(b. April 8, 1932, in the village of Nezhukhiv, Stryi Raion, Lviv Oblast.)
Repressed as a faithful member of the Slavic Church of the Holy Spirit (the “Pokutnyky”).
A peasant woman, she completed two years of schooling, was married, and had four children.
The Pokutnyky believe that in 1958, the last righteous pope, Pius XII, was poisoned. With his death, the era of Rome ended and the era of Ukraine began, as the Pope had transferred the pontificate to Serednia Hora in Pidkarpattia (Subcarpathia), to the incarnation of the living Christ, Emmanuilo I (the priest Mykhailo Soltys). They hold that a new Rome is to arise there, from which the renewal and revival of Christianity in purity and truth will begin. A Ukrainian theocratic state will be its bearer for the world. They also believe that the Second Coming of Christ has already occurred and that a new Gospel, written on Earth through the Mother of God (incarnated as M. Soltys’s sister, Mariya), has yet to be proclaimed.
Antoniv worked at a military unit and later for 15 years at a furniture factory. She was elected as a deputy to the Stryi City Council. Incidentally, when she was nominated as a candidate, she was praying as she approached the podium and was unable to say anything, only mumbling. Laughter erupted. Later, the prosecutor remarked that if she had a tenth-grade education, she would have been tried for “making a mockery of the entire Soviet government.”
After becoming a member of the Pokutnyky, she stopped going to work on church holidays, for which she was fired. She supported herself by gardening, gathering medicinal herbs and berries, selling snowdrops, and doing odd jobs for people. The Pokutnyky refused government service and employment, surrendered their passports, and renounced their surnames. They would answer: “A Pokutnyk, chosen by God. Our Father is the Heavenly Father. Born in the house of the Lord on the Holy Serednia Yasna Hora (Bright Mountain).” They were driven from Serednia Hora, beaten, thrown into the water, and transported to distant forests and fields. Antoniv’s mother’s clothes were set on fire. The sacred spring where the Pokutnyky drew water was destroyed with a bulldozer, the mountain was fenced off with barbed wire, and it was declared a “forbidden zone.” However, this did not stop the faithful.
Antoniv, both alone and with other Pokutnyky, was repeatedly detained by the militsiya (police) with beatings and insults; they were held for several days without food or water and detained under arrest for up to a month—yet they only thanked their abusers. When they were thrown out of the police station, they would refuse to leave, saying, “We are fine here with Jesus.” When they were dragged out of the gates, they would kiss the policemen’s feet, “because the Lord has revealed that one must not harbor hatred.”
In 1972, Antoniv was detained and warned by police officers for “not performing socially useful work and leading a vagrant lifestyle.”
One day, Antoniv went to School No. 7 in the city of Stryi and made the sign of the cross on the steps. The chief of police, Horodetsky, arrested her for a month. The school principal spread rumors that Antoniv intended to sacrifice her daughters, which turned the entire village against her. Soon after, he himself fell ill with cancer and came to Antoniv to repent before his death.
On the eve of her birthday, April 7, 1973, Antoniv went again to Serednia Hora, where she was detained. On June 11, 1973, the People’s Court of Kalush Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, sentenced Antoniv under Part 1 of Article 214 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR (“vagrancy”) to 1 year and 6 months of imprisonment in a general-regime corrective labor colony. She was also stripped of her maternal rights. At the trial, Antoniv’s husband, who was disabled, pleaded not to imprison her, as it would be difficult for him to manage with four children. Then he and Antoniv’s mother were expelled from the courtroom. The judge made Antoniv an offer: “Sign a statement that you will no longer travel to the Holy Mountain in Serednie, and we will release you—but you’ll still be able to go.”
She served her sentence in zone UIN-74 in Odesa Oblast, where there were many believers, including fellow Pokutnytsia members (Marta Starynska, Myrosia, Mariya, and the sisters Stefania and Nastunia). They openly said that it was necessary to renounce Lenin and build churches, and then there would be no need for prisons or the militsiya. They refused to wear camp clothing with their surnames on them; at times, they went naked. They did not attend political education classes, refused to work for the “devil’s state,” never signed any documents, and ignored summons from the administration. At times, Antoniv had to be carried from the kartser (punishment cell) to the medical unit and back. The camp warden, Kushch, even appealed to the authorities to stop sending Pokutnytsia members to her “institution”: “It’s not enough that they don’t work—we also have to carry them in our arms!” After that, they stopped putting them on trial.
With the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence, the Pokutnyky accepted state documents, residence permits (propyska), and pensions.
Antoniv lives in the city of Stryi, Lviv Oblast, with her son Volodymyr. They have given shelter to Semen SKALYCH, a fellow Pokutnyk who served a long prison sentence.
Bibliography
Yuriy Shukhevych. “Such Are the Pokutnyky.” // “Ratusha” newspaper, Lviv, 1992. – April 30.
KHPG Archive: Interview with Semen Skalych and Mariya Antoniv, January 25, 2000, in Stryi;
International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former USSR. Vol. 1. Ukraine. Part 1. – Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; “Prava Liudyny,” 2006. – pp. 41–43. https://museum.khpg.org/1120722228;
The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960–1990. An Encyclopedic Directory / Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010. – p. 56; 2nd ed.: 2012, – pp. 61–62.
Vasyl Ovsiyenko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. 2006. Last reviewed August 2, 2016.