KAVATSIV, JOSAPHAT

Memoirs of Father Josaphat KAVATSIV

I, Josaphat-Vasyl Kavatsiv, son of Mykhailo and Varvara, was born on January 5, 1934, in the village of Yablunivka, Stryi Raion, Lviv Oblast, to a working-class family. My father was a worker, and my mother a peasant. My mother came from a very devout and large family. My maternal grandmother was very religious, a zealous churchgoer who belonged to the Brotherhood of the Sacred Heart and had a rather large church library at home, where, according to my mother’s stories, people would gather at their house to read devotional books, as the children in my mother's family were educated and religious. My late grandmother very much wanted someone to dedicate themselves to a monastic, priestly life, but somehow it was not meant to be. My mother and my aunt wanted to enter a monastery, but for some reason, they did not. My uncle, my mother's brother, studied at the theological seminary in Lviv but did not become a priest. My grandmother went to church every day and received Holy Communion, and she must have prayed for the grace for me, her grandson, to fulfill her wish and dedicate myself to a monastic and priestly life. All who remained on my mother's side of the family were repressed by the Stalinist regime.

My mother instilled in me a great love for God and the Church. From a young age, I grew to love the Church. Sister-Superior Yoanykia in the city of Stryi instilled a great love in me, and I shared my thoughts and views with her. She was very fond of me and cultivated in me a great love for the monastic life.

Then came 1946. The year our holy Greek Catholic Church was liquidated.

Our family, on my mother's side, was among the first to stop attending the Russian Orthodox Church, right from the day the liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church was proclaimed. Since 1946, neither my parents nor I have ever attended the Russian Orthodox Church. Despite this, my heart yearned to serve God and the Church. Difficult times came for Greek Catholics. There were very few of us, yet we somehow believed in victory and the legalization of our Church. We, Greek Catholics, were subjected to great trials and ridicule from our fellow villagers.

Throughout my youth, I thought of becoming a priest of such a martyred Church to help my long-suffering people. The times were exceptionally difficult and bitter. There were no prospects of becoming a priest, yet my heart longed for the monastic life, and specifically for the Basilian Order. In my free time, I would stay with the nuns. I prayed with them, meditated, and learned what they knew.

I had a lot of trouble at school because I refused to join that wretched Komsomol, and fortunately, I never was a member. The KGB agencies took an interest in this because I was conducting agitational work at school, urging others not to join the Komsomol.

One time, there was a forced enrollment campaign. They took all of us to the Komsomol raikom (district committee) by force. Everyone signed up except for the three of us, but I jumped out of a second-story window and escaped from the raikom. This caused great trouble for my parents, especially my father, who worked as a mechanic at the Uhersk alcohol distillery. They terrorized him, threatened him with arrest, and eventually dismissed him from his position and transferred him to the job of a stoker. Naturally, I had a lot of trouble at home from my father, because at first, he didn't really want to understand me. My mother and her entire family were always in solidarity with me.

After finishing the 10th grade, I graduated from a finance and credit technical college and was assigned to work at the Zhydachiv Paper and Cardboard Combine as an accountant in the settlement department, where I worked until 1957. In Zhydachiv, I expanded my work among Catholics, as there were many of them there at the time, and they all loved me boundlessly. We would all gather at my apartment for evening prayers, secretly, because I had the Most Holy Mysteries at home, and many of my like-minded friends, like myself, received Holy Communion on their own every day, as there were no priests. At that time, there was only Father Kliuchyk, OSBM (Order of Saint Basil the Great. – V.O.), and Father Moliarchuk; all the others were in prisons and camps.

I helped His Beatitude Josyf Slipyj a great deal by going around to Greek Catholics in the evenings and collecting whatever they could offer as a donation. And the times were very difficult; one couldn't even afford to buy bread. I packed all of this into boxes and sent them to His Beatitude Metropolitan Slipyj, Father Shabak, Father Taras, the Sister Servants, and the Basilian Sisters.

All this was uncovered, and in March 1957, I was arrested for the first time, but there were not enough witnesses. This was arranged for me by a deacon from Drohobych named Savchuk—that’s what I seem to remember—and a priest from Zhydachiv named Triafechuk, who wrote denunciations to the KGB about me, stating that if I were not removed from Zhydachiv, they would write to Moscow.

On April 7, I was released from custody, fired from my job, and evicted from Zhydachiv within 24 hours. It was very hard to find a job; no one wanted to hire me. I was threatened with prison for “parasitism,” and after great difficulty, I got a job at the DOK (wood-processing plant. – V.O.) in Stryi, carrying wood away from the machines. The work was very hard and humiliating: from an accountant in the settlement department to the lowest-level job. The KGB dragged me in for various interrogations every two or three days, both at the KGB and at the DOK's personnel department, where they had made an entryway for themselves.

This continued until 1960. They wrote various feuilletons in their mendacious newspapers; for a whole month, I was featured as a caricature in the entire display window of a grocery store in Stryi, along with Father Levytsky, a canon of the Lviv chapter and my confessor, whom I greatly respected and loved. In a word, there was enough of everything to drive a person of my age at the time insane. I held on, but because of this, my faith was strong, and I prayed a great deal. Perhaps I do not pray as much now due to the duties of my station, but my heart always yearned for the priesthood. I studied and prayed.

In 1954, our priests began to return home from prisons and exile. Many priests came to visit me, especially Father Velychkovsky, later a bishop, and Father Mysak, also later a bishop. They were also Redemptorists who treated me well and wanted me to join their congregation, but my heart was set on the Basilian Fathers. I knew Father Shaban, Father Roskop, and Father Kliuchyk well—they were Basilians—as well as Father Roman from Sambir, Father Protsiv, Father Shepitka, and many other Basilian fathers.

The Father Protohegumen also returned from the camp. I went to him with my intentions, and in his kindheartedness, on December 22, 1954, he allowed me to take monastic vows. This was an endless joy and happiness for me. The Father Protohegumen entrusted me to Father Pakhomiy Borys, who became the Protohegumen after his death, and he became my spiritual guide, superior, and everything. Under his guidance, I made my monastic profession and became a full-fledged monk of the Basilian Order. At that time, I was studying theological sciences. The one who helped me the most and was my professor was Father Dr. Yeronim Tymchuk, who probably invested the most of his efforts and skills into my young monastic heart and soul. He was an exceptionally intelligent, kind, and quiet person who never spared his time for me, as the professor was preparing me alone for the priesthood. It was difficult because I had to work during the day and study and take notes in the evening.

At this time, I left the DOK and was hired as a stoker at School No. 10 in Stryi, and later as a building manager at School No. 2, thanks to the kindness of Mr. Petro Mepesh, the school director, who was like a father to me. But it did not last long, as he was soon dismissed from his directorship, and Bohuslavska, the wife of the city's mayor, became the director. She was unfair to others and everyone feared her, but for some reason, she liked and respected me, and I held two positions: building manager and accountant-clerk, although the salary was very meager, 35 karbovantsi for all positions. My professors were Father Dr. Maksymets, a professor of philosophy, Bishop Fedoryk, Father Bohun, Father Kliuchyk, Father Borys, and a few others, who instilled much good in my mind so that my wish could be fulfilled and so that Bishop Slyziul, the Ordinary of Ivano-Frankivsk, would lay his hands on me, as I was ordained on May 24, 1962. The joy, of course, knew no bounds. What I had wished for was fulfilled in me.

Father Protohegumen Pakhomiy did not really want me to start working immediately, so as not to betray and expose the bishop, but my heart always yearned for pastoral work. Everything was supposedly clandestine, but that same year, on the Dormition of the Mother of God, I celebrated the Divine Liturgy in Sambir at the Sister Servants' convent, and in the evening, I arrived in Lviv and had a Divine Liturgy at 12 o'clock at night on Kuznetsov Street. I was returning late to the Yachminsky home, where the Sister Servants lived, when the Druzhnynnyky (volunteer police) and the militsiya caught me at night. They took all my belongings, and I had a lot of trouble. Afterward, for 10 years, all the press outlets, at all conferences and all meetings, wrote that I had been caught in Lviv with illegal literature. I resigned from School No. 2 and transferred to work at the Teacher's House in Stryi, where I headed the trade union as an accountant. My director was Romaniuk, now a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada. We worked well together, as we always found like-minded people. At the direction of the Father Protohegumen, I was forced to leave my parents and move to Lviv. They wouldn't register me anywhere.

At first, I registered in Lisnovychi, Pustomyty Raion, but after 6 months I was de-registered, even though I lived in Lviv. The KGB ordered me to leave Lviv. Then I registered in Rudno. After 1 month, I was de-registered again, and I registered in Yavoriv Raion, but after 5 weeks, I was de-registered again, and I registered in Sukhovolia at Mr. Kucherka's place. I was de-registered and was left “hanging in the air.” And each registration cost 700-800 karbovantsi. I went to Moscow 7 times regarding this matter and wrote 24 complaints to all authorities, but it was all in vain. Finally, I wrote to the newspaper *Izvestia*, and they ordered the prosecutor of the Horodok Raion to investigate. Through good people, a way was found to him, and he decided to register me there for money—1,000 karbovantsi.

All these de-registrations took place because, from the first day of my ordination, I began to work actively in the field of the Greek Catholic Church as an underground priest, but on two fronts: secretly in homes and by starting to open churches that were closed and de-registered. The first of these churches was the Church of the Intercession in Lisnovychi, Horodok Raion. It was a small, wooden church on the edge of the village, on the western side. To get to this church, one had to travel to Kaminobrid and then walk 9 km through knee-deep mud. Because of this, every Sunday and holiday, there was a multitude of people from the surrounding villages who came for the services. The ordeal was great, as was the joy of being able to serve the people.

I worked in 78 villages and cities, such as Stryi, Yablunivka, Dobriany, Lysiatychi and Zhydachiv, Khodoriv, Zavadiv, Holobutiv, Nezhukhiv, Kolodnytsia, Dulyby, Lanivka, Railiv, Haii Vyzhni, Haii Nyzhni, Drohobych, Doroniv, Dolishnie, Morshyn, Dashava, Kovska, Vivnia, Piatnychany, Phany, Vilkhivtsi, Volytsia, Tserkivna, Lviv, Zymna Voda, Rudna, Sukhovolia, Mshany, Lisnovychi, Lisnevychi, Moloshkovychi, Berdykhiv, Pidtupy, Muzhylovychi, Cherchyk, Kohut, Novoyavorivsk, Shklo, Lisy, Hradivka, Dobriany, Rydatychi, Chornokuntsi, Chulyn, Yavoriv, Kalynivka, Lozana, Prylbachi, Trukhaniv, Bubnyshche, Hoshiv, Dolyna, Bolekhiv, Dovroluka, Kamianka-Buzka, Kolodychi, Kolodne, Zhovtianytsi, Lutsk, Kyiv, Moscow, Leningrad, Stryi, Zvyzhen, Beryshkivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Nadorozhna, Horodyshche, Kolomyia, Hrabivtsi, Mokhnata, Voloshcha, Ternopil, Sambir, Luzhok, Zaluzhany, and other villages that are hard to recall now. Almost all of this was done at night, because during the day I had to work at a state job, and at night I had to travel for underground work. Sometimes someone would stand in for me, but mostly I had to take care of it myself. The work was hard. Nighttime confessions, weddings, funerals, baptisms, Divine Liturgies, and all other services needed by the faithful Greek Catholics. The work itself is one side of the coin, but the biggest side was the fears and denunciations from the Orthodox priests of the Russian Orthodox Church, who reported on the illegal services of the faithful to the authorities every month and every quarter. What I had to endure from these denunciations is beyond words, but praise be to God, and the good of the faithful always came first for me, and there was no force that could pull me away from it. The KGB agencies watched me terribly and had their people in almost every village and city, who reported everything. It was calmer and safer in private homes, but then few people benefited. But in the churches, there were multitudes of people who benefited, and for me, that was a joy and satisfaction. One could write histories from almost every month listed, because I had to arrive in each village almost at night, with the exception of a few villages where I allowed myself to travel during the day because there were no informers there. The work was immense, very immense. I want to describe some of the larger villages that I remember well and for which I later had to suffer, namely the village of Mshana, the village of Muzhylovychi, Berdychiv, Zavadiv, Kolodytsia, Kolodiantsi, and some other villages that became very dear and memorable to me.

Muzhylovychi, Yavoriv Raion. I arrived for the first time on the feast of Saint Nicholas and found the people themselves conducting a service, singing the Divine Liturgy, somewhere around the “Holy God,” in an old church built about 600 years ago. They received me very cordially, but they knew very little about the Catholic Church. Some priests had visited there, but only sporadically, and they taught the people very little. An Orthodox priest sometimes conducted funerals, but he loved vodka and gave much to sinful people. I earnestly set to work and, as usual, began with the Most Holy Eucharist, teaching the people to confess and receive Communion frequently. Almost everywhere I worked, I had and still have a great many people who practice daily Holy Communion.

Then there were troubles because I couldn't manage the people, as everyone wanted to go to confession. I practiced, and in many villages held, novenas to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, that is, receiving Holy Communion and making a holy confession for nine consecutive Fridays. People liked this very much, as many people, both men and women, completed such novenas. In Muzhylovychi, I had great success because for some reason everyone there grew very fond of me, even though I am quite strict and demanding, both with myself and with others.

There were so many people every Sunday and holiday that there was no room to accommodate them. On warm days, all services were held outside under the open sky, because many people from other villages came and traveled for the services, but on unfavorable days it was quite difficult.

Next to the old church stood a new church, built in 1928, but it had large cracks, and they had stopped building it. It was filled with a pile of garbage that jackdaws and crows had brought in over all those years. The thought came to my mind: why not clean out this church? At least it wouldn't be under the open sky, but inside, even if it had no doors or windows and everything leaked, at least the wind wouldn't blow. I advised them to do it. They spent two Sundays hauling out the garbage and filling all the nearby ravines. They cleaned it, covered the windows with plastic wrap, lined the walls with paper, set up an altar, and began to pray there for two years. Afterward, they consulted with specialists and, at a time when it was impossible to pray in the church, they set about completing this sanctuary. They reinforced the perimeter with cement, that is, with a solution from a construction combine, as many people worked there. They found two pits of lime that had been in the ground for 70 years and began the work. Every day, 50 hired people, both women and men, worked on the vaults. In a word, after 11 months of diligent work by the people, everything was done, and I had to be there two or three times a week to oversee it, as everything required consultation. The work was humming. This work was managed by Mr. Nakonechny and Mr. Yaremiy, both now deceased. Five altars were built: the main altar, the Altar of the Heart of Mary and the Heart of Jesus, the Altar of Saint Joseph, and the Altar of Saint Josaphat.

I brought many statues from Lithuania at my own expense.

On the feast of Saint Michael, the patronal feast day, the consecration of this church took place. It was a triumph. In the Brezhnev era, in a time of persecution and oppression, a new, beautiful, stone church appeared.

The head of the executive committee, Ivanchenko, knew all about this but remained silent. Later, when I was already in the camp, they wrote to me that he had committed suicide because someone recognized him as a former member of the SS. He was afraid and hanged himself in his bathroom at home. He was a good man whose silence helped us a great deal.

The consecration was held ceremoniously. A few days later, a commission arrived from Kyiv, from Lviv, God knows from where, because someone had written that the Uniates had built a church. This, as people said, was Shevchuk, a fellow villager. His daughter was a zootechnician and later the head of the village council. No one let the commission into the church.

On Holy Eve, that is, on the Epiphany, the KGB took me from Lviv. They brought me to Yavoriv, where the entire party elite was gathered. Ivanchenko, the prosecutor, the head of the KGB, the head of the militsiya, and many other people who interrogated me all day, from morning until 8 o'clock in the evening, about the construction of the church. Of course, I didn't tell them anything specific, but it was all preparation for my arrest.

Another such active village was Mshana in the Horodok Raion, where I worked a great deal, almost every Sunday and holiday. During this time, I had to celebrate almost 5-6 Divine Liturgies in one day, plus a moleben and a sermon. Transportation was very difficult, as I didn't have my own car, and I always had to pay and ask someone to take me and bring me back. The church in Mshana dates from 1700, but it had no floor, and when I arrived, there were grates there; the church was dirty and in disarray. I borrowed 10,000 karbovantsi in Lithuania, we bought tile, laid a beautiful floor, and did repairs. That is, I had the church painted at my own expense. Perhaps the people would have reimbursed me some of it later, but on the patronal feast day, December 4, the Presentation of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Temple, a solemn consecration of the church took place. I left my belongings and a beautiful monstrance there, and on December 8, 16 militsiya vehicles with dogs and the KGB surrounded the church and completely destroyed it. The iconostasis and altars, the pulpit, and the confessional icons were taken to Horodok and set on fire, and the main altar was destroyed. And one of these “bandits” even defecated on the main altar. We did everything we could, wrote everywhere we could; a delegation went to Moscow and Kyiv more than 20 times, but it was all in vain.

Justice was nowhere to be found. They brought unusable television tubes to the church and made it a warehouse for junk. We began to pray outside the church. The situation was very difficult. Cold, wind, frost, snow, and in the summer, scorching heat. It was mostly done at night, occasionally during the day, but still, we did not give up.

I remember that during many services, the rain poured down for the entire service, so that there wasn't a single dry thread on me; I was soaked as if in water. When services were held at night and in winter, the winds howled so fiercely, because the church was located outside the village, completely outside the village, that not a single candle could stay lit. And there were always many people for Holy Communion, so one of the boys had to shine a flashlight so I could give communion. My good fortune was that I knew everything by heart, and still do to this day, and I never needed a book or light. The people suffered greatly, I suffered greatly, but at that time there was a great zeal for the faith. Dozens of times I had to walk from Mshana all the way to Rudno, where I lived for several years, because there was no transport, and the train didn't come until morning, so I always had to walk, in good weather and bad. One didn't think about it then, but one was always fortified in spirit that the people had benefited from the service.

Well, one could talk a lot about Mshana and about those good people, like the Mykhailyshyn family, who worked the most for the good of the church.

Then again, there was the village of Zavadiv in Stryi Raion. It was very difficult to work there because the head of the village council was Myron Berezretsky, who lived in Holobutiv, which was also my parish. But most of the services took place in Zavadiv, sometimes in homes, but on Sundays and holidays, always at the cemetery.

As soon as you arrived at the cemetery, within 15-20 minutes, Berezretsky with the KGB, the militsiya, and the druzhynnyky would be there. He was a terrible man, and it seems to me that no one gave me as much grief as this Berezretsky, who is now a great nationalist and even a member of Rukh. An opportunist and a "scoundrel"—I can find no other word for him. In addition, he testified against me at my trial.

And how much effort it took to celebrate a service in Trukhaniv, Skole Raion. Living in Lviv, I had to travel to Tysmenytsia, and from there walk to Trukhaniv on a gravel road, amid the winds of the Carpathian mountains, rains, and bad weather. Sometimes I couldn't even make it to the house, because it was very far.

I took the needs of the people to heart; I could not refuse anyone. Almost everywhere I had to hear the confessions of the sick and the healthy, perform funerals, baptize, administer the sacrament of anointing, bless homes, and attend to the other needs of the faithful. This was done at night, and in the morning at 9 o'clock, wherever I was, I had to be at work. I slept on the bus or the train, depending on how I traveled home, and that had to suffice for my needs.

One could write about almost every village. Even a village like Zvyzhen, or Boryskivtsi on the Zbruch River itself, which once bordered the Russian frontier—even there I had to serve the faithful, because there was a need.

In addition, I was engaged in teaching young priests. I prepared about 30 priests for the priestly state at my own expense and with my own knowledge. It was not easy. There were some who had to be taught at my own expense, and I had to pay for their apartments and keep them with me. I was willing to do anything, as long as the Church had priests.

Just last year, 13 priests, 4 subdeacons, and 3 acolytes were ordained from my hand; all are working in parishes and all are satisfied, because it is my school.

For many years, I knew and was on very good terms with Kyr Pavlo Vasylyk. With him, there were other matters. He was often at my place in Lviv, twice a week. In my chapel, priests of the Eastern rite were ordained, converts from Judaism from Leningrad, Moscow, Vilnius. All this took place at my home, and afterward I would travel to help them with their studies and practical functions. This was all done with the blessing of the Apostolic See, through Poland, through the Dominican fathers. The work was serious and necessary, because one did not want to sit with folded hands. So that the works begun by the servant of God, Metropolitan Sheptytsky, would continue to develop, I had close ties with them, and thus the work was done for our Catholic Church.

For the 26th Party Congress, about 6,000 signatures from Catholics were sent to Moscow—I took charge of this—to grant us the legalization of our Greek Catholic Church.

The transfer of the relics of Bishop Josaphat Kotsylovsky, where I handed over the cassette and all other materials, also became the reason for my arrest, which took place on March 17, 1980, in Lviv, where I lived in my own house (now confiscated) at 36 Yanka Kupala Street, Apt. 3. During my underground activities, I devoted a lot of attention to youth and children; I wanted our rising generation and our children to have God in their hearts and to love their church.

On March 17, 1980, I was summoned to the Commissioner for Religious Affairs at 2 o'clock. I went, although I had ignored their invitations several times. Ilshchyn was not there; someone else received me and unceremoniously presented me with some declaration to sign, stating that I would not conduct underground services. I immediately refused and explained that, based on the constitution, I had the right to profess any faith and to celebrate services wherever I wanted, and I wrote as much. The partocrat did not argue one bit, calmly let me go. I was glad that the audience with the partocrat ended so quickly, because my mother was gravely ill, with her right side paralyzed, and they had called me to come home to Yablunivka without fail. I quickly bought a few things at the Halych Market, took a taxi, and by two-thirty I was at Yanka Kupala Street. I hadn't even had time to take off my coat in the summer kitchen when I saw 12 men cross the threshold of my yard. There were 5 families living in our house, and I didn't notice who these people were coming to see, but then I saw them coming up my stairs. After ringing the doorbell and getting no answer, because there was no one at home, the whole gang came to the summer kitchen. Demanding my documents, they presented me with a prosecutor's warrant for a search. This was nothing new to me, as my home had been searched 5 times already; it was like a habit. I went up to my room, because another priest, Roman Yesyp, was living with me. They also presented him with a prosecutor's warrant, and that hell began. From two-thirty in the afternoon until 7 o'clock in the morning, 12 men, and then more came from the KGB, and this inferno started. Everything began to be carried out of the house, all religious items, books, chasubles, cassocks, crosses; everything was destroyed and smashed. They carried things out until 7 in the morning, and in the morning, they put me and Roman Yesyp into a “voronok,” or “bobik” (paddy wagon), and took us to the prison on Myru Street. There I knew that all was lost, that I would never get out of there. There they took another 35 karbovantsi that I had in my pocket, my tie, my belt, and after drawing up another protocol, they threw me into a solitary cell, very small but very deep, where I sat for 10 days until I was transferred to the prison on Chapayeva Street.

On Myru Street, my first impressions were very frightening. A solitary small cell with wooden planks at a height of perhaps a meter, a small window with iron bars, and a faint light deep in the wall. And in the corner stood, forgive me for the first word I heard from some guard there, a “parasha” (slop bucket) for light needs, while for heavy needs they took you out several times at 6 o'clock in the morning. My nervous system was very agitated, and I wanted to go to the toilet every 5 minutes, but there was none, as they took you out once a day in the morning, down a long underground corridor, and in the cell there was just some small can.

The most frightening thing for me was when I remembered the stories I had been told by eyewitnesses of these Stalinist torture chambers. And I wanted to believe that in this very cell our best people had been brutally tortured, and that they were somewhere near me. It was impossible to sleep, because millions of thoughts gave me no peace, for everything was destroyed and many things had been taken, and not because I was sorry for them, I didn't think about that at all, but because I would have to answer for every scrap of paper. And in such a way as not to harm anyone in any way, but to take all the blame on myself.

I want to be truthful: the devil tormented me terribly: stick a finger in that light socket and it will all be over. But I quickly repelled this temptation. And the most frightening thing was the terribly large rats, which jumped on me like cats, and it was impossible to sleep for fear during those 11 days. I had nothing but a spring coat. They brought some food, but besides tea, I couldn't eat anything due to great anxiety, as my thoughts and reflections wouldn't let me swallow anything. On the fourth day, I was summoned to investigator Mykhailo Vasylovych Osmak. For particularly important cases—that was his title, and he drew up a protocol for me, or rather, read a prepared one, stating that I would be tried under Article 138 and some other three articles, but later they didn't charge me with them, I don't know for what reason. He told me that my investigation would probably be over in two months, but it dragged on for a whole 8 months, until October. On about the 8th or 9th day, they put a “plant” in my cell with me, some Jew who constantly talked to me about gold, money, where I hid it—in short, an unskilled agent. I didn't want to talk to him at all, and they took him away the very next day. Two nights later, they moved me to a general cell, where there were many criminal inmates. But what struck me most were the terrible curses, the obscene words, as well as several men with delirium tremens, who gave no peace day or night. On about the 12th day, I was summoned again and they took my fingerprints, or as they said there, “played the piano.” They drew up another protocol and in a “voronok” they transported me to the prison on Chapayevska Street.

As soon as I crossed the threshold, I heard: “Article?” “138,” was the reply. “Uniates, murderers, successors of Bandera and Sheptytsky, a nest of Slipyj.” And so on, such epithets accompanied me throughout my prison and camp life from these executioners of the people. The main thing was that I learned to be silent, although I have a direct character, but I immediately realized that you can't achieve anything by being aggressive; there, it was a short matter—a blow to the liver and kidneys. I saw many episodes of this in prison from the stupid and illiterate staff.

Then they took me to some solitary cabin. Then they took me again to some official, and again fingerprints and some records, which I don't remember exactly now. What I do remember is that in the corner near the chair there was a small mirror. And when I saw myself on the 12th day, I beg you to believe, I didn't recognize myself. A beard like an old man's, and for some reason all white, with a black hair here and there. While this official was writing something, I wanted to look at myself again. And indeed, it wasn't me; I didn't want to believe that it was me, that I had become like that, because by nature I like neatness and cleanliness. And then around 8 o'clock in the evening, they took me to the bathhouse. There were many prisoners there. They gave a piece of laundry soap the size of a finger and one razor blade for four men. The other three snatched the blade, and someone else took mine from my hands, somehow shaved, and then gave it to me. The water was almost cold, and the blade absolutely refused to shave my beard. I struggled, and time was short, about 10-15 minutes for the whole ceremony, so I asked one of the prisoners to help me, because they were mostly young men, and for some reason I didn't meet any like myself. True, someone took pity, probably because I introduced myself as a Catholic priest.

That was the worst, because it seemed to me that this dull blade was scraping the skin off me. The pain was incredible, blood flowed from the cut skin, it was very painful for me, but somehow I managed to shave. I had to wait a long time, until about 1 o'clock at night in some corridor, or rather it was some kind of “parasha” (toilet area), but no one was brought there. I was very hungry and cold, because it was some damp and cold basement. Around 1 o'clock at night, they moved me to cell 23, where a “plant” was sitting, I remember his last name exactly, Shtyr. He had been under investigation for a long time, about 2 years, and they moved him from one cell to another to find out something from the defendants.

I was very careful, because I knew a lot about such things from other competent people. I had a muskrat hat. I put it on the windowsill, but by morning it was gone. As I found out later, he sold it to a woman whom they call a "popkarka" in prisons, for half a liter of vodka and a piece of sausage. In the morning I asked where my hat was, and the answer was: “You'll say you forgot it in the bathhouse.” And so it was done. I was in cell 23 for about two weeks, I think, no more, because this Shtyr couldn't find out anything from me. And they took him out somewhere every day; he always said he was going for an investigation. But as it turned out later, they took such agents out to feed them and for them to give their reports. There was also a son of some general sitting with me, who had killed his mistress's husband and buried him somewhere in a field in Dubliany. He, in fact, confessed to this Shtyr, so everything was immediately revealed. They found the man in the field, hacked to death with an axe. I met him somehow in prison during a transport; he was given 25 years in prison.

Where I was held, it was a juvenile unit. These were terrible types, as an engineer from Dashava told me, but I don't remember his last name, because for some reason not everything stayed in my head. They transferred him, an old man, to the juvenile unit, but they didn't allow me, because I “corrupted” people like those who were there on the outside. Their conditions were better, they had better food, they drank milk, had a piece of white bread, not like our special-bake. One time there was a big commotion. They were given sprat for breakfast, so they covered the door with bread, turned on the tap, filled half the cell with water, sat on the second tier of the "koykas" (bunks), threw the sprat into the water, and had fun, until the "popkar" (guard) opened the door and all the water gushed into the corridor. It was a disaster.

Well, there were many such episodes with them, because they were lawless children and people without upbringing, culture, or control. On about the 15th day, they took me and put me in cell No. 71. It was there that the terrible things began, things that the human mind cannot comprehend or imagine. For all the days and months that I sat in that cell, it seemed to me that I was in hell. There one could see terrible scenes and hear enough for a whole eternity of everything that could be heard and seen. These were unprecedented people. I must note that not all of them were; there were four good and pitiable people, but there were also terrible beasts and inhuman monsters.

A little about that. The most terrifying thing in prison is the “propiska” (initiation rite). I want to say that this was not the invention of the godless authorities, who knew absolutely everything about all these lawless acts and terrorism, but remained silent and laughed. My good fortune was that a priest was not subject to the “propiska.” It was written so in their lawless code, but I had no right to interfere in anything. Before I came to the cell, there was a heavy iron door with two bolts and two locks. In the middle was a “peephole,” and at the bottom a “kormushka” (food hatch), which opened in the morning for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner. The door opened if someone was being taken out or taken for interrogation or blackmail. When the door opened, truthfully, everyone was on edge: who, where, and why?

A little about the cells. Cell No. 71 held more than 70 people. It was long, with iron beds and terribly torn mattresses from long ago. The pillow was about 15 by 15 cm, made of matted cotton, also from long ago. One sheet and one blanket, also old and terribly dirty and smelly. No one ever washed it, because they only washed the sheets and pillowcases every 10 days. In the middle of the cell stood a table, lengthwise, chained and cemented to the floor, because the floor was concrete and terribly dirty. And it was so full of smoke that you could barely see anyone in the haze. I was the only one who didn't smoke, because I never smoked cigarettes. The cleaning, that is, the sweeping, was done by the "trubolioty" (parasites), those who were under investigation for “parasitism.” Their fate in prison was very difficult and unbearable. For some reason, they were terribly abused and beaten. That is, by the zeks, the "ringleaders," and there were 5 of them in the cell, mostly from the Mostyska Raion, and such scum that when I remember them now, I am ashamed that we all had to be afraid of them. Only they, the 5 of them, had the right to sit at the table, to eat there and play dominoes. Because there were dominoes in the prison, and they clattered them so loudly day and night that the sound probably still echoes in my head, in a word, with all their might. These "heroes" were also the judges in the cell. It's all incomprehensible when I ever recall this story.

The cell door opens. The “popkar” pushes you or another person through the door and immediately locks it with all the bolts. You stand at the threshold; the judges stop their clattering because there is a new victim. The cell interrogation and assignment begins.

The reader will probably not want to believe this. If I remember some things, I will recall them.

“Last name, article?” The mattress was brought with you. It lay on the dirty floor near the door. “About yourself.” “Article 138.” “And what is that?” “A Catholic priest.” “Oh, that’s something new. We haven’t had a priest yet.” A momentary softening and a consultation among the five. There was no lower bunk, only an upper one. They immediately threw someone out from below and allowed me to put my mattress on the lower part, because it's hard to climb up. They allowed me to spread it out and cover it with the blanket. The whole gang was around me. Hundreds of questions, because many were interested, as they had never seen such a thing. In Stalin's time, priests, bishops, and metropolitans sat with political prisoners, and that was their good fortune. There were cultured, restrained people, with respect and honor. They were allowed to pray. No one there used obscene words, out of respect for themselves and for that person. But here was a unique case: a priest and criminals.

Lawlessness. Well, such was my fate and my fortune. After questioning me exhaustively about everything that interested them, around 8 o'clock in the evening, they left me in peace. “You are not subject to the propiska, because you are a priest and you should and have the authority to judge others,” declared a little "shpynhalet" (pipsqueak) from Mostyska.

I would probably have strangled him if I met him now somewhere in life for these crimes and injustices that he did to these unfortunate people. Please do not be embittered by this word, but some people deserved such a verdict. They did not touch me, but said: “If it's not beneath you, you can sit and eat this slop at the table.” But as a sign of protest against the abuse of others, I refused and each time ate this slop and oatmeal on my bunk.

A little about the others. “Last name, article?” There were 4 options to choose from. I apologize that I must write everything as it was, because no one will ever understand this.

1. To eat sugar from the "parasha" (prison toilet)?

2. To eat soap and wash it down with water?

3. To fall from the top bunk, blindfolded, onto the cement floor?

4. To fight the "kamera" (cell) or the "kamerny" (cell leader)?

Please imagine, dear reader, which of these four options you would choose.

They didn't give much time to think; you had to have fun and satisfy their whims and passions.

Mostly everyone, and perhaps I too, if I had to be “initiated,” would have chosen the first and seemingly easiest option.

But eating sugar from the parasha looked like this... One of the ringleaders would defecate on the lid of the parasha, sprinkle sugar on top, and the unfortunate person who chose this option had to immediately eat it all. It was horrific. Anyone who resisted was beaten to death, and no one could complain to anyone. And if he knocked on the door and was taken out, then in a day or two the whole prison knew, because through an iron, aluminum mug they would signal through the wall to all the other cells that so-and-so was a traitor, and his fate was much worse than eating sugar with feces. As soon as such a person appeared and said his last name, everything was written down and the terrible abuse began. The “propiska” was done, he was allowed to put down his mattress, sit in a corner, not move, and not say anything.

2. Eating soap. To bite a piece of laundry soap with your teeth and wash it down with water. And afterward, terrible diarrhea, and no water to flush, because in Lviv, water was generally only available at night, and during the day, there was just a tank of drinking water.

3. The third option was the easiest, although it seemed the most terrifying. Such a victim was taken to the side, because the door was in the middle and the “popkar” could see the middle through the peephole, but no one saw what was happening on the sides. The "kings of the cell" used this to commit their lawless acts. And the third option, which seemed the most terrifying, looked like this. Such a victim was put on the second tier of the bed, their eyes were tightly blindfolded with a towel folded in four, their hands were tied behind their back, and they themselves took two blankets and 8 men held them, because if he jumped headfirst, he would be killed. He fell onto the blanket, and they laughed and had fun.

The 4th option—whether you would fight the "kamerny" or the "kamera"—looked like this. The "kamerny" was the hooligan ringleader who knew all the fighting techniques. If the victim said he would fight the "kamerny," he would start a fight with him, that is, he demanded that the victim hit him first, because he wanted to fight. And then a sad story would unfold from this. All beaten and bloody, even though the "popkars" saw it, they didn't know if he got it here or was beaten to death during interrogations. Everyone said that the investigator beat him, and no one ever checked these cases.

And when he wanted to fight the "kamera," an elephant's head was drawn on the wall with a pencil, and he had to beat the wall with his hands until they bled and with his head for hours, and if he didn't want to, they “persuaded” him in another way.

Regarding food. Everyone under investigation was allowed one package a month. Almost everyone received such a package if they had someone at home. But this package was not for the person it was intended for; the gang of five or six men ate it all. They ate butter, sausage, cheese, cookies, meat, well, whatever someone brought. The owners only signed for the receipt, and these hooligans ate it.

On Maundy Thursday, my sister also brought me a package, because a month had passed since my arrest. As she later told me, through the Basilian Sisters she found people whom I later saw, because they helped me in some things, and she paid so that she brought not a 5 kg package, but a whole 10 kg one, they could barely carry it, and it didn't fit through the “kormushka,” so they had to open the door. “Kavatsiv, sign for the package.” My heart leaped into my throat. I signed, but the package was no longer near me. The hooligans were already laying everything out on the table: sausage, ham, eggs, apples, butter, crackers, paska, well, everything my sister could put in. Because Easter was in three days, she wanted and thought that I would benefit from it all. It was clear that I knew I had to share, but there was no need to share; everything was already divided. I signed, sat on the bed, and read some book. The books there were some written-off ones that nobody needed, because they had no beginning, no middle, and no end, but so as not to be idle, I read something to make the time pass faster. In the evening, at 6 o'clock, when they brought a ladle of millet and a cup of hot water, one of these hooligans brought me two cakes to my bunk (I write bunk, because you can't call it a bed) and said with irony: “This is for you, batyushka (Father), for the package.” That was all I received from the 10 kg package. I remained silent. I didn't eat the cake, because a lump formed in my throat, and I gave it to a friend who was sitting with me and eating the millet porridge.

What is interesting is that there were over 70 of us, and these 6 hooligans managed to frighten everyone so much that everyone was silent, like a fish out of water. They scared all of us, saying that if we said even a word or complained, they would cut our throats like sheep during transport, and everyone was afraid of that. First time in prison, who knew how things were and what to expect. Fear overcame everything and everyone.

The worst was the terrible cursing and obscenity. No one wanted to speak in human language, but in a dialect of immorality.

A terrible picture was painted by the abuse of some individuals. These hooligans were always looking for victims not only for material gain for their stomachs but also to satisfy their passions. In a horrific way, they used innocent boys as homosexuals. They used them as they pleased, in various incredible ways, against their will. Two boys in our cell hanged themselves with a bedsheet, unable to withstand these terrible repressions and humiliations. One who slept above me hanged himself. They abused him terribly. I argued and shouted at them terribly, but the answer was always the same: “You, batyushka, don't stick your nose into this, this isn't a church, it's a prison, they don't touch you, so shut up.” Every day I had terrible scandals with them, but it was all unsuccessful.

For example. Such a bandit would undress completely, tie a towel around his head, drag such a victim onto his bed, use him as he pleased, and then after the act, give him a good beating, sit on him, and ride him like a horse for 2-3 hours. During this time, one person had to stand by the peephole, because from time to time the “popkar” would look through the peephole. By the time he opened the door, everything was in its place. When this victim could no longer crawl on the ground and fainted, they would lead him to the water trough to drink water from a basin where they spat and threw cigarette butts. After drinking the water, he had to continue being ridden. Or he would sit on his shoulders and be carried around for 1-2 hours at will. Of course, not everyone could withstand such repression and would take their own life by hanging. One of these ringleaders was on duty and wrote down who violated what. For example, when going for a walk for 5-10 minutes, because they didn't want to keep us longer, although by law it should have been an hour, upon returning to the unit, you had to be sure to wipe your feet, even if fictitiously, on a wet rag and wash two fingers in the washbasin. You couldn't go to the parasha for a bowel movement, because there was never water during the day, only after 12 o'clock at night, and so your body had to get used to managing itself that way. And for urination, only when there were 5 people. If there weren't, even if your bladder burst, you couldn't allow yourself to do it. Such a hooligan on duty watched everyone all day, and in the evening there was always a reckoning. These 6 hooligans would sit down after dinner and hold a kangaroo court. One would read the offenses and they would pass sentence. For not washing two fingers after urinating or for going to the toilet without a group of five, you were severely punished. Ten aluminum spoons were tied together with a towel and you were beaten on the soft spot as many times as sentenced, 25-30, and so on. After such torture, it was impossible to sit down, a fever would rise, but literally everyone was silent. Several times I said: “I'll call the block warden and we'll write a complaint.” But no one supported me out of fear, and I myself was also afraid, because there was still a lot ahead. A few times I was in the infirmary, but this was no longer happening there. My doctor was some Maria Vasylivna, a major. A very kind and compassionate woman. And the head was also very good, because he knew a lot about me, about my activities, and I had performed a funeral for someone in his family or among his acquaintances, so he treated me cordially, but it was impossible to stay there for long, because there were their own norms. The administration knew absolutely everything about these kangaroo courts, but they all remained silent, because they were interested in seeing the defendants abused like that.

During the investigation, I raised this issue of lawlessness many times before Osmak, but it was all to no avail. It was very convenient for them in this lawless society to conduct such experiments, because they themselves were no better, they also tortured and abused people as much as they wanted, damaging people's kidneys and livers.

As for the investigation, I was interrogated about 120 times. The interrogations were tedious and pointless, the same thing over and over. Osmak traveled to many villages and cities where I had served and questioned everyone, and then he would twist my head for hours. Osmak tried to confuse me in the investigation, but I never signed a protocol for him if he changed something and it wasn't as I had said. He had to rewrite the protocols, and so he was terribly angry with me. They had a lot of time, a full 8 months. There was time to travel and time to twist my head. There were two investigators. For some reason, I don't remember the second one's last name. What saved me was that I was on good terms with Father Protohegumen Pakhomiy, and since he was already in eternity, I allowed myself to attribute everything to him. That they were his notes, that I had taken everything from him and hadn't looked through it myself, that I didn't know what it was for. There were also confrontations with many people. In a word, a whole 6 volumes were compiled from the investigations. And the seventh and eighth volumes were from the trial, which lasted from October 14 to October 28, where every day photo cameras, television cameras, journalists, and correspondents from all the newspapers worked, because they were trying a great criminal who taught people to love God and taught religion to children.

As Tetyana Protsyk told me, who remained in my house after my arrest and took care of everything until the final verdict, Osmak, from the golden chalice that he took from my house, where the Divine Liturgy, the bloodless sacrifice, was celebrated, made himself an ashtray in his office, in front of her eyes, put his feet up on the table, and smoked, flicking the ash and cigarette butts into the consecrated chalice. And now he is the prosecutor of the city of Lviv, a guardian of order. What a terrible injustice! It is precisely for the harm done to others and for the labor of others that the partocratic system gives such high positions to those who should be tried for the crimes they committed.

There was a lot in the investigation, but that's a whole other story, because it's a terribly monotonous and meaningless conversation. Whatever I said, he would twist it his own way. He went to villages and schools and dictated to the children what was convenient for him, to increase the measure of punishment. Children from the 5th to 10th grades wrote that I forbade them to eat meat, watch television, and dance. All of this was completely baseless. As for fasting, I taught as the Second Vatican Council proclaimed. The first day of Great Lent and Good Friday without meat and milk. Every Friday without meat. Children under 12 are not obliged to fast. As for dancing, I have no right to forbid what they dance at school, but that minors should not go to clubs during Lent is realistic, because no good mother would allow her child to wander around clubs in the evenings. As for the television, I had a television and watched it when I had time, and in general our broadcasts are not immoral, so there were no reservations on my part. Everything was invented and fabricated, because Article 209 provides for confiscation, exile, and a term of 5 years.

The trial was terribly shameful. The witnesses said that they wrote under dictation, but no one took this into account. They disgraced themselves by asking students from the 8th to 10th grades if they were Komsomol members. They said yes. “And how can you, a Komsomol member, believe in God?” “They forced me to join the Komsomol, but I believed in God and still believe.” Many were expelled from the Komsomol at the trial as useless.

The witnesses also included priests of the Russian Orthodox Church, such as Udych, the parish priest of the village of Zavadiv-Holobutiv, Ilyeshsky, the parish priest of the village of Trukhaniv, and the parish priest of the village of Zhovtianci in the Kamianka-Buzka Raion. In their denunciations to the KGB, they wrote that I spoke out against the Soviet government, conducted agitation, and the like.

For example, the priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, Udych, wanted to say before the people that he did not know me and had never seen me, and that what was written there, the investigator wrote himself, and he signed it without reading. With the permission of prosecutor Dorosh, the judge read out the entire confession that Udych had written at the KGB. It was something terrible and outrageous among the population. I did not see this, because I was in the hall, and the trial took place in the Builders' Club on Stefanyka Street, one of the largest clubs in Lviv, but only those people who taught Marxism-Leninism and trusted party members were allowed in with special passes. In addition, my sister Olha, Nusia, Tetyana Protsyk, and a few other people were always there—with the permission of the investigator and the prosecutor, with passes. And the witnesses were not allowed to go outside, so they were forced to sit in the courtroom that day. It was a shameful trial for Soviet society. All the people were behind me, but the dark reaction did its work and succeeded. The trial was torture. Every morning I had to gather all my things and carry everything, including the mattress, to the storage room. And late in the evening, they would bring me back to the prison in a “voronok.” 8-10 men with dogs guarded me. The people, who stood by the thousands outside the court, lay down on the road under the vehicle; everyone wanted to see me, and when the vehicle approached, there was such a cry that your ears would ring. I couldn't see anything, because the “box” was dark. They brought me in through side doors.

I had to quickly jump out of the voronok, and under bayonets, they led me through side roads, and always different ones, to the courtroom. The people shouted and demanded justice, but it was all in vain. The party system worked its own way: “Sasha, get them.” The witnesses at the trial were KGB chiefs, heads of the militsiya, district officers, heads of raion executive committees, secretaries of raion committees from many raions where I had worked. I want to emphasize that for some reason these people did not want to testify much against me. Compared to others, they gave their testimony quite objectively and said what they knew, that I celebrated services, that they had been to my services many times, but they had never heard me speak out against the Soviet government. On the other hand, people like the head of the village council of Mshana, the head of the village council of Hradivka, of the villages of Zavadiv and Holobutiv—these partocrats tried with all their might to show how honestly they serve the party and what atheists they are. God has already punished two people from Hradivka and Mshana; one from Mshana died in terrible agony and asked

for forgiveness for her crimes, and the other from Hradivka, when her son was brought back from Afghanistan in a zinc coffin, went insane and screamed at the top of her lungs that God had punished her, and that she spat on the party. The hand of God's justice still hangs over the others.

I never asked God for revenge, but God is just; He repays everyone according to their deeds.

Although the trial was shameful, it ended as the KGB and those functionaries wanted for me: 8 years of imprisonment and confiscation of all property.

On the day of my arrest, almost everything was taken away, and the rest was inventoried, and Tetyana Protsyk took responsibility for it, but after the trial, 10 days later, everything was confiscated—the house, and the tomb where the remains of Bishop Kotsylovsky lay.

I was transferred from cell 71 to the transport cell 117. It was a little easier there because people changed every day, some were taken to the zone, and others were brought in, but there was no lawlessness like before the trial. I filed an appeal, and only on December 15 did the Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR consider my complaint. Everything remained unchanged, except that the collegium changed the ruling that my actions were not for personal gain, as the regional trial had decided, but for purely religious motives. I waited for the transport. During this time, the mendacious Soviet press wrote what they could, showed and highlighted it on television, spoke on the radio, about what a bandit and saboteur, a follower of Sheptytsky and Slipyj, Stepan Bandera and Stetsko, had been convicted. The people reacted differently. Those who knew me, for whom I had worked, endured all this with sympathy and a heavy heart, while the enemies triumphed and rejoiced.

On December 13 of that year, my father died. The cause of death was precisely this, that the day before his death he saw the trial on television and said: “Now I can die, because I will not see him again.” I learned about my father's death a little later through good people who worked there.

On January 7, on Christmas Day itself, my sister again, for money, through good people, arranged a package for me. I benefited little from this package, because what she sent could not be taken into the cell. They called me into a quiet little box, and what I could eat was mine, and the rest that was possible was passed to me in cell 146, and they informed me that on Saint Joseph's day, at dawn, I would be taken from the prison.

My sister and other people collected large sums of money and paid these liars who said they would buy me out, but the money was lost, and I had to stay in prison.

Early on January 8, I was put in a “voronok” and taken I don't know where, because I was again in a “box,” with dogs. They put me on a train. The train was terribly overcrowded. There were masses of people. The car consisted of compartments where prisoners of different regimes sat.

In the compartment where I was traveling, there were very many prisoners. About 40 people sat in one coupe; there was no room to breathe. Two or maybe three soldiers, mostly “churkas” (a derogatory term for Central Asians), walked along the length of the car and always answered "nelzya" (not allowed), "ne polozheno" (not permitted).

A transport is a terrible word, and terribly endured in the Soviet way.

For the transport in Lviv, each of us was given a bundle of thick cardboard with rotten sprat and a loaf of bread. That was all for the transport. Where they were taking us, I don't know, because no one cared about anyone. The train sped towards Kharkiv to a transit point. A stop. Night. The terrible barking of dogs and many soldiers; about 50 of us were thrown off and led by dogs, but at a very fast pace, to a “voronok.” They packed us into the “voronok” like herrings and drove off, for quite a long time. I later learned that this was Poltava, and in the new prison, they threw us out like hawks at a fast pace, until we found ourselves in the Poltava prison. New curses and profanities from the staff: “Hooligans, bandits, murderers, we'll shoot you like crows!” And so on...

A new "processing." Take everything off. All things, everything into the furnace, because lice were swarming on each of us. We had to wait quite a long time until everything with the lice was steamed. But in fact, it only warmed up and helped the lice see their victim sooner.

But they let us shave and wash a little, even with cold water, because for some reason there was no hot water then. I think the stoker was drunk and didn't fire up the boiler. They issued wet clothes, everyone found their own. The mattress, as in all prisons, was old and damaged. We were distributed to cells. Again, a terribly large cell and a multitude of people, because it was a transport cell. The windows were boarded up tight. It was so smoky it was black, and cold, because it was winter, January. The food was much worse than in Lviv, because in Lviv the special-bake bread was a little better baked, but there, in Poltava, you could make figures out of the raw bread. But to hell with it. What I remember is that it was terribly inconvenient there; the spoons had very short handles. As I found out, they were from a poultry farm, where an egg was placed to incubate a chick. The spoon was very deep and cut your mouth. Everyone had sores at the corners of their mouths. Slop, as usual, and oatmeal, and in the evening a ladle of millet, and undercooked at that, which was the case in all prisons and camps. Food was given through food hatches, like to dogs. In the cell, there was always a duty crew of several people who received the food, distributed it, collected the dishes, and washed the floor. They didn't notice me there, because they were far from active. But there were no more quarrels. Everyone sat in their place, that is, on their mattress, because there were no beds, it was a solid platform welded from thick sheet metal, everyone lay side by side like herrings and waited for their new transport. No one knew where anyone was going. All the documents were somewhere in the special section. I was in Poltava for about a month and a half, and it seemed like an eternity, because every day was like a marketplace: dozens were taken out, and others were brought in. Many slept on the floor because there was no room on the iron platform.

The time came for my turn. “Sobiraysya!” (Get ready!). I gathered all my things, or rather a sack, because everything had to be handed over to the warehouse. We had to wait a long time, almost until night, for the transport. Everyone was in some large cell with toilets, in a terrible noise. And in fact, they took us to some train only at 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening. They quickly loaded us into a “dushehubka” (gas van)—a “voronok”—but so many of us that it terrifies me even now when I remember it, because we waited a long time near the station, and the long-distance train was delayed for about 2 hours. Our bones were cracking. There was no room to move anywhere. There was nothing to breathe. I was preparing for death there, because indeed, a person with a heart condition and hypertension could not have endured that transport in such a state. It is a terrible thing, comparable to death. Only someone who has endured transports can know this. This train was a bit freer, there were fewer people. After some time, and it was 5 o'clock in the morning, the train stopped. Six of us were taken off the train and led to a “voronok.” We were guarded by 8 soldiers with muzzled dogs. No one spoke to anyone. This was Romny, and we had to travel to Perekhrestivka, to camp 319/7.

The road was like a cradle; you didn't know what to hold on to. We all rode in silence. A signal. A wide camp gate opened on both sides, and we were led inside the zone. The gate closed automatically, and the 6 of us were taken to some basement room, “for processing.” They shaved our heads again, even though there was nothing to shave, but that was the law. They washed us, changed us into all camp clothes. They did a full search of what I had. Everything I had, except for my boots, was taken, recorded in a report, and put in a sack. They gave me an old uniform for 12.50, a padded jacket, and a hat—and that was all my property. I had two notebooks and a few envelopes. In 4-5 hours, three men from the operations department came and began a conversation about the camp way of life. That we are completely rightless people, cannot demand or ask for anything, because we are deprived of our freedom and all the rights that people in the world have. We are criminals. Well, such agitation was very tedious and useless, because we already knew everything, that we were slaves and without rights. First of all, I had to write a statement that I refuse to drink tea, because this was zone 319/7, a no-tea zone. If anyone was found with tea, they would be severely punished. Without any resistance, I wrote such a statement to get rid of them, because everyone was writing one. The men who shaved me said it was useless to argue, because you won't find justice anywhere. Around 2 o'clock, or maybe 3, when everyone had probably eaten, they took us to the dining hall, gave us food and warm water. I felt better. Back to the basement, to wait for the evening distribution. And during that time, around 6 o'clock, they took us to the infirmary, took samples, did an X-ray, and all other procedures, weighed, measured, etc.

The distribution was like this. In the colony chief's office sat all the detachment chiefs, the head of the regime, the KGB, the operations group, and all other functionaries. We entered one by one. The transports were from different trains, so there were many of us.

Take off your hat, bow low, state your last name, first name, patronymic, article, year of birth, etc. Before the colony chief lay the "Delo" (file). He carefully, as I noticed, turned the pages one by one, glancing at me from time to time. His last name was Kyrylenko. He looked like an intelligent and pleasant gray-haired man, who made a pleasant impression on me.

“What were you convicted for, what did you do?” “I celebrated Divine Liturgy and taught children and people as a Greek Catholic priest.” “You don't want to sign up for the Orthodox Church?” “No! I am a Greek Catholic.” “Do you know that we have the right: you could be free today if you just sign once that you agree to serve the Orthodox Church.” “No! Citizen chief, I do not change my faith. If I must die, then let it be today.” “You will regret that all is lost.” I laughed ironically and showed with my decisive gesture that this was not a conversation for me. “Well! You have the right.” Of course, a long and tedious conversation began, because everyone wanted to ask something, as the camp chief said: “We have had everyone here, but we have never had a Catholic priest, this is the first time.” Kyrylenko, with whom I had 6 conversations during my time in the camp, was not a bad man. Firstly, I never heard him swear. He was the only man in the camp among the authorities who didn't. Everyone asked something, and there were still many people, that is, zeks, but no one was in a hurry there, because there was time, and a lot of it. Assignment: “7th detachment, 72nd brigade. This is a blessing for you, as a priest.”

The 72nd brigade was a privileged brigade, that is, for people with higher education, mostly they were work controllers. The job was supposedly easy, but responsible, because there could be no defects, and the controller was responsible for defects. In the evening, around 11 o'clock, they took me to the barrack. It was large and long, with 4 rows and three tiers, plus extra "bayans" (makeshift bunks). About 750 men. They assigned me the second tier, the duty officer wrote me down in the books, showed me to the brigadier. For two days, they didn't take me out to work. They had me wash the walls in the barrack, in the corridors, with soap, until they shone. It was very cold in the corridors and rooms. Wash and wash. For two days, my head was spinning. There were two of us in this transport who ended up in the 7th detachment. We washed, scrubbed, did everything they said.

When I was brought to the camp, it was a Friday. On Saturday and Sunday, I did this work. In the evening, quite late, at 9 o'clock, I was called to the infirmary. I was, in fact, feeling very bad, but I couldn't ask anyone for anything, because I didn't know anything yet. I found several prisoners there, because the head of the infirmary himself, Yarotskyi Yosyp, a Jew, was on duty. A nice and cordial man. My turn came. He had my medical history in front of him, which had come with the documents in the "Delo," and he says: “Article?” “138, 209.” “And what is that?” “A Catholic priest.” He became very interested, started a long, heartfelt conversation with me, but when he measured my blood pressure, he was frightened: “How can you work when your blood pressure is so high, 265/165?” For some reason, I hadn't noticed, because I was terribly stressed from the transports, the fears, the overloads, etc. He says to me: “I am keeping you in the infirmary, you cannot work, because you could have a stroke or a heart attack. I don't want to be responsible for you.” He put me in the infirmary, and I lay there for 5 weeks, maybe more. They brought my pressure down to 220/140, but they couldn't keep me in the infirmary any longer, so they discharged me for work.

I went out to the barrack, but my job had been taken by others. Around 4 o'clock, they took me to the second floor to the rate-setter. Since my specialty is accounting, they assigned me to calculate the wages for the convicts. Well, for me, this was something great. There were only two of us in the room, because in the next room sat the workers of the technical department, quite cultured and polite people in uniform and without. My duty was to wash three large rooms every day, sweep, bring water in carafes for drinking, water the plants, because there were flowers there, and the entire payroll of the zone was my responsibility.

The rate-setter was a drunkard and rarely sat in his office. He always came late and left the zone early. The entire burden was on me, but I managed. It didn't last long, because the colony chief, Kyrylenko, called me in and said that there was an order from the KGB to transfer me only to hard labor. I had to say goodbye, and only when there was a failure, when they demanded wages outside the zone, they would secretly lock me up and I would calculate the wages, because no one else knew how. Before me, there was some Dekhteriv, I still met him, he had served 10 years for machinations, did this job, but when he was released, there was no one to do it. The shuffling from place to place began, and what and where I didn't have to do. It seems there was no job I didn't do, even though my blood pressure was very high and my heart ached. No one paid any attention to that.

A little about camp life. Almost 750 men lived in the barrack. In the summer, it was terribly hot, because all the windows were boarded up tight and not a single casement could be opened, and in the winter, it was terribly cold, frost would build up all the way to the bed, and my bed was under the window. In the summer, it was a little better, because there was at least a gram of fresh air, and in the winter, I wrapped my head in a towel. The most terrible thing was that the convicts swore and cursed so terribly. It was truly hell, but without fire. It was a terrible horror. It was impossible to listen to it all, but you can't cover your ears. They fought among themselves, had various showdowns, and this happened every single day. It seemed that it would never end. And I had a mountain of days ahead of me. There was almost no one to talk to, because it was mostly young people, and they were little interested in such matters, or almost not at all. I communicated with a KGB colonel from Kyiv. He was serving time for bribery and received 5 years. He was an exceptionally intelligent, sensitive, and kind person, his last name was Klymenko. His mother had once worked in the Central Committee but was a pensioner; she found a way and bought him out after 2.5 years. We often talked, and on all topics; I was cautious, but we were sincere, I knew he would not betray me, because he hated the Soviet authorities. They often reprimanded him to stop communicating with me, but they did not succeed. “What, does he want to make you a Uniate?” they asked him. They took him out of the zone when I was at work. He often wrote to me and informed me of some things. He came to my home, and I was often at his home, celebrating the Divine Liturgy. He lived on Gorky Street.

Wake-up was at 5 o'clock, because you had to wash and get ready before the zeks got up, because at 6 o'clock everyone had to be at morning exercises, whether it was winter or summer, rain or bad weather. I got up beforehand, because later everyone would defecate and shout like wolves, and such a small "kaptyorka" (they called it a drying room, although it was always cold there, because they never heated it, neither in summer nor in winter). In such a small room, there were several posts with hooks on which they hung padded jackets. On one such hook, 15-20 jackets were hung; to get the one at the very bottom, you had to pull it out, and all 15-19 would fall to the ground, you would take yours, and the others would be trampled underfoot. It was a terrible horror, because you couldn't be late for exercises for a minute, well not a minute, but for 2-3 seconds, because warrant officers stood there, took you to the checkpoint, and immediately drew up documents to deprive you of either your store privileges, or a package, or a visit. For this reason, I slept like a sparrow, and at 5 o'clock I got up every day, through all the times, and washed, got ready, and then sat quietly on my bunk, watching with one eye to see if a warrant officer was coming, because you couldn't sit on the bunk, that was also recorded as a violation, and with the other eye, I dozed, so that when the anthem of Ukraine, "In the Soviet Union you found happiness," played, it turned my stomach with such happiness. For prayer, for teaching children to pray, I sat like a prisoner and had to suffer for years with hooligans and criminals. At this anthem, I would go out to the “lokalka” (local zone), and when the chimes on the Kremlin struck, everyone had to be standing on the square, waving their arms, jumping, doing various exercises for 15 minutes, and then they would go into the barrack, gather in the “lokalka,” and go out in single file by brigade. And there were many brigades in our barrack. In groups of 5, we approached the warrant officer, who recorded the number of people, checked with the brigadier, and let us into the dining hall. It was a terrible discipline. They did everything and experimented on us, because our zone was being converted for particularly dangerous recidivists. Every day in that system, they counted all of us 18 times a day. Some times you had to say your full name, last name, first name, patronymic, article, term of imprisonment, beginning and end of the term. You had to know this prayer, day and night. And other times they just counted us like hornless cattle. In the evening every day, and on Sunday during the day at 9 o'clock, everyone without exception, except for those lying in the infirmary (and there was room for 15 people, and if in the corridors, then 25), was taken out to the "plats" (parade ground) and counted by brigade, by group, and because the warrant officers were always either drunk, or to be honest, illiterate, they were always missing someone, either 2 were missing, or 3 were missing, or there were too many, and they ran around the square like jackals and couldn't balance the count. This terribly irritated all of us. In winter, terrible cold, rain, snow, frost, and in summer the sun baked, and in bad weather they threw a rain cape on themselves, and in summer they wore short sleeves, and thus demoralized people. At the same time, we also had military training. In case of war, all of us would be sent to the front line for the Motherland. We all laughed terribly at this and were indignant; everyone said that the first bullet would be for these illiterate warrant officers who caused so much harm, even to those criminals.

Some of the staff treated me correctly, using the formal “Vy,” but there were many scoundrels who really considered me a criminal; the fact that you are a priest and a Uniate on top of that was like being a "hairy devil" with horns. During such exercises, it was “Leg higher, hands to your chin, wider step,” etc. This terribly irritated me, because I am not liable for military service and am removed from the military register, but I had no rights and no one had any rights over me, but where can you find rights in a lawless state, and in a camp at that. My God! It seemed that there would never be an end.

Every day from 7 o'clock to work, and from work “to military training,” and so every time. I apologize, but this became more loathsome than the work itself. We had to march around the parade ground tens and tens of times, until such a functionary was somewhat satisfied. They took us to the barrack and we prepared for dinner, and then for inspection, and by one o'clock everything was in its place, no one could be away from their bed, because by 12 o'clock they had already counted three times, and whoever was not in place was punished: deprived of a package, or store privileges, or a visit. In the barrack itself, it was hell without fire. 750 men shouted, cursed, called each other names, settled their scores, stole from each other, whatever they could and had. Such was the way of life with hooligans. I tried not to have any relations with anyone. My only friend was that KGB colonel Klymenko from Kyiv, and when he was released, the second one—I can't remember his last name, an engineer by profession, a thief by trade, but polite for all that, he never used obscene words. Near my bunk was some Bohdan from Ivano-Frankivsk, so we talked a little, but we were “Banderites,” and they looked at us with contempt. He confessed to me every time, although there was no way and nothing to give communion with, and nowhere. He was the only one I convinced, because all the others were very far from God, faith, and prayer. No one prayed, except for the Baptists and sectarians, of whom there were a few in each section, mostly young boys who did not want to join the ranks of the Soviet army.

It was never possible to communicate with anyone in the barrack, because that meant that a rebellion was being plotted, or rather a conspiracy—so thought that bandit Korol, the head of the regime. There is no other word, no other term for him. I watched this very closely, but there were very many agents who reported every step. A special surveillance was set up for me, so that I would not engage in any agitation. I did not adhere to this, because I told the camp chief from the start that if someone asked me something, I would answer, so that no one would think I was an illiterate "priest." I have a higher spiritual education, and I can answer all questions that interest anyone. And so I did, I spoke about what anyone asked. Many officers and warrant officers also turned to me with various controversial issues, and each time I solved their problems.

It was very difficult in the barrack, and the most terrible thing was the obscenity and cursing. At work, although the work was hard, tedious, and long, time passed faster, everyone was at their own machine or separate job, but in the barrack, it was horror and fear. Terrible rats roamed under the floor. In the iron boxes, that is, the cells made of partitions, where some food was kept, either from the store or from someone's package, rats jumped right onto a person. It was terrifying to stick your hand in there and pull it out. And the warrant officers did not allow them to be locked, because at any time they could and had the right to turn everything upside down. They were beasts. They could turn everything over and throw it on the ground, mix everything up, and leave. Both in the cells and in the "kaptyorka," where there were often “shpons”—searches—they selectively checked everything, pouring everything into one large pile in the presence of the duty officer. And I watched all this and said: “Oh God, when will all this end.” And there was no end in sight.

The dining hall was dirty and uncomfortable, but at the entrance, there was a picture of a fat cook holding a large chicken on a tray, with steam rising from it, to show us all what one could eat on the outside, but in reality, everything was monotonous, the same thing over and over.

In the evening, three food preparers from the brigade were assigned according to a schedule. At 5 o'clock, the preparers, including me, had to be in the dining hall. The special-bake bread was divided into 6 parts and laid out on wooden tables, on bare boards. Aluminum bowls and spoons were laid out, and everyone had their own aluminum cup, which had to be brought with you each time. The bread was cut by cutters. They talked as they pleased, cut it however they wanted: one got a bigger piece, another a smaller one. Going to the dining hall, you thought: I hope there's a thicker piece of bread where I'm going to sit. It was the only product I lived on in the camp. It gave me strength.

For breakfast, it was always fish soup, every single day. It was prepared like this. A large cauldron of water was boiled, and a barrel of fish was thrown into it, whatever it was, sometimes so smelly that it was impossible to bring the spoon to your mouth. This fish was covered with oatmeal and mixed. The fish was uncleaned, with its guts, only the white eyes and backbones floated, because the meat had fallen off the fish in the mixture with the oatmeal.

If the cook made a thinner soup, you could still sip something, but when he made a thick porridge, it was impossible to eat such swill. Well, we called it "ukha" (fish soup), but what it was really called, God knows. In addition to this "ukha," there was a cup of hot water. That was breakfast. You had to eat it very quickly, because in a few minutes other sections would come, and they couldn't be together, even though they met in the work zone. But such was the order of Korol, the head of the regime. Always the law of swinishness. In the summer, it was impossible to drink the boiling water, and in the winter it was never available, because there wasn't enough water, and they could never boil it. And they burned coal, and such powders that burned like wet wood. From the dining hall, we went out in fives, and they counted us again, because they counted us as we entered. So, someone could have eaten someone, and we always laughed through our tears that one was already missing. Quickly to the barrack and out to work. We gathered on the parade ground and went out through a large side gate by brigade. Usually, every day there was a "selective" search, or even everyone, they were always looking for something in our pockets and pants, we had to take off our hats to show if our hair was long. Anyone who didn't get a haircut within 10 days was deprived of something. They counted us again by name, everyone said their last name, first name, patronymic, article and term, beginning and end. We stood again in fives, side by side, without a single word of conversation, as in a monastery in "canonical silence." Talking was also punished.

In our work zone, there were two shops, No. 1 and No. 2. One could not communicate with the other. There was a severe punishment if someone on the parade ground lightly crossed over to another brigade or detachment to exchange a few words with someone. That person immediately faced the SHIZO (punishment cell) or a box. Some risked it, but paid dearly for it. After counting everyone, they led us to work and everyone tried to get on with their tasks. The prison warrant officers dealt with the work assignments in 10-15 minutes. There, whoever could, tried to wash their underwear at least once a week, because there was hot water there, but in the barrack only cold. You either had to immediately wring it out and put it on wet, or hide it somewhere so the warrant officers wouldn't find it, because in 10-15 minutes there was another check, but a headcount, nameless, by heads. If a warrant officer saw such underwear, he would trample it with his feet, throwing it on the ground. In the warehouse where I worked, the radiators were very hot, so I washed my clothes. I would take a handful of some chemical from the galvanics to make the lice eat less. I would wash it quickly, dry it a little, and quickly put it on, even half-dry, and the rest would dry on my body. Such were the conditions throughout all the times.

The work was checked. I made filters, funnels, folding beds, wound thread, made tools for collecting resin, well, everything they ordered.

At 12 o'clock was lunch. Everyone gathered in the industrial zone, and lunch was brought in tanks to the industrial zone. The dining hall there was smaller than in the residential zone, everyone gathered again in a hurry, again by brigade and detachment, and again they counted, and again the food preparers were the same as in the residential zone that day. The preparers cut the bread, gave out bowls and spoons, and the food was always the same. One day it was cabbage soup from spoiled cabbage, well, the kind that no one, not the army, nor other organizations would take, so the prisoners, not being pigs, would eat everything. There were one or two potatoes, well, not whole ones, but a piece, and the next day it was cucumber soup, and that was swill. The cucumbers were so terribly smelly and mushy that few could eat such a soup, so almost all of it was poured out for the pigs, because the zone had about 200 pigs that were fed at the expense of the zeks. This cucumber soup was also cooked in such a way that a whole barrel of cucumbers with that smelly brine was poured into a large cauldron and covered with oatmeal. Sometimes they gave a ladle of oatmeal alone, or millet. And in the evening, a piece of bread, 1/6th of a loaf, and one ladle of millet and a cup of hot water. At night, the millet burned in your throat so much that bile would rise into your throat, you could suffocate. The heartburn was terrible. The only remedy was tooth powder. Licking the powder two or three times would gradually calm the pain in your throat and chest. Four times a year, they gave one green tomato and half a fish—this was on New Year's, May 1, Constitution Day, and the October Bolshevik holiday. This was truly a holiday for us. The green tomato was like a banana or something even better, and the sour one was like pure vinegar. A piece of fish divided in two. Someone got the head, someone the tail, and someone the middle. Whatever you got. Sometimes, but rarely, they gave sprat to eat, but only those who sat at the table first benefited, grabbing it with their dirty hands, and the rest got nothing. The sprat was eaten whole with heads and guts, because everyone was hungry. Such was the ration every day and all the time. The prisoners were terribly hungry. In my youth and later, I fasted on Fridays, and God gave me such strength that I did not feel much hunger; I knew that it had to be this way, that there was nothing better to expect, and I prepared myself for the worst. One must endure and fast, do penance for oneself and for one's people, for one's suffering Church. After lunch, we were quickly led out of the dining hall, counted, and sent to our workplaces.

During the work detail, we were counted about eight times. They checked all the doors and windows—they had to have large cutouts so that every convict could be seen from afar. After 12 hours, we were led out to the residential zone. Again, they did a roll call "with 'verses,'" just like for the work detail, and separately took 6-8 men for a general search, and this happened every day. No one knew who the victim would be, while everyone else, after their names were read, went through a regular search. We took off our hats, turned them inside out; they searched our pockets, our backs, and our legs; we opened our mouths, and we squatted. But during a special search, they stripped us completely naked and checked everything in detail. What they were looking for is unclear to me even today. It was simply a way of terrorizing a person, to make sure the inmate knew he was devoid of rights.

We were led out to the yard. The entire zone was walled with thick iron plates 8-10 meters high, with another 8-10 meters of barbed wire above that, and the wires were connected to an electric current. In the middle of each detachment, and there were 12 or 14 of them—I can’t say for sure, because I was never there, except in my own and in the medical unit—stood a “local zone” that was connected to a control panel in the yard. There, in what we called the “pigeon-coop,” sat a zek, but only the detachment chief had the key, and only he could insert the key into a device, where a light would come on, and then this zek would open the “local zone.” We were brought in, the “local zone” was opened—and no one could ever get out of there again; it was all hermetically sealed. To get to the medical unit, you had to sign up with the orderly for such a procedure. The detachment chief had to sign the book and personally escort you to the medical unit and bring you back, whenever he had the time to do so. Therefore, it was extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, to get to the medical unit. They led us out at 7 o’clock in the morning, but the chief arrived at 9 o’clock and went to a “five-minute meeting” that lasted for hours. It was forbidden to take anyone from the industrial zone to the medical unit, unless someone was dying or had collapsed. Then, with the permission of the workshop head, you could be taken there. No one ever came from the medical unit to inquire about our affairs. The conditions were exceptionally harsh. I have hypertension and a heart condition, an invalid of Group II, and I was held in camp conditions. No one paid any attention to this. I needed a special diet, milk, 10 grams of butter, but I took advantage of it only once, because it involved

great ceremonies, and out of pride I simply did not want to be a beggar, so I gave up on it all, thinking: what everyone else endures, I will too. I never thought I would get out of that hell, because death looked me in the eyes a thousand times, and I never thought I would see my native land and my family and friends again, let alone serve in the Greek Catholic Church.

Many times, KGB agents and the administration came to me and asked and proposed that I sign a pledge of allegiance to the Orthodox faith. They promised I would be made a bishop at St. George’s Cathedral, that with one stroke of my hand, glory awaited me that very day. They promised me everything imaginable, but nothing swayed me. I would never have become an Orthodox priest, betraying my faith as hundreds of other traitors did, who oppressed our

nation and sold it out. One wave of my hand decided the fate of my life and my career. I will elaborate on this a little later. To be a bishop at St. George’s Cathedral. Everyone laughed at me and said, “Father, sign it, look at your health. Keep in your heart what you carry, but freedom is smiling upon you.” They told me, “I would have signed it 1,000 times with such chances.” I answered them, “Faith is not a glove or a shirt that you can change every day and every Saturday.” For this, they valued me. Perhaps even the administration, except for the operational group and other functionaries, did not hold it against me, but treated me with respect. True, they were far from religion, and perhaps it seemed strange and funny to them that I wouldn't agree. Well, that is a matter for each individual.

The greatest wretch was the DPNC, that is, the deputy camp warden—I don't know his name now, it's impossible to recall—but all of us, the entire zone, nicknamed him “Shlyapa” (“the Hat”). He was a beast. When they put me in the ShIZO—it was in winter. It was terribly cold. A basement room. They stripped me down—only a thin robe and that was it. For food, they gave me 200 grams of bread and a cup of water per day. Food was so-so; everything was parched and dried out. It was hard to speak, but the worst thing was the cold. That executioner, Korol, the head of the camp regime, built the ShIZO in a peculiar way: under the headquarters, under a large building, deep cellars were built, the walls mixed with salt to always be wet and damp, the cement floor also with salt, and in the wall, a piece of a board where you could sleep for only 8 hours, and after 8 hours this board automatically lifted up, and you shot out like a cork, because you would have been turned to dust. The rest of the time, you had to walk, because there was nowhere to sit, and you could sleep only on the ground, by all means, but on the wet, damp ground. The cold was agonizing; there was no escape. I walked around this small room 100 times, until I was sweating, and then I would lie down on the ground for 5-10 minutes—and my whole body would tremble from the terrible cold. It was something dreadful, but there was no salvation. You waited for them to bring a cup of hot water at lunchtime just to drink. You couldn’t hold it in your hands, and you couldn’t have anything with you, not even a towel; it was kept by the guard on duty, and he issued it only once in the morning while you washed. A stinking latrine bucket stood there. I barely used it, because there was nothing to expel, but due to the cold, I often had to go for small matters. My kidneys and liver hurt terribly. I had high blood pressure. I called for the ambulance, that is, the medical unit, several times, but to no avail. The colony warden came once and promised to look into it, but it was just words. For 12 hours, I was taken out to work in solitary confinement. We made metal corners, which were later thrown into a garbage heap. The zeks were taken to work in a long, cold workshop because it was unheated. You had to pick through a pile of old scrap metal and, using a template, make 997 corner pieces with shears; that was the quota. I made 200-290 at most. Every time, I had to write an explanatory note on why I hadn't met the quota. An invalid of Group II. They didn't give me glasses, and without glasses, I am blind and could see nothing. Every time after work, they brought me to a separate room, where I had to strip naked and squat 10-12 times. After they had laughed their fill, they would let me go to the cold cell. For me, as a priest and a monk, this was the most painful and disgusting thing. During this, I would reflect that Christ was stripped naked for my sake, and I too must endure this. This gave me strength and encouragement in my passions and sufferings. I would put those dirty sandals, covered in dust and grease, under my head. Once, this “Shlyapa” came on duty. For him, it was a triumph to laugh at me. He ordered me to sweep the large workshop with my bare hands. I began to sweep. My hands were covered in blood because there was a lot of old, rusty scrap metal. I swept for 4-5 hours, because it was with my hands, and the workshop was large. No one else wanted to do it, because those who could would have, and those who couldn't would face a repeat sentence. As an invalid of Group II, I thought there might be some relief, but it did not happen; I served until the end. After the sweeping, this “Shlyapa” took me to some toilet that hadn’t been cleaned in 10 years, completely black and crusted with something, and says to me, “Today you’ll croak in here, but it must shine.” I asked for something to clean it with. “With your hands,” was the Bolshevik executioner’s reply. I started washing this toilet with my hands. Nothing was working. After some time, he threw me a piece of brick and said, “Make it shine.” I scrubbed until it shone; my hands were bloody, I was completely wet, and my head was splitting from high blood pressure. Somewhere around midnight, after a long period of mockery, he let me go back to the cell. There were many such incidents; it's terrifying even to recall them. “This isn't like in church, fooling people and corrupting children with your ideology.” I had to keep silent; if there had been someone else who could protest and fight, I would have been there too, but everyone was silent, because everyone wanted to be free.

Every six months, they took us to a commission. It was possible to be released “to the construction of the national economy,” to work outside the zone, but I went to such a commission 8 times, where the “High Council” sat, and it was always the same thing: “Do you renounce your views, do you sign an allegiance to Russian Orthodoxy? Today you’ll be home, a bishop on St. George’s Hill.” “No.” “Then you remain in your old place. You are denied everything. Sign here.” And so, the hard labor continued. I didn't sign, but it didn't change my situation. The same disappointments and the same work and circumstances followed.

When I was assigned as a food handler, in addition to preparing food, I had to thoroughly wash the barrack, under every bunk, and wipe all the passages. Once I was very sick and asked a friend, an older man from somewhere around Kharkiv, to replace me, because I was ill. I had once replaced him when he was sick. I gave him my bread ration, and I lay down on my cot, because it was some major holiday, probably Corpus Christi. He was finishing washing the corridor when someone reported it to the КП (Kontrolno-propusknoy punkt; checkpoint), and instantly, there they were: “Who is on duty and who is the food handler?” “I am.” “Why is someone else doing your work?” “I am very sick.” “You should have presented a certificate to the medical unit.” “There's no one there.” “To the checkpoint—and write an explanatory note.” The orderly on duty betrayed me, as I later found out. I quickly, instead of going to the checkpoint—because he said to open the “local zone”—went to the medical unit. It was seven barracks away, far, but somehow at that time there was no one in the yard. And there was also a “local zone” there, and no one would open it, because it was locked from the inside. The man sitting in the “pigeon-coop” thought I had been released to the medical unit because he knew I was sick and an invalid. I arrived and found the doctor, Kalitek, a Belarusian, a vulgar and unfriendly man, and very drunk, sitting and sleeping at the table. When he saw me, he began to curse God terribly and swear, and he ordered me to be thrown out of the medical unit, but I didn't back down, because my fate was being decided: the ShIZO or the medical unit. I demanded to see the colony warden if he didn’t admit me. He sobered up when he heard “colony warden,” because he was drunk, and he measured my blood pressure: 260/160. At that moment, he ordered someone to be discharged and placed me in the medical unit. In 15-20 minutes, those lackeys were already in the medical unit, but I was in bed and no one had any right to touch me. It was their loss. I lay there for a month and a half and was discharged back to work with a pressure of 220/120. One could write about many such incidents, but it would just be a repetition of the same lawlessness of the Soviet bureaucracy.

Once, I was a food handler. On Sunday, we were taken to the movies. The movie was shown in a basement in the 9th department. We called it the “gas chamber,” because there was nothing to breathe with, except for the entrance door; there was nothing else. They crammed in thousands of people, and one by one, they carried out those who had fainted. There was nothing to breathe. They showed us silent films about some zones, about repentance. That is, someone repenting for their sins; in a word, “the lake was laughing at the swamp.” But that was the law. The sectarians didn't go to the movies and therefore spent 6 months in the ShIZO. They were

carried out of the ShIZO on stretchers. I went, because I did not consider it a protest, as the Catholic faith does not forbid it, although there was nothing to watch. Everyone had to go to the movies. Around 8 o’clock, our detachment was left without supper because we had worked during the day. Soon the command came to go get the food. I came to the dining hall and saw a terrible sight: a large fish was in all the bowls and on the floor, but no one ate it. It was unbearable. It was August 14,

the Feast of the Maccabees; I remember it well. More than 1,550 people in the zone were down with dysentery, in the school and some barracks. They tormented us every time: going to the dining hall, we had to dip our hands in chlorine. And other procedures. The cooks had prepared fish for me too; I smelled it, but it was smelly and rotten. I put it on the table, but I see this Kolitok sitting on a bench. I calmly approached him and meekly said, “Doctor, sir, the fish is rotten, and there's dysentery in the camp. Maybe we shouldn't serve it, so it doesn't get worse.” As if stung by a horsefly, he grabbed me by the arm and, with curses and insults, calling me a “son of a bitch” and so on, took me to the checkpoint, filed a report that I was a saboteur, that it was my fault the zeks didn't eat the fish—and sent me to be tried. Absurd. All 14 detachments had already had supper, only our detachment was left; how could I have passed through the heavy iron gates? And I didn't know anything about any fish. Everything was

prepared for a trial, but I warned the camp warden, Kirilenko, and told him everything, and that the whole world would learn about this incident, because at that time all the foreign radio stations were reporting about me as a prisoner of conscience, and he canceled it.

On another occasion, there was another incident. I had some pills from the outside, so if I managed to bring them in, I had to think about who would be on duty so they wouldn't be found at the checkpoint, and I sewed them into my mattress. Someone must have seen it and reported it to the operational group, even though I only went for the pills at night when everyone was asleep. On the evening of February 23, they ripped open the mattress and pillow, took everything, and put me in the ShIZO because they wanted to know who gave them to me. I explained that I knew nothing, that I received the mattress like that from the warehouse, that I hadn't looked inside it, but it was all in vain. The most harm was done to me by Korol, the head of the camp regime; Warrant Officer Chernushka; the head of the operational group, Vavryk; and some others. These were terrible people in the full sense of the word.

One cannot fail to mention Warrant Officer Chernushka. He was in charge of distributing parcels. My sister Olga Kobzia sent me a parcel—it was late autumn, rain and slush outside, the yard full of puddles. I went to the checkpoint for the parcel. There were five packs of butter, five cans of food, some shelled nuts, and some cookies that had turned to powder. He took the butter, unwrapped it from the paper, and with a large knife, began to quarter it into a mass, then threw it onto a tray that stood on my side, where I was standing. Then he took a can opener and opened all the cans at once. “Citizen Warden, I can't eat everything at once, and there's no refrigerator, so please, let me take one or two selectively, and leave the rest for me, or it will all spoil.” “The devil won't take you, you won't croak, eat what you're given.” And he threw everything into my hands, so that my eyes were splashed with the contents of these cans. I had nothing. Just some polyethylene bag. Butter with honey was not allowed; Dutch cheese was not allowed. He took the toilet soap, impaled it on a spike, broke it into 10 pieces, and threw those pieces onto my canned food. I put everything in the plastic bag. All the convicts saw this and were outraged. The plastic bag tore, and everything fell into the mud. I gathered it all up with my hands and threw it in the trash. I had waited a year and a half for this parcel, because for every minor infraction, they deprived me of a parcel. Although my letters went through censorship, I described everything in detail to my sister in tears. Somehow, the censor let this letter through. My sister wrote a long letter to the colony warden and pointed out that only in movies could one see such episodes of how the Germans abused prisoners, and “you abuse my brother, a Catholic priest, in this way.” The letter got through. She threatened to write to the Minister of the MVD. He summoned me and questioned me about all of this in detail. He took witness statements and punished him. This Chernushka was removed from his post. But the additional parcel that I and my sister demanded was never given. One could see such Soviet "scoundrels" at every turn. Few sympathized with you.

In addition, every Monday in the camp, there was political information session. It was both a joke and a sin. A communist would read Marxism-Leninism from a book to illiterate prisoners with 2-3 grades of education. They sat there as if it were French or Spanish, not understanding a thing. We had to write summaries. Well, for me, a person with a higher education, it was half the trouble. Although I hated the stupid phrases of these lying ideologues, I still wrote a half-page summary. They never asked me anything, only demanded to see the summaries. This decided your fate when you went before the commission; they took it into account. For others, but not for me.

The end of my imprisonment was approaching, and I was to be transferred to exile. The destination of the exile was decided by Kyiv. Where, what? Nobody knew.

That engineer from Kyiv had promised me he would get me out of prison, but before that, Colonel Klimko, a KGB officer, was released from the camp by a decision of the Supreme Council. I asked him, for a reward, to help me. He had a brother who also worked in the KGB, so upon his release, he went straight to him. My sister, Olga Kobza, who visited him several times, and Tanya Protsyk told me everything. He went to everyone and everywhere and said that it was a waste of the smallest effort, a waste of money and a kopek, because no one would release me. He was told this somewhere through his brother at the KGB Directorate. He knew all this because he had worked in this system, but I didn't believe it and thought he didn't want to help me, and sometimes the thought crept in that he wasn't sincere with me. The matter was clear to him. The engineer Zhenya was also being released from the camp at the end of his term. He swore to me that he would get me out of prison at any cost. Vergeles, the director of our enterprise, had been transferred to the Directorate in Sumy. The head of the Directorate was a strict and respected person, whom we all feared. He told me that he would find a way to him at any cost and do everything. Everything was 200% guaranteed. I believed and I didn't believe. Through a letter that bypassed censorship, via a certain person N, I passed a letter to my sister and to Ms. Tanya Protsyk, who had taken responsibility for my house and everything in it, as she had lived with us for many years and helped me in everything, and was aware of all the events, of everything that was happening. She was an exceptionally honest, good, and sincere person who would have given her life just to get me out of prison. She also went to Kyiv, and they discussed everything there. They gave a sufficient amount of money, because she was absolutely sure it would all work out. One day, about a month later, while I was working in the warehouse winding thread, the door was open, as it should be. Vergeles walked in. Fear seized me, because everyone had been afraid of him, as if he were fire, when he was the director. I became quite anxious. With a shout, just like before, he cleared everyone out of the warehouse, because there was various production there, and everyone had their own job. When we were left alone, he said to me: “Father!” I flinched. “Zhenya was here to see me. He came with money to buy you out through me. I involved everyone in this matter: the prosecutor, the judges, the KGB, the regional committee secretaries. We drank so much vodka you could have bathed in it, but they told me specifically: ‘If Kavatsiv had committed five murders, he would be free tomorrow, but because he is a Uniate priest, we cannot do it. Moscow is handling these matters; he was tried on Moscow's orders, and we are too small for this.’ I came to tell you that I am a Latvian, I have been with you, and I have a good opinion of you, but so that you harbor no resentment toward me and Zhenya, please forgive us. He did everything he could for you.”

There was a certain hopelessness, but I did not lose hope. At that time, I wrote a request to the Plenum of the Supreme Court, to the higher instance that had confirmed my unjust accusations. The end was approaching, but there was no resolution to my case, and I was being sent to Kazakhstan, to the city of Uralsk.

Another transport. I gathered my things, and they also gave me my still-damp clothes that had been confiscated. They had been lying in the warehouse. More than half had to be thrown into the garbage. They put me in a car, and four soldiers with three dogs took me, alone, to the transit point in Sumy. I was waiting for the transport to Kharkiv, and from there to Uralsk.

Different winds began to blow. It was no longer Brezhnev, nor Chernenko, nor Andropov in power, but Gorbachev, who was carrying out perestroika. At that time, these cases were viewed differently at the top, and as I was an invalid of Group II, and sick, and all the reports from the camp were supposedly positive, and the camp warden had also given me a good character reference, the case was reviewed favorably: I was to be released. I knew nothing about this, as the documents had been sent to Kyiv quite a long time ago. In the prison in Sumy, it was business as usual. It was a new prison outside the city, fairly clean due to recent renovations. The food was as it was everywhere. I began to feel very ill. They often took me from my cell to the medical unit. The head of the medical unit was a kind-hearted man; he had a long conversation with me. There was no talk, not even a thought, of any release. The head of the medical unit told me in secret that I was going to Uralsk because he had seen my documents. True, he did tell me that the climate was not for me and he didn't know if I would withstand it. For some reason, they didn't transport me from the prison for a very long time. I don't know the reason; months passed, but the head of the medical unit, seeing my condition, transferred me from the transit cells to a cell in the medical section, which was also for transit prisoners. It was quiet there, as there were only five of us. One day, they took us to the bathhouse. The five of us washed, I laundered my underwear and came back to the cell. I was on the upper bunk. Around 3 o'clock, I hung everything on the radiators to dry and lay down myself. And for some reason, I felt so heavy at heart. I wanted to forget everything, but it was impossible. I wanted to doze off, though I didn't feel sleepy. A loud bang on the door, the lock, and the bolts. Everyone was on alert, because there was no transport at that time; transports only happened at night. They couldn't add anyone, as there was no space; the cell was for five people. It was Friday, everyone had gone home because it was a short day. The door swung open: “Kavatsiv, initials, article, sentence, etc.—with your things.” Well, a transport. Thank God the torment of these prisons was over. I quickly jumped down, gathered my wet rags, as I had no others, took my mattress and all my other belongings, and went out. I was led down a long, long corridor (I can still see it before me), to the left. “Turn everything into the warehouse.” I did. With my things, I went into the office of some functionary. A spacious, deep office. He sat somewhere by the window, near the door. As usual, a stool was chained to the floor. I stopped, bowed, recited the “verse” one was supposed to say to such functionaries, and stood there. He quite politely asked me to come to his desk and sit down. In all those years, no one but Kirilenko had ever told me to sit so close. I was accustomed to obeying like a lamb. I sat. “In the name of the Ukrainian SSR and the Plenum of the Supreme Court, you are released from custody. I offer you my apologies for all the wrongs done to you.” I was speechless. I lost the power of speech. I stood up, and it seemed to me that a terrifying abyss was before me, and I was falling very deep, deep. I must have looked terrible, because he jumped to the carafe, poured me water and some drops, and gave them to me. I drank it and could not utter a word. He offered me his hand. Of course, this was the first time in all my years of imprisonment. I slowly began to come to my senses, and he read the decision to me. I was silent, for I was not in my right mind. I didn't want to believe if it was a dream or reality. He gave me some book to sign something, probably to acknowledge that he had informed me and that they couldn’t hold me in prison under guard for more than two hours.

Another problem. He explains to me: “The thing is, today is Friday and everyone has already gone home. Neither the prison warden nor the head of the special section is here. The mail just arrived. I sent a bus to the city for them, and I don’t know when or who I will find, but without them I can’t do anything, because all the documents are in a safe and sealed, and they have the keys. We have to wait.” They took me to some solitary cell, a very small one. There I cried and rejoiced, I believed and I didn’t believe. There was a lot of everything. First and foremost, I prayed a lot, but very distractedly, to everyone I could remember, for my release. That prayer probably had no success, because the distraction was intense. Thousands upon thousands of thoughts crowded my mind. I tried to overcome all this, but I had no strength. I walked, sat, stood up, and time became an eternity, and it seemed to me that this was a Fata Morgana dream, that it wasn't true. I waited, and the minutes became years. Around 6 o’clock, the door opened for my exit. I was again led down long corridors, down and further down, and suddenly I stopped in the office of the head of the special section. The prison warden was also there. Innocent lambs, benevolent and kind. They apologized for all the wrongs. They gave me my passport, 30 rubles for the road to Lviv, and all the necessary documents. I signed everywhere, and because the prison was beyond a small forest, and that was probably far, they took me to the city center in their bus. It was about 8 o’clock in the evening. I had a brigade leader from Sumy named Kotsur. A good man, young and well-disposed towards me. I had somehow remembered his address. With 30 rubles in my pocket and my camp bag (Kotsur was still in prison, as he had a seven-year sentence, but he had told his mother about me during a visit), I decided to go to his home. A taxi took me there. I felt ashamed and scared. My camp fufaika was dirty and black, my head was shaved, my pants were dirty. The suit in which I was arrested was in the bag. A brown one, German, new, but worn out from all the prisons and warehouses. When I approached their house, a woman was standing by the window. She instinctively understood from my face, as she later told me, that I was the priest about whom her son, Oleg, had told so much. He had also recently been released from the ShIZO; they had framed him for some rape of a zek, although he was very good and it was a lie. They are capable of doing such things, and he was no longer a brigade leader, but he always defended me and was good to me. His sister ran out to meet me. She said, “Are you coming to see us, the Kotsurs?” I said, “Yes. But how do you know?” “I just guessed.” The mother was kind-hearted. She fed me with what she had. She drew a bath and washed me. She gave me a change of clothes. She gave me a new, nice bag, which was good, sorted out by her son-in-law and daughter. And the son-in-law had recently returned from a camp, the same one where I had been, but I didn’t know him and had never seen him, though he had heard a lot about me. The mother ironed my brown suit and a shirt, cleaned me up, and the son-in-law doused me with cologne so I wouldn’t smell of mustiness, because everything had been in storage for a long time. We went to the train station at night. I was longing to go home, because I didn't know what had become of my mother. I hadn’t had letters for a long time because I was in transit, and my mother had been at death's door. There was one last letter from my sister Olga, because after my father's death, my mother lived with my sister, seriously ill. The son-in-law and daughter took me to the station and gave me another 150 rubles, which I later sent back with a reward. This was something extraordinary for me, because for 30 rubles you can’t get anywhere, and who would give even 10 kopeks, especially to a zek. They gave me food for the road, whatever they had.

All the trains were overcrowded; there wasn't a single free seat. Through the police and the stationmaster, they arranged for me to board a train to Konotop without a ticket. The conductor, a Georgian, was good to me; he didn't take a single kopek, was sympathetic, gave me tea and what he had to eat, and took me to Konotop. He urged me: “Go to Kyiv, there are more trains there, you’ll get to Lviv faster.” I didn’t listen, because all the trains from Konotop were direct, without transfers. Six trains passed, and there wasn’t a single seat; the last train was at 6 o'clock in the morning. They announced there were no seats. Some kind woman recommended that I go to the train without a ticket, maybe the conductor himself would take me, because they do that. I tried. The train stopped. I went to one car, offered 100 rubles to get to Lviv. “No, I can’t.” To the second, third—no, not possible. The train stopped for 10 minutes. It was already starting to move, I threw my bag—a sack—onto the moving train car and got on. The conductor, a thin, elderly man, looked at me as if I were crazy. I really was like a crazy person: the next train was in the evening the next day. “Where are you going?” “To Lviv.” “Do you have a ticket?” “No.” “Then how did you get on without a ticket?” I couldn’t say a word. I was having a heart and hypertension attack. He saved me with whatever he could. He sat me down in the aisle of a compartment car on a seat, because someone was sleeping in his. Well, a stowaway passenger, like me. When I came to, he made me two glasses of tea and said: “You’ll have to ride like this to Kyiv, and in Kyiv one person is getting off, so I’ll place you there.” I gave him 100 rubles, but he gave me back 50, saying it was too much. I would have given him all 150 that I had, for his good heart. In Kyiv, he placed me in a compartment car where two people from Zakarpattia were traveling, and when they found out I was coming from a camp, a Catholic priest, they didn't know what to give me or how to feed me, because they were Catholics themselves. The conversation was interesting, and time passed quickly. As we were approaching Lviv, the ticket inspectors came to me: “Your ticket?” “The conductor has it,” I replied. They took me to him. That conductor was asleep after his night shift. There was some young girl. “I gave it to the conductor, but where he put it, I don't know.” The conductors of the three cars who had refused to take me knew that I had offered 100 rubles. They reported this conductor to the controllers, and they knew he had taken the money because I had begged and promised I wouldn't admit it. They woke up this conductor as the train was already pulling into Lviv, to the main station. “Where is the ticket?” “I gave it to his conductor.” They took my conductor aside, and I went, worried, to my compartment, because I had to get off soon, the train stop was short. I was terribly worried about this good and unforgettable conductor. As I was getting off at the station in Lviv, he ran up to me and said: “Everything is fine, I settled with them. The other conductors sold me out.”

Well, thank God. I am on my native Lviv land, in my native Lviv, though it is not mine now. I checked my bag into the storage room and went to Chkalova Street to see my confessor, Father Bayrak, to confess for all the years of my prison life. To my luck, Father Bayrak was at home. It was already evening. He saw me and was stunned. He fell at my feet, as if to a martyr, as he put it, for the holy faith, and kissed them, and cried. We both cried. He is an exceptionally good and sensitive person. A man of pure kindness. He gave me what I needed. I came back to the station. Night. Where to go and to whom? A thought came to me. My greatest friend lives in Novoyavorivsk; she wrote me letters every day through all those times, describing things in such a way that only I could understand everything that was happening in the outside world. This is Tetyana Protsyk. A good, kind-hearted woman who suffered the most for me and cried buckets of tears, knowing my poor health. Her son, Vasylko, had a car. He had testified well and intelligently at my trial. I would go to her and find out everything. If, of course, she is at home, her son will take me to my mother in Rayliv, Stryi district. I still have 80 rubles. I'll arrange a taxi there, and if anyone is home, I'll pay for the round trip, and if not, I'll go back to Lviv, or maybe to Stryi, because the taxi driver agreed. I look for the apartment, because I've never been there before. She got the apartment during my absence. I excused myself to the driver, left my things, and went to find the apartment. The doorbell rang. Tetyana opened the door and froze in shock and joy. She was speechless; she didn't know what had happened, by what miracle. The whole house was filled with shouts. The first words: “Is Mom alive?” I loved my mother more than anything. “Mom is alive, uncle.” I paid the driver, took my things, we sat for a while, and in the middle of the night, we set off for my mother's in Rayliv. My mother was at death's door. She didn't remember anyone. Not even the closest people who cared for her. Around 4 o’clock in the morning, we were in Rayliv. A ring. My brother-in-law, Bohdan, came to the door: “Who is it?” “It's me, uncle.” Shouts filled the whole house. My sister jumped out of bed like a madwoman, kissing and shouting so loud it could be heard who knows where. She had always come for visits and knew the state of my health, so she never thought she would see me at her home, especially with mother at death's door. My first words: “Where is Mom?” “There, in the house.” Although Mom was in a grave condition, when she heard the terrible shouts, she woke up and probably didn't know what had happened. I appeared at the bedside of my seriously ill mother. “Mom!” Mother started to cry. “Mom!” “Who is it? Is that you, Vasylko?” Mom replied. My image was imprinted in my mother’s memory for the rest of her life. Mom didn't recognize anyone, but she kept saying that it was me: “It’s you, Vasylko. I’m so happy that you will bury me, how happy I am that I prayed to God to see you.” The joy did not last long. Two weeks—and Mom passed into eternity.

I washed up, and in the meantime, my sister called Stryi and, despite the night, my friends had already arrived at my sister’s house by whatever means they could. First, there was a Divine Liturgy. It was a Sunday. A thanksgiving Divine Liturgy for the grace of liberation from the Brezhnev prison.

There were new problems. Problem #1 was residence registration. And they refused to register me. They postponed it from day to day, from place to month. To be honest, I didn't make a big deal out of it, because I had many big problems with the house. For all those years, no one had lived in the house, it was leaking everywhere, the whole roof had to be redone, everything had rotted and crumbled, there were puddles of water in the house. I was seized with fear when I saw it all. I didn’t have a penny to my name, because everything had been spent on lawyers and that scum who sold me out and condemned me. My mother was at death’s door, but she desperately wanted to be in her own house. It was impossible to bring her there, because it was all in ruins. The house was old. Bishop Vasylyk came to my aid, giving me two thousand rubles, which for me was a large sum of money. The repairs began; people from Zavadiv, Holobutiv, Kolodnytsia, whoever could, helped me, and soon everything was done. One large room in the house was finished, and the rest was being repaired when my mother passed into eternity. My mother died in Rayliv; I was just two days short of being able to bring her to her own house and fulfill her wish.

I was terribly sad, but also joyful that I could bury my mother myself. Mom died at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. In the evening, I celebrated a Divine Liturgy and a parastas in Rayliv at my sister’s, because Mom had lived there all the time I was away, and I brought my mother home in her coffin. I took the entire burden upon myself. The funeral was on Monday, and Mom died on Saturday. Thousands of people came to the funeral, not for Mom's sake, but to see me, a prisoner of conscience, because I had worked for and served everyone. On the day of the funeral, everyone was in the village: the KGB, the police, the druzhinniki, and all the district authorities—everyone was on the road by the house. I conducted the funeral service myself and also gave the farewell speech myself. It was very difficult for me, but I mustered the willpower not to show my tears to my enemies. I cried once, quietly, quietly, when I kissed my mother’s hardworking hands for the last time, but it had to be very brief, because it was late, three o’clock in the afternoon, or maybe around four, and I had to do everything myself from then on. I myself walked behind my mother’s coffin, which was carried all the way to the cemetery, and I myself sealed the grave. This is very difficult, because it happens only once in a lifetime; a person should be free then, to give vent to both tears and nerves, but here everything was restrained, because if I had not mastered myself, nothing would have worked out.

When I remember this, a sense of dread overcomes me: I cry at others' funerals, but at my own mother's, I had to save my tears for later, when everyone had left and I was left alone with God. Then I told my God everything that my heart wanted to say. I loved my mother very much and never caused her any trouble, so I was not afraid of her, as sometimes happens after the deceased have passed.

As for the residence registration, it was tedious and long. They kept saying that it didn't depend on them, that some resolution and decree was needed, and every day they spun my head with something new. I got tired of listening to this nonsense; I left my passport on the desk of the chief of police and said, “This is your business, register me if you want, or don’t if you don't; it’s all the same to me.” I didn't show up for a long time, until they themselves notified me to come pick up my passport.

I needed to find a job, because the disability documents from the camp were invalid in the free world. According to the new laws, you could go without work for, I believe, a month and a day, but I was unemployed for 8 months and was warned that I would be prosecuted as a “parasite.” It was difficult to find a job. No one wanted to hire me, because they were afraid. I got a job at the medical institute as a cloakroom attendant through an acquaintance. I didn't work there long, because the KGB wouldn't leave me alone even there. The head of the personnel department checked on me during every shift to see if I was working myself or if someone was doing it for me. I fell seriously ill and was at home sick. He came from Lviv all the way to Yablunivka to check on me. I had a doctor's note, so it didn't work out for them. They tried to frame it as if there had been a theft on the day I was supposed to work, a major one at that, but they had no luck; no one reported anything missing. The scheme failed. After my illness, I went back to work and had a heart and hypertensive attack. I was taken to the hospital and stayed there for 4.5 months. Afterwards, I was at home for another 3.5 months, and they gave me a Group II disability rating again, for life.

Despite everything, I did not forget my priestly duties. I heard confessions, celebrated the Divine Liturgy, buried the dead, etc., a bit more cautiously perhaps, but still the same, and in the same villages, only I didn't have the strength I once had. The first church where I celebrated was the church in the village of Lysiatychi Dolishni.

During this time, the remains of Yosafat Kotsolovskyi were transferred from Lviv to Yablunivka. But this is all recorded on a cassette, please include it. In 1946, this church was closed, and only when the millennium was being celebrated was I asked to lead the Divine Liturgy. At first, it was held outside the church, but on the following Sunday and to this day, the service is held in the church.

According to the decision of the city executive committee, I was allowed to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the Annunciation Church in Stryi for the Greek Catholics, and Olentsev, the dean of the Russian Orthodox Church, for the Orthodox. He served at 10 o'clock, and I at 12 o'clock. The situation was very difficult. When the so-called Orthodox were leaving the church around 12 o'clock, and the Catholics were entering, it was a terrible fight and shouting. Everyone was screaming as if there were a fire; it was like a flea market. They beat each other, spat in each other's faces, cursed, kicked, and pushed. In a word, it was impossible to get to the church. All this agitation was orchestrated by Olenets, who incited people to enmity. Each time, the church had to be consecrated again after the desecration. It was very painful for me, but there was no remedy. Once, Olenets did not allow me to approach the main altar, but instead placed a small stand for me. I celebrated on that stand because I did not want a “revolution” in the church, but I categorically stated a firm protest that I have the same rights as he does. The Christmas holidays passed more or less okay; we didn't meet, because he was traveling to Zaplatyny, and I tried to avoid him, but the people still quarreled with each other and called each other names. The New Year came. He served Vespers at 6 o'clock, and I celebrated a Thanksgiving Divine Liturgy with the exposition of the Most Holy Sacraments in the monstrance, according to the rites of our Church. In the sacristy, he began to argue with me, on what basis I had the right to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the evening, that the Pope is not the head of the Church, that he has no right, and he began to insult the Pope, me, the Catholic Church, and Cardinal Lubachivsky. I left him in the sacristy and went to celebrate the Divine Liturgy. The Eve of Theophany arrived. He locked the church and did not let us in. He did not celebrate himself and did not let us in. A sea of people gathered. I conducted the service in the courtyard and consecrated the water. All the people went to the city council with the consecrated water: “Who gave the right to close the church?” They went to his home, but he did not let anyone into his house. On Theophany, there was a new decision: to open the church to the Greek Catholics, and we began to serve again through the holidays. Sunday came. The situation was unbearable due to the terrible quarrels, and on the nearest Sunday after the Greek Catholic liturgy, when the so-called Orthodox had dispersed, the Greek Catholics seized the church, took the keys from the sexton Kerh, locked the entrance doors, and no longer allowed Olenets into the church. It was a terrible picture. Like crows to a carcass, all those so-called Orthodox agitators began to flock from their homes to the church. A terrible “revolution,” in a certain sense of the word, began. They tore two of my cassocks, spat in my face, called me obscene names, and did not let me into the church. A prosecutor was summoned from Lviv. The head of the KGB, the commissioner for religious cults, and other functionaries decided on Monday that Kavatsiv had suffered for his faith and had a right to the Annunciation Church. They issued a decision that the church is Greek Catholic. In the evening, Olenets was summoned to the executive committee. He resolutely refused to become a Greek Catholic, he cannot and does not want to be one. He had changed his shirt from autocephalous to Russian Orthodox, so maybe he would become a Catholic? And in principle, when we all came to the church together in the evening, both Greek Catholics and Orthodox, I told him to unite with the Greek Catholic Church. But he refused, saying that he received the mitre from an Orthodox bishop, that he would not betray him, and would never become a Greek Catholic.

Several chalices and the censer were hidden in the church, and the sexton tried to steal them, but many people caught him by the hands. In the morning, I sent a commission, a delegation to Bishop Sterniuk, and presented the whole case to him. He appointed me the rector of the Annunciation Church, and I, as the rector, no longer allowed [the other] to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, and he was not allowed back into the church. All the locks were changed, and we, along with Rukh, "Memorial," and other democratic organizations, slept in the church for almost a month and did not allow the so-called Orthodox to enter the church. There was a lot of struggle, decisive and conclusive. We won. The church remained with the Greek Catholics. The faithful were terribly neglected. The Orthodox priests taught the people nothing. The church was full of junk, Orthodox inventory. I cleaned all this up and announced that if anyone had donated something to the church that was not needed in a Catholic church, they were welcome to take it back. I did not do as the Orthodox priests did, who smashed everything, burned things, cut up altars, threw out and broke crosses, threw out statues, in short, they threw out whatever they wanted. This was the vandalism of the Orthodox priests, who destroyed and smashed everything. And so I became the rector of the Annunciation Church.

There were many problems before the people united. Little by little, almost all the people, those who had opposed me and the Catholic Church, returned, and now a great many people attend my church. I had many difficulties with this church, because Olenets had kept about 40 people who were agitators against the Greek Catholic Church, and especially against me. On my initiative, a cross was erected at the intersection of Shevchenko and Bohdan Khmelnytsky streets. They had been demanding to place a monument to B. Khmelnytsky there, but a cross had long stood there when the Sister Servants lived in their monastery. We erected a cross 10 meters high with a bas-relief image of the cross 1.70 meters in size. There was a solemn consecration on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. All of this was recorded on a film camera and sent to Australia, America, and Rome. A grave for the Sich Riflemen was built in the courtyard of our church. The memorial plaque on the oak tree planted by Metropolitan Sheptytsky, Servant of God, was restored. I won back the monastery and returned it to the Sister Servants in Stryi, near my church, where the Sister Servants now live. The parish house for priests was reclaimed. This year, I ordained 15 priests and they were placed at the altar. On my initiative, Sister Victoria, a Sister Servant, was invited from Poland; she taught our children for their first Holy Communion in Stryi, Zavadiv, Piany, Vilkhivtsi, and Volytsia. On my initiative, Sister Oksana was invited, who trained teachers to teach religion to children in schools, and many other things. The greatest joy for me is that many people are getting married after 15-20 years of living together. People are confessing after 30-35 years. This has cost me much labor and teaching to instruct the people even a little, to teach them about God and His Law. At present, I have complete order and harmony. I have not changed the committee, and we live well and in accord with them. A beautifully organized church choir under the direction of Mr. Teodoziy Choban. At the time I took over the Annunciation Church, I was also serving Zavadiv, Lysiatychi Dolishni, Piany, Vilkhivtsi, and Volytsia. I had to work a lot, as an invalid of Group II. Every Sunday and holiday, I had to serve all the villages, and I managed it all.

A little about the millennium. In every village, I organized a celebration of the millennium of the baptism of Ukraine. Finally, on November 19, the anniversary of the death of Bishop Kotsolovskyi of Peremyshl, I held a jubilee for the millennium. I had a beautifully carved cross made for 1,000 rubles and asked the parish priest of the village of Yablunivka to allow me to place it on the church grounds. He was still an Orthodox priest at the time. Both villagers and Catholics went to him, to him as a priest and to the committee, but it was all in vain. I was forced to bury this cross in the cemetery near my parents and Bishop Kotsolovskyi. It was very cold on November 19. It was snowing and frosty. We made a polyethylene canopy so that we could celebrate the Divine Liturgy. The cross had been set up on Friday, but everything else was done on Saturday. We had a huge scandal with the church committee, as well as with the Orthodox priest who had arrived in the village a few months earlier. They were hostile towards this. They told us to throw out the "gypsy shed," to cut down the carved cross. People like Mykola Humennyi, Bohdan Vasylenko, Pylyp (I don't know his last name), Helo, and others, and they also sent two drunkards who insulted us in a terrible way for what we were doing in the cemetery. On that day, November 19, the church was closed and cordoned off with wires. People from all the villages filled the cemetery. There were five Catholic priests, and we solemnly celebrated the Divine Liturgy and consecrated the cross. I delivered a long sermon. We sang a Panachyda for the fallen heroes of the UPA. A Panachyda was sung for deceased priests. There were plenty of enemies, because all the dissenters did not like that I had done this in Yablunivka. The priest himself was also hostile towards me and this ceremony. And five days later, he went to Bishop Sterniuk and became a Catholic priest, but in reality, he remained as Orthodox as he had been before.

On Easter, I went to the cemetery to the graves of my parents and Bishop Kotsolovskyi. Before I arrived from Lysiatychi from the liturgy, this priest went to my mother and declared that I should not go to the cemetery because there would be bloodshed. I went anyway, because I had the right to go and pray for my relatives. The next day, he went to Bishop Sterniuk and lied in a purely Bolshevik manner, because all of them, these priests, were taught to lie, inform, and betray. The Bishop summoned me and said that I had no right to go to the cemetery to pray, and if I wanted to go, I had to ask permission from the local priest. This is absurd. In general, I did not like Bishop Sterniuk's policies. He does everything the KGB tells him. He has surrounded himself with nothing but signers and those who have turned their shirts inside out. These priests do not deserve respect and attention. They are no different from those Orthodox ones. As they were taught in the Orthodox seminaries, so they continue to do to this day. As they deceived people, so they continue to deceive. They do not know the principles of the Catholic Church, but they have great influence on Bishop Sterniuk, and they have taken over all the diocesan offices. The Bishop completely ignores me and does not want to acknowledge me at all, because now I am useless to him. I was needed when it was necessary to trudge through the mud in villages and cities and keep Catholics in the faith. But when legalization and freedom came, these liars, oppressors, and informers who had oppressed our Ukrainian people, kept them in darkness, and informed on us Catholic priests, they took all the leading positions. And no one even wants to look at us. As long as Orthodox priests, who have now re-registered but have not reformed, rule our Church, there will be no good. They can deceive those unconscious Christians whom they kept in Orthodoxy, but those people who suffered for the Catholic Church, who prayed for 42 years in homes, in forests, in cemeteries, in houses, behind windows and doors covered with two or three blankets, the faithful whose prayers were heard, because they are the tears and blood of our people, our long-suffering people, and it is through such sufferers that we have the Catholic Church and faith today, not through these traitors and sellouts who were taught in Orthodox seminaries to oppress our people and convert them to Orthodoxy, that we reached the threshold of freedom. It's impossible to agree with these priests. If they were even a little more humble and gentle, it would be a different matter, but their pride is boundless and power is in their hands. They cannot rule the Church in our time because they do not have its spirit and do not know our Catholic traditions.

The Autocephalous Church is incompatible with our people. We have never had such a church. It is the church of the KGB. A church cannot exist without union with the Roman see and the head of the Church, the Holy Father. We have no need for a patriarchate like the one represented by Skrypnyk. He, too, is far from our people and our traditions.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the same as the Russian Church, the Church of the Party and the communists. Its head is Filaret from the KGB. It is very strange to me that our deceived people still want to have anything to do with such a church, both the Orthodox and the Autocephalous. They are all oppressors and liars, to put it bluntly, who have been fooling our people for many years. Annually, the Russian Orthodox Church gave 200 million rubles in aid to these parasites and deceivers who oppressed and destroyed us. And now our unconscious people are cutting each other with knives, beating each other with sticks, committing robberies, to put such swindlers back on our land to continue terrorizing our unfortunate people. Overall, the population in our Western region is of a Catholic spirit. The majority, one might say almost all, except for a few villages where some KGBist was still serving, like Ilyesevsky, Udych, and their ilk, are still agitating people for a Union treaty and unity with Russia, to continue paying tribute to the center. The people's sentiments are Catholic. The people want and seek the truth. Everything must be done on the basis of faith. One cannot imagine a church without the Roman Pontiff and Head of our Church.

I am for a patriarchate, because it is the authority of the Church. But such a patriarchate that would be able to unite everyone, and the person of the patriarch himself must be objective and just, so that there are no privileged students, but that every honest priest would have respect and honor from such a patriarch. I think that an incoming contender from abroad will get lost in our chaos, which our Church represents now. The main cause of this chaos is the judgment about our Greek Catholic Church by the priests of the Russian Orthodox Church, who know nothing about it, because they never thought that our Church would be restored. From 1988, all our churches and chapels, wherever they were, were given to these priests to say once and for all, "Your church is liquidated and a funeral service has been sung for it." And they all bought the best parishes for 5 thousand rubles, I know this because such priests told me at my home. Maybe only 2% of them converted to the Catholic faith out of belief, while all the others did so for material motives and money. None of them would have wanted to suffer for the Church for a single day. For them, it's all about material goods and high offices in the Church. Bishop Sterniuk once told me: "Now the Church will be ruled by those who were in Orthodoxy, and you, who suffered for the Church, will be handing them the censer." It's shameful to say this, because Bishop Volodymyr has done nothing good for our Church. He was puffed up by American and Canadian millionaires, while the Bishop spent 18 years on the third floor, passing his time calmly and without a care. And now he has become a great confessor of the faith and a martyr for the faith. Let Bishop Volodymyr boast about how many people he served and how many children he baptized and married, let him say in his conscience with justice how much mud he mixed while working for our people. The Bishop was always distant, and all one could hear was that his legs hurt and he could do nothing. The Bishop was afraid to say that he had the authority of a bishop, and one had to drag him out from the underground by the ears, and now he has surrounded himself with turncoats, traitors, and does the will of the KGB and everything they order him. There is no difference between Nikodim and Volodymyr, between what was under the one and what is under the other. He tells all the turncoats not to change anything, and most importantly, to commemorate the "Orthodox" and to have the three-barred cross. In a word, our legalization came at an unfortunate time with a bishop like Bishop Sterniuk, with a mind too old for such a difficult metropolitanate, and his advisors are useless; they will soon push us all into a new schism from which we will not soon be able to emerge. I say this quite consciously because I know the moods and plans of Bishop Volodymyr well. The Bishop would want the power of the patriarchate for even one hour, and then he could die, but it is fortunate for us that he was born too soon and must soon die. I say this because I care deeply for our Church and want its greatest good. Our happiness, or rather the happiness of our Church, lies in union with the supreme pontiff, the Most Holy Father, the supreme teacher of Christ's Church and the successor of St. Peter the Apostle, the vicar of Christ on earth. If we hold to this first cause, then no one will ever break us or shake us, and all sorts of combinations, joint services of all confessions will again lead our people to new heresies and falls. We must be ready to go on missions to eastern Ukraine and help our brothers to know the truth, but a sincere truth, not a false one. For now, we all must endure, and for quite a long time, because what was destroyed over decades cannot be rebuilt in a month or two. There is a terrible amount of chaos and enmity, and until this all changes, we cannot count on any good. In the first place, we need good, holy, and discerning leadership that can look at all our affairs objectively with the eye of God's goodness, as any terror, threats, or punishments will do no good. The Church has lost a great deal by rashly throwing around various excommunications and anathemas where things could have been handled differently, more delicately. That is why now, in such a complex time, it is very difficult, because for now, there is an inter-confessional struggle. If we give free rein to all the autocephalous and Orthodox, there will be conflict again. Our people are of a Catholic spirit, and all the trouble is made by the priests of both the Orthodox and Autocephalous churches. Therefore, Stepan Khmara advised and said well: "Chase the priests all the way to Zagorsk." They were ordained and prepared for such churches—let them work for them. But they have adapted themselves here, because it is good for them here. Such are my thoughts and assertions on these matters. And in the meantime, we must prepare new, good cadres for new and certain works that were done in the underground.

I was the first monk and priest in the Basilian Order after the war, and I was also the last victim of the Brezhnev-Stalinist regime for the holy faith. After me, no one else was tried or arrested. I was the concluding stage of the godless communist mafia in its fight against religion and God. But the enemies lost everything. Victory still came, and the victory is ours. Christ's Greek Catholic Church triumphed and lived to see its legalization. Great honor and glory to all those who made even the smallest contribution to this great work of God.

Fr. Yosafat Kavatsiv, OSBM (Order of Saint Basil the Great)

Stryi, 80 Bohdan Khmelnytsky St.

(Written before the year 2000)

Scanned from typescript, proofread and edited on February 22–24, A.D. 2008 by Vasyl Ovsiyenko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.