Minister of Culture

                                                                                                      Mr Mikhailo Kulynyak

                   Dismissal and punishment of government officials

Dear Sir,

we remind You the responsibility to justly punish employees subordinated to You. It is the chief of the Main Department On Matters of Internal Policy, Nationalities and Religions of the Lviv Regional State Administration (former Department on Matters of Nationalities and Religions), Mr R. Kurash, and chief of the same department in Ternopol Regional State Administration, Mr I. Kulchytskyi, who commit unlawful religious discrimination.

On 31st July 2009, Mr Kurash committed criminal offence. Along with several people he entered the monastery of contemplative sisters in Lvov-Bryukhovychi with a deliberate purpose. He organized violent abduction of a postulant. When they brought her outside the territory of the monastery, the police violently pushed her into their car and drove her away. Testimony of the postulant and her parents revealed that Mr Kurash intended to take her to blood test but her father did not permit it. If blood test took place, a false diagnosis was prepared on the basis of which Mr Kurash and the apostatical hierarchy which hired him would falsely claim that in the orthodox monastery drugs are planted on its members and they would launch a campaign for dissolution of the monastery and of the orthodox believers. The UGCC spokesman Msgr. Y. Milyan in a TV broadcast publicly defamed orthodox believers, including contemplative sisters, saying that they were a sect similar to dangerous White Brotherhood. This was a crime of incitement of religious hatred as well as criminal and mendacious defamation of innocent believers by the use of the mass media.

This is next evidence of brutal discrimination against religious minority. Up to the present time this crime has not been punished, though we have made many complaints against Mr R. Kurash, asking for his just punishment.

In addition to this crime, Mr Kurash commits constant violation of the Ukrainian laws, thus abusing authority delegated to him by the Ukrainian democratic state. He commits religious discrimination. Mr Kurash has already for two years deliberately circumvented the laws of Ukraine and illegally rejected registration of the UOGCC, by which act he has exposed the believers and religious sisters, priests and bishops to persecutions, lynching, public defamation and real traumatization and stigmatization.

Mr Kurash keeps returning the applications for registration of the individual parishes and hypocritically invents artificial problems. We appealed to the court twice. Mr Kurash was ordered either to register the parishes or to give specific reason why he rejects the requests for registration. Mr Kurash is constantly manoeuvring and we can expect that in the short run he will appeal to the Court of Appeal, whereby he will gain one year, and then to the Court of Review, thus gaining two more years. However, throughout this period our faithful and religious sisters will continue to be exposed not only to discrimination but also to the threat of dissolution.

Mr Kurash has produced false duplicates of the constituent documents of the orthodox parish in Pidhirtsi with the aim of its dissolution and expulsion of the believers from the church which they have used for 6 years for liturgical services. In these acts of his he cooperates with Mr Bohutskyi, Deputy Minister of Culture.

We request that this Ministry employee be removed from office and justly punished.

An employee of the Regional State Administration in Ternopol, Mr Kulchytskyi, is an accessory to the incitement of religious hatred in Chortkiv on 12th-14th November 2010. Several sisters suffered physical harm in the incident. A fanaticized crowd then continued before their monastery, chanting hateful slogans for several hours under the guidance of seminarians acting on orders from above. Mr Kulchytskyi was present at this incitement of religious hatred, and although he was obliged to cease those fanatical acts of discrimination, he supported and approved of them by his passivity.

Mr Kulchytskyi constantly rejects registration of the parish in Zborov. With his assistance even the UOGCC parish in Chortkiv was dissolved. A few fanatical people went from house to house of our believers threatening to kill them unless they cancel their membership in our Church. Within few days this terrorism destroyed the UOGCC parish in Chortkiv. The church, which orthodox bishops and priests had built with their own hands, was stolen, locks in the church replaced. When we claimed the right to celebrate liturgies in the church at least alternately with the UGCC, Mr Kulchytskyi did not stand up for us but helped the opposing party to change the statute of the parish and the church was officially re-registered to them. This is criminal discrimination and incitement of religious hatred by an employee of the Regional State Administration in Ternopol.

We demand that both chiefs of the regional departments on matters of internal policy, nationalities and religions, Mr Kulchytskyi and Mr Kurash should be dismissed and justly punished.

On behalf of the UOGCC

                                                                     + Markian OSBMr

                                                           Secretary Bishop of the UOGCC

                                                                                                                                               Lvov, 25th August 2011

Cc:

- Members of the Ukrainian Parliament

- President of Ukraine V. Yanukovych

- Head of Lvov Regional State Administration

- Head of Ternopol Regional State Administration

- Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine

- MEPs