called up by the Regional Department of Internal Affairs in Lviv. After a talk with an employee of this department it appeared that this was a purely internal Church affair and state authorities should not interfere therein. Nevertheless, until this day this record at the frontier of Ukraine has not been annulled.

We have been informed recently that our Church representatives again turned to the SSU bodies and maybe even to other “organizations” with an aim to illegally settle our situation. On 27th October 2005 between 19°° and 21°° near Pidhirci village (Plisnysko locality) a group of men tried to seize one of us by force. By God’s intervention they did not succeed and he escaped. And though for about two hours they were searching the whole surroundings with search-lights and cars, they simply could not see the priest-monk hidden!

Dear Sir, the reason why we are turning to You is to prevent such situation when undesirable persons in Ukraine shall become unaccounted-for. Alarming is the case of the journalist G. Gongadze when there was found just a body without head, that for more than four years has already been in a mortuary freezer…

It is known that the three of us have become a remorse to many in the Church! Our letters and our book “Four Words from Ukraine” bear witness to it. We ourselves are not afraid of death, yet we would be happy to be of more service to the Church in its internal purification and spiritual awakening. The question here is that most relevant thing: eternity! This concerns everyone without exception.

There is a question who organized such a planned hunt that evening on 27th October 2005? And supposing that it would have been successful, whether one of us would only be illegally deported or physically liquidated?

Therefore we kindly ask You to inquire this event and do what will be within Your power so that nothing like that could repeat more. We also ask to inquire the reality that our telephones are listened in.

We declare that we possess no arms, nor have we anything to do with narcotics and we are not aware that we would have broken any laws of Ukraine.

We thank in advance for Your help.

Fr. Markian V. Hitiuk ThLic., OSBM

Fr. Metod?j R. Špi?ík ThD., OSBM

Fr. Eliáš A. Dohnal ThD., OSBM