PETRO-YOSAFAT HERYLIUK-KUPCHYNSKYI

An interview with Petro-Yosafat Heryliuk-Kupchynskyi

Last edited on November 19, 2007.

V. Ovsienko: January 31, 2000, in the town of Stebnyk, at the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God of the UGCC. Lyubomyr Starosolskyi is present.

P. Heryliuk-Kupchynskyi: My name is Petro-Yosafat Heryliuk-Kupchynskyi. I was born on September 24, 1922, in Krakow. My parents were socialists. My father was a military man, an economist, and my mother was a historian. In 1926, when a socialist president was elected in Poland, my father was killed by the “Endeks.” That’s when the “civil war” began, because the army was socialist and opposed Józef Piłsudski. My mother died at the same time. In 1926, I was brought to Galicia, where I was raised by my grandfather. My grandfather lived in Obertyn, Tlumach Raion, Stanislav Oblast. I was under the supervision of the Polish government.

In 1932, I was sent to the Jesuit gymnasium in Khyriv, where I studied for two years. But after that, they took me from there and sent me to the Basilian Institute in Buchach. I graduated in 1938. In that same year, 1938, I entered the School of Tropical Medicine in Belgium, which I graduated from in 1942. They wanted to draft us into Rommel's army and send us to Africa, since I was studying tropical medicine. I refused. The Germans wanted to arrest me, so I came here, to Galicia. But here too, I was arrested by the Germans in May 1942. I was held in the prison in Chortkiv until the fall. On September 24, I was released through the efforts of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskyi and, at the same time, Princess Sapieha, who lived in Bilche-Zolote (now Borshchiv Raion, Ternopil Oblast. – Ed.). I was released under the pretext that I would join the SS “Galicia” division. I arrived in Bilche-Zolote, changed my clothes, washed up, and went to Lviv.

In Lviv, on the advice of Metropolitan Sheptytskyi, I entered the theological seminary. But a year later, in 1943, the Gestapo started looking for me. Metropolitan Sheptytskyi moved me to a monastery in Zhovkva, where I waited for three months for his decision. On October 14, I was transferred to the Stanislav Seminary, to Bishop Khomyshyn.

I graduated from the seminary in 1945. Just before my ordination, on the night of April 14-15, the bishop was arrested. His assistant, Bishop Liatyshevskyi, was also arrested.

In May 1945, the Initiative Group for the transition from the Greek Catholic Church to Moscow Orthodoxy was announced. In Lviv, the group was headed by Fr. Havriil Kostelnyk, in Stanislav by Fr. Pyliavetskyi, and in Drohobych by Fr. Melnyk.

As soon as the bishop was arrested, without waiting to be drafted into the Soviet army, I went into the underground. I worked in the underground with Hegumen Roman Bakhtalovskyi, a Redemptorist. At first, we organized four stations in Stanislav where one could go to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, get married, or go to confession.

We also had four stations in Kolomyia. In Kolomyia, we organized a convent of the Sisters of the Mother of God of Perpetual Help. Later, in Kohorodyntsi (?), we had two stations, one in Sniatyn, one in Delyatyn, and one in Kosiv.

I want to tell you about how that Pyliavetskyi came to Kolomyia with the commissioner for religious affairs from Kyiv. They gathered all the priests of the Kolomyia district. Kostelnyk announced that the bishops had been arrested for collaborating with the Germans (although it was not collaboration). The Greek Catholic Church would be liquidated, so they were organizing an Initiative Group for the transition from the Greek Catholic Church to Moscow Orthodoxy. Anyone who did not sign on to the Initiative Group would be arrested. He stated it just like that.

Then Father Dean Mykhailo Sulytytskyi from Zabolotiv stood up and said: “I was born a Catholic and I want to die a Catholic. My faith is not a piece of clothing that I can wear one way today and another way tomorrow. I will never sign for Orthodoxy.” Pyliavetskyi said: “Then you will be arrested!” “Then I will be arrested.” He put his hat on his head, said, “Glory to Jesus Christ!” and left.

The old dean from Horodenka, Vynnychuk, stood up. He said the same thing: “I share Father Sulytytskyi’s opinion. I am old and I want to die in my own faith.” And he slowly hobbled to the door.

After him, Father Orenchuk, the dean from Sniatyn, stood up. He also said a few words in defense of the Greek Catholic Church. He said he would never sign for Orthodoxy and left.

Then Father Hrabets stood up—the same thing. And Dean Zhukivskyi from Obertyn also said: “I will not sign for Orthodoxy. I will go; I am ready for anything.”

Then a young priest, Yuriy Melymuka from the village of Ostrivets, stood up. He said a few words about how much Moscow had persecuted Ukrainian Catholics, starting with Peter I, Catherine II, then Nicholas I, and Alexander II. And the same thing is happening to this day. “And I,” he says, “am ready to be a martyr for the holy union with the Apostolic See.” He stood up and left.

Then it became so quiet you could hear a pin drop. After a while, Pyliavetskyi stood up and said: “Celibacy was forcibly imposed by Bishop Khomyshyn. But Moscow allows those priests who are unmarried celibates to marry, so sign on to the Initiative Group.” At first, it was quiet. But then, you know, it was as if beehives began to buzz, and we saw priests, one after another, begin to sign for that Initiative Group.

After that, we released two leaflets against the Initiative Group. The first was “God is with us, hold on! Do not sign for Moscow Orthodoxy!” The second was: “Do not bow down to the god Baal.” Father Bakhtalovskyi wanted every priest to somehow get one. I addressed them to all the priests and sent them by mail. He says: “How can we deliver one to Pyliavetskyi?” I say that I know all the exits in the cathedral. He always comes early for the Divine Liturgy, at half-past seven. I’ll go before half-past seven and drop it in his box, where he gets his satchel and towel for the liturgy. He’ll be getting his things for the liturgy and will obviously find the leaflet and read it.

I came earlier, to the sacristy, pulled out the box, and dropped it in. The door creaked—and just then Pyliavetskyi walked in. I bowed, and he replied. He went straight to the box, took the leaflet, and read it. “Did you put this here?” “I did!” “Get out of here, and don’t let me see you here again!”

After that, I was arrested. They reviewed my whole life, from childhood. But they knew nothing about that leaflet. It seems Pyliavetskyi didn’t betray me after all.

Then the question arose of how to inform Pope Pius XII about what was happening to us. I was the most suitable for the task because I was born in Krakow and could register to leave for Poland. I did indeed register with the Polish Committee. Father Bakhtalovskyi wrote a letter in French, seven pages long. The day before my departure for Poland, I was arrested on Potocki Street in Lviv (it was later called Pushkin Street, and now it’s Chuprynky Street). That was on May 8, 1946. With that letter, I was immediately taken to the prison on Lonskoho Street, stripped, and they found the letter. For three days, it was quiet, but then, apparently, someone translated it for them into Ukrainian or Russian—and then the investigation began.

I had two investigators: Fyodorov and Tyurin. Fyodorov was a terrible sadist; he beat me mercilessly. Twice, he dragged me by my legs, fainted, into the cell.

V.O.: I believe Iryna Senyk also mentioned Fyodorov.

P.H-K.: To be fair, Tyurin was a bit different. He didn't beat me. But it seemed to me that this was a special Bolshevik setup: one like this, the other like that, to extract something from the prisoner. Fyodorov once beat me unconscious and threw me into some cellar full of rats. I thought they would devour me, because I couldn't defend myself—I was in such a state. But at that moment, that Tyurin came, pulled me out of the cellar, and took me to a cell. I later met that Tyurin in Karaganda.

V.O.: Was he also arrested?

P.H-K.: No, not arrested. He worked for the KGB. He conducted my second investigation.

Ten days later, Kyiv requested me. They took me to the internal prison. The investigation was conducted by Dubok, Krykun, and Mayorov. Mayorov was at the end. Krykun and Dubok—they were sadists. They also conducted the investigations of Metropolitan Slipyj and Bishop Khomyshyn. Regarding Bishop Khomyshyn (he himself—unintelligible—boasted to me), he said he finished him off. How? He said: “You, Khomyshyn, as a bishop, you spoke out against communism.” “I did, and I will continue to do so.” “You spoke out against the Komsomol!” “I did, and I will continue to do so!” By that time, he had already collected all the religious books Khomyshyn had written. And he began to beat him with those books, wherever he could hit him. The bishop lost consciousness. They couldn't revive him. They called an ambulance from Lukianivska Prison and took him to the hospital. But three days later—he himself boasted—Khomyshyn died. To this day, we don't know where he is buried.

My investigation ended in October. On October 14, 1946, I was tried by a military tribunal.

V.O.: Father Petro, what article were you charged with?

P.H-K.: My charge was Article 58-20—attempt to commit a crime, that is, to go abroad. They accused me of being a Vatican spy. They called me a Vatican spy the whole time. They gave me 10 years of imprisonment and 5 years of deprivation of rights.

When I was thrown into Lukianivska Prison after the trial, I met Bishop Kotselovskyi of Peremyshl there. He spent three months with me. We went through all of dogmatics (because he was a professor of dogmatics), then we had an eight-day retreat. On December 31, 1946, he ordained me as a deacon. We hoped the guards would be celebrating New Year's, and he would ordain me as a priest in the morning. But it happened that after lunch, they snatched me up and threw me into a labor camp in Svyatoshyn, and he was thrown into an invalid camp in Svyatoshyn. He died there in 1947.

At that time, I weighed 39 kilograms. I was non-transportable, unfit to be sent anywhere in Siberia. But by March 1948, they grabbed me, alone, and took me all the way to Vyetlag in Kirov Oblast, to the North, into the taiga. To be fair, I worked as a medic, specializing in tuberculosis, and it was a little easier for me because they didn't force me into hard labor. But the exhausting work in the forest, the treatment of people, and the food caused a terrible number of people to die. Every day, up to thirty people were carried out of our morgue. It was a dreadful sight, impossible to look at.

And in December 1949, there was a transport to Karaganda. They were only taking political prisoners. On December 19, I was brought to Karaganda. We traveled for two weeks. Two weeks! It was freezing, in those freight, “cattle” cars—it was horrifying! People were dying. Nineteen people arrived with pneumonia. A hospital had to be set up immediately; I immediately started treating those people. But in those conditions, there was nothing to treat them with. We could only treat them with cupping glasses and compresses because there were no medicines at all. There wasn't even aspirin, let alone any antibiotics.

After that, I was taken to the central hospital. I had pulmonary tuberculosis, and then for seven years, I worked in the tuberculosis department in Karaganda. I had spondylitis. I had three operations on my spine. Then meningitis, and I had two concussions. I thought that tuberculosis and meningitis would finish me off. When I started to recover, I didn't know my own name. All my memory was gone. I spent about half a year remembering, restoring my memory. Thank God, it all came back.

I was released in January 1955. When I was released from the camp, they put me in a home for invalids. After leaving the home for invalids, I saw such terrible oppression of former prisoners... I went to the regional health department in Karaganda to find a job somewhere. The head of the organizational department asked me: “What can you do?” “Well, I can do everything.” “Well, for instance, can you be a lab technician?” “I can.” “And you know all the tests?” “I know all the tests.” “Well,” he says, “a Leonardo da Vinci! We need people like you.” He did, in fact, ask me something about biochemistry and something about the microbiology of tuberculosis. I answered very well. Because, you know, in the camp, I even diagnosed leprosy. I told him all that, and he sent me to the third city hospital to work in the clinical laboratory. But he said it was temporary.

Then they transferred me to the sanitary and epidemiological station to combat malaria. Because at that time in Karaganda, there was a terrible malaria epidemic. In three years, I managed to put an end to malaria in Karaganda. There were no new outbreaks. Then they transferred me back to tuberculosis. I worked in the city tuberculosis dispensary and at the department of tuberculosis. I also had two groups of students every day: I conducted laboratory practice with them on the microbiology of tuberculosis.

In 1957, I went on vacation to Ukraine for the first time.

V.O.: You didn't have the right to return to Ukraine for good?

P.H-K.: No, no, no! They let me go on vacation. I met with Bishop Charnetsky, and in December 1957, he ordained me as a priest. In addition to my work in medicine, I then began to work as a priest. I served the Ukrainians.

V.O.: And what were the conditions for priestly work there?

P.H-K.: Everything was underground. In people's homes. I served Germans and Poles in the Roman Catholic rite, and Ukrainians in the Greek Catholic rite. There were even Russians who came to me.

Then the question of moving to Ukraine arose. I came here on vacation in 1968. In fact, I lived in Karaganda for 19 years. And so, in May 1968, I came here and got a job in a sanatorium in Yaremche, working in my specialty, microbiology of tuberculosis. But in that sanatorium, I encountered a dreadful fact, something I had never seen before. There were doctors working in the laboratory who never did any tests. They just wrote: normal, normal, normal. And they threw the samples away. You know, for me, that was something terrible; I couldn't stand it. I started to work as one should. So they began to resent me... I thought to myself: “I'm leaving.” As it happened, I was then invited to the Ivano-Frankivsk regional tuberculosis dispensary. There, I also worked on the microbiology of tuberculosis, using fluorescent microscopy. The medical institute became interested in me and invited me to the department of tuberculosis in that same Stanislav. But the KGB would not grant me a residence permit anywhere for three years.

V.O.: And they could have punished you for not being registered...

P.H-K.: Yes, they watched me, they harassed me endlessly. Then I moved to the Dolyna Raion. The head doctor there accepted me into the district tuberculosis hospital. I set up the microbiology of tuberculosis work there. They treated me well there, I can't say anything bad... But the KGB persecuted me endlessly, followed me endlessly. It even happened that they planted things on me... I was the only one working there on the microbiology of tuberculosis, so they forced me to work two shifts so that I wouldn't have time for my priestly duties. No one else was given two shifts, but they always gave them to me.

In 1974, they arrested the underground bishop in Stanislav, Father Ivan, and then the second bishop, his assistant Dmyterko. For writing a letter to the Pope. And they suspected me, because they had also caught me with a letter to the Pope in 1946. The harassment began. I was put under investigation. Every Saturday, for about seven months, from May to September, I had to go to Stanislav for investigation. My case was handled by Ihnatiy Andriyovych Rybalchenko. He was some old Chekist, from around 1924. He was a sadist. But there were some among them who, when he was called away somewhere, would say: “Hold on, nothing will come of this. They won't do anything to you!”

They had an informant's report on me. I was lodging with a landlady, and her son wrote a seven-page denunciation against me, with thirteen points. One point was about the conflict between the USSR and China over an island on the Amur River...

V.O.: On Damansky Island, that was around 1968-1969. It was later just washed away by water.

P.H-K.: Yes, yes, that happened. That young man asked me: “What do the Chinese want from our people?” And I said: “Well, that used to be Chinese territory. There are a great many of them, but they have little territory. They would like that island to be returned to them.” So he wrote about that too.

But when I worked at the department of tuberculosis, the wife of prosecutor Hrytsiuk also worked there. She was from Eastern Ukraine, a very good person. And he would sometimes come into the laboratory, see me, greet me, and we would talk. And, you know, when my case file had grown to about eighty printed pages, it fell into his hands as the supervising prosecutor. And he wrote on that file that every person has the right to their own convictions, and in the Soviet Union, people are not tried for their convictions. He saved me from a second prison term!

V.O.: An amazing, rare case!

P.H-K.: Yes. That was in 1974. It was a very brave act on his part. He helped me a lot. If it weren't for him... His wife, in fact, defended her thesis based on my material. Because she used all my material on the microbiology of tuberculosis for her dissertation. I established the laboratory diagnostics, and she—the clinical picture. We even had several joint articles in scientific journals. He remembered that. If it weren't for him, who knows what would have happened to me...

And after that, I lived in Bolekhiv and worked in Dolyna. Actually, not in Dolyna, but in Hoshiv. There was a hundred-bed tuberculosis hospital there.

In 1982, I retired. My time had come. I turned sixty, took off my lab coat, said my goodbyes—and left. I had been living in rented apartments, I didn't have my own place. Then I bought myself (in Stebnyk – Ed.) one-quarter of a house, two rooms. I somehow managed to arrange everything.

But still, they followed me all the time. You see, I had been coming here, to Stebnyk, to Truskavets, to Boryslav since 1970. There was a Greek Catholic underground here, and I served them. And when that freedom came, when the Church emerged from the underground, I first worked in a village near Morshyn—a village right after Morshyn, on the way to Bolekhiv, not Lysytsia, but... In short, a village after Morshyn, on the way to Bolekhiv. And then they requested me from here, from Stebnyk, to come here. Bishop Sterniuk gave me the assignment to work here.

And so, from February 15, 1990, I began to work as the parish priest in Stebnyk. The population here is 20,000. Actually 25,000, but that includes Selets and Kovpets, and they have their own parish priest. And in Stebnyk, I was alone.

I took over a church that was cracked, it was collapsing. I immediately called in scientists and builders. They examined it and found that it had sunk sixty centimeters. The reason—the foundation was made incorrectly. According to the plans, the foundation was supposed to be two meters deep, but they made it eighty centimeters. 80 centimeters, and then it goes down in a triangle. No one ever built like that... It was a disaster.

They advised drilling down 11 meters through the foundation, inserting rebar, and pouring concrete under pressure. So we drove in 148 piles. This slowed the sinking a bit, but it continued. We called in geologists to examine the soil. They noted that the ground was subsiding. On the right side, they found a layer of salt at thirteen meters, and on the left side, at 23 meters. They took samples in three places, and all the analyses were the same. It turned out there is a fault line here. Maybe it was caused by an earthquake or God knows when. Nearby, there's a community services center that some Chabanenko bought, and it was also cracking. And two houses are cracking. Over here, near the police station, a house is also cracking. Maybe it happened after that earthquake (The earthquake occurred at 11 p.m. on March 4, 1977, with its epicenter in Romania. – V.O.).

Together with those scientists, we began to think about what to do, and we decided on this: to brace the church with iron. In the dome, we did (what?), we braced it with iron twice. And that drum that sits on the dome, we also braced with iron. The church was braced with iron. We installed those four, as the builders call them, “bulls”—large corner brackets—and connected the top. And we also connected it along the floor. We chipped off all the plaster because it was crumbling. We re-roofed the church with sheet metal, braced it with iron, and plastered it both inside and out. We've even painted the inside of the church. We still need to repair the gallery. We had the renowned architect Hirnyi here because we couldn't redesign the architectural structure of the church ourselves. They allowed us to dismantle the gallery, expand the church a little, and create two naves to expand the church a bit more. Well, we'll be doing that in the spring. It's very difficult to do.

V.O.: What is the name of the church?

P.H-K.: The church is called the Nativity of the Mother of God. The Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God.

To be honest, we immediately wanted to build a new church here. As soon as I arrived, we agreed with the potash plant that they would help. They allocated us a plot of land, we already had a plan, and we started to build something. I wanted that church to be of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, of the Love of God. But then people came from abroad (Cardinal Lubachivsky was already here), and they started to oppose it: “Change the name!” And I didn't want to change the name. So they divided Stebnyk into two parishes: New Stebnyk and Old Stebnyk. They left me with Old Stebnyk and gave New Stebnyk to Father Molozhetskyi. He changed the name of that church to: “God, the Lover of Mankind.” They are building, but when they will finish is a question. Because, you know, people's financial situation is very difficult now. You see, we are also in debt: at first, we thought we owed 27,000, but when we started converting it to dollars (because everything is in dollars now), it turned out we owed 37,000. We've collected something from Christmas caroling. But we haven't even collected 10,000. So, we are still in debt to the builders.

V.O.: Father Petro, when we had a brief meeting with you the day before yesterday, you said that you are still being persecuted...

P.H-K.: You see, I can't say that officially, because that would be like attacking my own superiors. But I'll put it this way. You see, as soon as Lubachivsky and Datsko arrived from abroad, some kind of persecution against me began.

V.O.: If it's something that shouldn't be told, then don't tell it. I was referring to persecution from the secular authorities.

P.H-K.: It's from the church authorities. I have no complaints against the secular authorities. The KGB (now called the Security Service) never comes to me, they are not interested in me at all—as if I didn't exist. It's even strange to me. Because they used to bother me a lot. Let me tell you something.

In December 1987 (I don't remember the exact day), I got a call at my door. It was about a quarter to eight. I go out—I see four gentlemen. I ask: “Who are you here for?” “For you.” “Well, and who are you?” They introduce themselves: “Kolesnikov, Commissioner for Religious Affairs, from the Verkhovna Rada.” The second: “Ovsyannyk (or Ovsyanko), Commissioner for Religious Affairs from the regional party committee.” The third: “Yuzef Frantsevych Yizhetskyi, chief lecturer on atheism at the regional party committee, Doctor of Historical Sciences.” “Oh,” I say, “these are important people.” And the fourth: “KGB colonel, for religious affairs.” “Alright, alright. But why have you come to me?” “Well,” says the former one, “let's not talk here on the doorstep. Let's go inside.” I say: “You know, we have a saying: an uninvited guest is worse than a Tatar. But if you're asking, please—come inside.” (Laughs).

They came inside—straight to the table and: “How could we open the Greek Catholic Church, but without the Pope?” I say: “You won't succeed. If you want to establish the Greek Catholic Church, it can only be the one you liquidated in 1946. Only that one.” “That's impossible.” “Why is it impossible?” “Because Sheptytskyi spoke out against communism, Khomyshyn also, the Stanislav bishop spoke out against communism, the Peremyshl bishop Kotselovskyi also spoke out against communism, Slipyj also spoke out against communism, Lubachivsky also speaks out against communism—we cannot allow you to open the kind of Church we liquidated back in 1946.”

I say: “You know what? To answer that question, I'll ask you another one. Tell me, can the idea of communism be blamed for the fact that you had a cult of personality and millions of people were murdered?” All four at once: “The idea of communism is not to blame.” “Then that is your direct answer, that the idea of Catholicism and Christianity is not to blame if some Bishop Khomyshyn, or Kotselovskyi, or Slipyj spoke out against communism.” “Ah! They were anti-communists.” And they start attacking me. I say: “Alright, alright. Then I'll ask you another question: why did they speak out against communism?” “They were anti-communists.” I say: “You're afraid of that anti-communism as if it were a ghost. They spoke out against communism because when you came to power, you blew up churches, turned them into clubs, into warehouses. You arrested and shot priests and bishops—so did they have the moral right to speak out against communism, or not? What do you think?”

Then an attack from another angle: “Oh, 1988 is coming, you're planning to celebrate the baptism of Ukraine. What Ukraine was there back then?” I say: “You know what, you are a Doctor of Historical Sciences. I won't even talk about the other three. But you are a Doctor of Historical Sciences, tell me: there were the Celts—they became the English. Did the people change or not?” He thought and thought, then says: “No, they didn't change.” “There were the Gauls—they became the French. Did the people change?” “Well no, they didn't change!” “There were the Iberians—they became the Spanish, there were the Hellenes—they became the Greeks, there were the Bohemians—they became the Czechs, there were the Lechs—they became the Poles, there was Kyivan Rus—and we directly became Ukrainians. We have every right to celebrate the baptism of Ukraine.” They: “You are too clever.” I say: “Listen, why did you come? Did you come to hear the truth? Well, I've told it to you!”

That conversation lasted from a quarter to eight until one in the morning. They were already leaving. And that KGB agent turns back from the balcony to my house and says: “You will remember this even when the Greek Catholic Church is free!” “I remember it even now.”

That Datsko, who was the vicar general of the Lviv eparchy, arrived. I'm not afraid of it and can boldly say that he was a man recruited by Moscow back in those days. He was Slipyj's secretary; he did a lot of harm to our Church. He is very smart, a doctor of theological sciences, a doctor of historical sciences, but what good is that when he was recruited by Moscow? Everything that was done there was done to harm our Church. Here's an example. There were 20,000 people here. And I was alone. Four schools and a vocational school. There were about 4,500 school-age children. They allowed me to teach religion in schools. I had eight, six hours every day. I never left those schools: I had 38 hours a week! They sent me a Russian collaborator, Belyaev. Whatever the topic: “It's not like that where we are, in Moscow!” I tell him: “Why did you come here then? Go back to your Moscow!” He started writing anonymous letters, got involved with the Christian Democratic Party. I don't know why they accepted him there. Former communists went there...

V.O.: Is that the party headed by Vitaliy Zhuravskyi? Or Vasyl Sichko?

P.H-K.: I don't even know. I think Sichko was at that time. Although I know Sichko very well. He was a decent person.

V.O.: You knew Vasyl Sichko?

P.H-K.: I knew Vasyl, and I know his father, Petro, as well.

V.O.: I'm supposed to go see Mr. Petro in Dolyna.

P.H-K.: Give him my regards.

V.O.: I certainly will.

P.H-K.: He is a very good person. But what they did to me here... When they started writing anonymous letters about me, the people drove that Belyaev out. And they wouldn't give me an assistant. I struggled alone. Then they gave me a priest—who was mentally ill: “I'm not allowed to celebrate the Divine Liturgy myself, I'm not allowed to conduct funerals, I'm not allowed to baptize, I'm not allowed to perform marriages, I'm not allowed to hear confessions.” So what use is someone like that to me? Am I supposed to be a nanny for him or what?

This parish house didn't exist yet. This house was built to bring in monks who would educate the youth. Because, you know, Stebnyk is now, I think, in third place for drug addiction. Debauchery, drunkenness, drug addiction... And I can't do anything because I'm alone. I did, however, organize the “Ukrainian Youth for Christ” Society. They moved it to another parish, and there it fell apart. Now there is an organized “Marian Youth Sodality.” They seem to be working well. But there are fewer children, because when they finish the eleventh grade, they go to higher education and leave, and new young people don't join.

After that, I sent fifteen men from here to study to become priests. Eight have been ordained, three are studying abroad. One was expelled from the seminary in his sixth year. For what? He had insulted the vice-rector some three years ago. You know, they waited three years, for him to finish five years of study, and then expelled him in the sixth... It's strange to me. The second one, why? He had gotten involved with the Lefebvrist Kovpak. The Lefebvrists are those who did not accept the Second Vatican Council; they are French. I don't know how deep their roots are here, but the rectorate sent that seminarian to the village of Ryasne to teach religion in the school. He met that priest there. He was acquainted with him. But to expel someone just for being acquainted—that's not enough.

Thirdly, what I founded was the “Apostleship of Prayer.” It is a church organization that promotes devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the love of God for the human race. It is a universal Catholic organization, active in all Catholic countries. And we have it here. In Poland, we had 250,000 people involved in the “Apostleship of Prayer.” Here, I found two underground groups—thirty people who belonged to the “Apostleship of Prayer.” Now we have 180 members of the “Apostleship of Prayer.” They help me a lot in the church. I wouldn't be able to do anything by myself.

Well, and the fourth thing they accuse me of—the dean's mother died here. He asked me to go and say the Parastas service. I took him (?) with me to sing (he sings well). We sang the Parastas there. I used the words “servant of God,” not “slave of God.” They held that against me. I ask the rector: “Show me in the Gospel where Jesus Christ called us slaves? He called us sons of God, heirs. So why should we humble ourselves so much as to be slaves?” That's one thing. And another: they have now published new service books and distributed them to every priest. There, they use “servant of God.” So what, should all those service books be burned? I don't understand it, it drives me to extremes...

V.O.: I want to ask again, from what year did you get access to schools, to teach the Law of God?

P.H-K.: We taught in schools from 1990 to 1994. In 1994, they began to demand that teachers teach “Christian ethics”—they no longer called it the “Law of God.” No longer religion, but simply Christian ethics. Then they demanded that we have pedagogical education and did not allow us into the schools. There is a catechetical institute here; it is not state-run. There are people who have already graduated from those catechetical institutes and have the right to teach.

I organized a Sunday school here. Children come here once a week. We teach in the church. There are three groups. In the first group, we teach catechism and the biblical history of the Old Testament. In the second group, we teach the New Testament, that is, the history of the New Testament of Jesus Christ and, at the same time, liturgics. The third group—we take up “The Truth of God,” “The Holy Mysteries,” and the history of the church in Ukraine. So we have these three groups because we can't manage more. We have over 50 children in Sunday school. Compared to what we used to cover, it's nothing. You know, there's little interest in it. There's some eparchial inspector for the teaching of Christian ethics. I've approached him several times and said that we are not allowed into the schools—they don't care.

V.O.: And do Starosolskyi's daughters attend Sunday school? He has three daughters. One is very little, two and a half years old, and two are older.

P.H-K.: Ah, yes, I remember, I baptized them here.

V.O.: What grades are they in?

Lyubomyr Starosolskyi: Maryana is in the eighth grade, and Zoryana is a gymnasium student. In the second grade of the gymnasium in Drohobych.

P.H-K.: The education there is a bit better. But, you know, I was very disappointed when I met teachers who knew very little about their own specialty. It happened like this. They asked me to come into a classroom because it was freezing, it was cold. I was waiting in the corridor, and the teacher was teaching literature. Well, I listened for a bit. In the upper grades, they teach about Ivan Vyshenskyi, about Smotrytskyi. That Smotrytskyi was a fighter against the Union. And that after him, his son Meletiy Smotrytskyi continued that fight. There was Maksym Smotrytskyi, then Meletiy Smotrytskyi. You know, I kept quiet in front of the children. But when the children left, I said: “Listen, where did you get that from?” “What do you mean? It's world literature,” she shows me a textbook, reprinted from a Soviet textbook. Indeed, it's written just like that. I say: “But that was one and the same person. When he began to fight against the Union, he met with a bishop, and later the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Veniamin Rutskyi. He had also graduated from a university in Germany; they had much in common. There was a danger that Maksym Smotrytskyi would join the Union. But he belonged to the Stauropegion Brotherhood. The brotherhood forbade him: either enter a monastery, or we will expel you from the brotherhood. So he entered a monastery and took the name Meletiy. In the world, he was Maksym, and in the monastery, he took the name Meletiy. He continued to fight against the Union. In fact, his writings contributed a lot to the murder of Josaphat Kuntsevych. But that was the Polish state. It arrested all those guilty of the murder, tried them, sentenced them to death, and Maksym Smotrytskyi faced the same fate. So he fled to Constantinople, to Turkey, and was there for three years. And he observed the work of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Three years later, he returned to Ukraine, became a Uniate, entered a monastery, renounced his episcopacy, and died as a simple monk in the monastery. Such was the end of that Meletiy Smotrytskyi.

One could tell many such episodes.

V.O.: If you have time, because yours is limited, and we have nothing scheduled.

P.H-K.: In the camp, I met a great many people. There were former communists, there were nationalists, there were many priests. There were also many Russian priests. There were about thirty priests in the camp. Among the Russian priests, I found one wise one. He was a dean in Moscow. His term would end—they'd give him another, that term would end—they'd add more. You understand? It was clear they were waiting for him to die. And he was a very wise man. He would always come to me because I had a Breviary with me and would pray the Breviary. He often borrowed it from me. Later, when I was being released, he asked: “Leave it for me.” I said: “Well, I don't know if I'll get another breviary like this so soon.” You see, I couldn't leave it... But he was one wise man who said that the salvation of the Russian Orthodox Church could only be in union with Rome. The rest were such... I met the son of Solovyov, the philosopher. I met the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy, she was a lawyer, a jurist. I also met a prince or that count Sheremetyev. He was a doctor of chemical sciences then. There were many, many such people...

V.O.: And what was the ratio of Ukrainians to others in the camps, in your opinion?

P.H-K.: In our camp in Karaganda, up to thirty percent were Ukrainians. There were Russians, there were others. A great many Lithuanians.

V.O.: This is despite the fact that Ukrainians made up about 16 percent of the population of the Soviet Union. In my time, in the 70s and 80s, Ukrainians made up about half. Well, those were the remnants. There were not many of those camps left, or prisoners. (...)

P.H-K.: I first met Iryna Senyk in Stanislav at the tuberculosis dispensary in 1970.

V.O.: She was arrested for the second time on November 17, 1972. That was the crackdown on the Sixtiers. While already in exile, in February 1979, she became a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.

P.H-K.: In 1970, I first met Vyacheslav Chornovil and Ivan Hel. It was at Panas Zalyvakha's place. Well, I had known Hel for a long time, because I knew his aunt, who was in a monastery, and I knew his mother and father. He was a somewhat Ukrainianized German named Andriy. Chornovil came with Hel to a baptism, to have Chornovil be the godfather. I ask: “Are you baptized?” “Well, no.” “So—you're not baptized, but you want to be a godfather?” “Well, you know, I would like to be baptized.” I say: “Alright, Mr. Slavko. I have nothing against it. In fact, it should be done. But sort out your family situation somehow. There's one wife, a second wife... Sort it out somehow.” He fell silent and that was that. And then he went to Romaniuk and was baptized by him.

V.O.: And you knew Vasyl Romaniuk as well?

P.H-K.: I knew him well too. He was a simple village boy when he was imprisoned in forty-something for nationalism, because, you know, it was very easy in our parts. Everyone was somehow connected to the underground. He was tried as a minor, so his sentence was reduced.

V.O.: He was imprisoned in 1944 for 20 years. They held him somewhere in the Poltava region. But in 1946, in the camp, he was sentenced a second time for “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.” He served his time in the Magadan Oblast and was released in 1958. Then he was arrested again in January 1972. In total, he was imprisoned for about twenty years.

P.H-K.: When he was released from the camp, he went to the Bishop of Stanislav. He worked for him for about a year. I don't know in what capacity, whether as a cell-attendant or what.

That bishop (we called him Kazo, his name was Kazymyr) didn't have a good reputation. Why was he made a bishop? Bishop Khomyshyn didn't want to ordain him for a long time. Through the efforts of influential people, he finally did. He made him a catechist in the gymnasium where the Basilian nuns taught. But they noticed something about him there related to sex, some abnormality, so they sent him as a laborer to Sniatyn. He was a laborer for Oranchuk (?). Later, in 1942 or 1943, near Yaremche, our partisans defeated Kovpak's partisans. They were fleeing back. And he, somewhere in Sniatyn, hid two wounded Kovpakites, so he had some credit with the KGB. When Pyliavetskyi was poisoned, he was supposedly elected bishop here. Forty priests signed a statement that he was a homosexual, that he was not fit to be a bishop. Moscow sent those letters to him, but replied to the priests that he could be a bishop. So it was he who ordained Romaniuk as a priest.

Vasyl Romaniuk worked in Kosmach. As a priest, he worked well, I can't say anything bad. But then he got involved with Valentyn Moroz. That was the reason for a search. It's easy to find something at a priest's house. Some book or something.

I knew Vasyl Romaniuk's wife, I helped her, and I helped their son Taras with whatever I could. She had a stomach ulcer. And she decided to treat it with fasting. There is such a method. I can't say it's bad, but cases of death do occur. I didn't advise her to treat herself that way. I said: “Treat it with conservative methods. Find a good doctor.” But she found some Russian woman who treated her with fasting. On the twelfth or thirteenth day, she died.

And after that, I saw Romaniuk when I was inspecting the tuberculosis dispensary in Kosiv, and in the district hospital, I was inspecting the laboratory diagnostics. He was working as a swineherd then. You know, to see him carrying those pails of slop—it was a dreadful sight. You could talk with him about anything; he was a wise man. He was a simple sort, he didn't have much education. Maybe they taught him a little in Canada. But what happened to him there, I don't know. As they say, some kind of accident happened to him.

V.O.: There is something dark about the circumstances of his death. On the morning of July 14, 1995, he was at the Shevchenko Museum, he had just blessed an exhibition by the Uzhhorod artist Stepan Usenko, and around noon, he received a phone call. Some woman wanted to meet him. He arranged to meet her in a park, not far from the Shevchenko monument. He was seen sitting on a bench with her, talking. A novice was with him—he sent him away. So they were talking there, he died there, and the woman disappeared, and no one knows who she is.

P.H-K.: And it wasn't even noticeable after the autopsy.

V.O.: Obviously, something is being concealed. I believe several former political prisoners were eliminated in this way. There's no question about Ivan Svitlychnyi—he was infected with jaundice. There's this with Romaniuk. With Chornovil—a car crash. Zinoviy Krasivskyi died mysteriously. Yaroslav Lesiv died in a car.

P.H-K.: Lesiv was very close to me because I worked in Hoshiv, and he lived in Bolekhiv. Sometimes he would come to me, and we would have long conversations. But when he returned from the camp (Lesiv was released on 03.29.1973 and 11.15.1986), he immediately said: “I want to be a priest.” “That's good, but you have to study.” “I want to be one now.” “But it can't be done just like that.” “Give me some literature.” I gave him some. You know, I had just translated from Polish into Ukrainian “Theology for Beginners” by the American scholar Sheed, it was a manuscript. It was accessible theology. He took it. Two weeks later, I was summoned to the KGB and they chewed me out for preparing him to be a priest, for giving him literature, and so on. When I told Lesiv about this, he said: “Ah, what do you have to be afraid of? Don't be afraid of that. If we are not afraid of it, why should you be afraid?” The second time he comes with Chornovil. He says: “You know what? We've come to you for help.” I say: “I'll help with what I can.” He says: “We've already published two issues of the ‘Ukrainian Herald.’ We have two more ready, but we don't have money to buy paper.” I had eight hundred rubles. I took out the money and gave it to them. And, you know, exactly two weeks later, I was summoned and chewed out so badly in Stanislav that I didn't know how to get out of that KGB building. And I decided: that's it! I don't want to have anything to do with this.

V.O.: Strange things!

P.H-K.: I guessed that the KGB had “bugs” everywhere, they planted them. And when they got together, they would argue among themselves, there was all sorts of stuff. Well, if something is being done secretly, let's do it secretly!

V.O.: That was a time when they were acting semi-legally. That was 1987, '88, '89—more and more freedoms were appearing and less and less fear. What could they do then? They could beat you, take something away, they could give you 15 days, but they were no longer imprisoning people for long terms.

P.H-K.: I also had this experience. About four times, some Chekists came to me to get me to agree to cooperate with them, and they would ordain me as a bishop. You know, it drove me crazy, as we say. Well, who is going to ordain me? Are you going to ordain me, or what?

V.O.: In Russia, the state has controlled the Church since the time of Peter I, so they wanted to remain the guiding force and determine personnel policy.

P.H-K.: They have their agents in the Church.

V.O.: Of course. Where would they have gone? They all remained.

P.H-K.: Yes, the Moscow agency is in our Church. I can say that boldly. For instance, they are convening a diocesan (?) synod. I am a delegate to it, so I will say that there are still KGB collaborators in our Church.

For instance, that Datsko is gone. He was involved in selling children. Do you know about that scandal?

V.O.: Is that the Lviv case? Yes, yes.

P.H-K.: He was mostly looking for buyers in the West. And it went through Yur. He compromised the Church so much with that! Who needed that?

Now Husar has become Metropolitan. I organized a society here, a brotherhood of men (there are thirty-eight men), and wrote a statute for that brotherhood. Because every church has some kind of brotherhood. There are sisterhoods, and there are men's groups. But they are without a statute, without anything, just on their own. So I wrote a statute. I gave one copy to Bishop Voronovskyi here. Two years have passed—nothing, absolutely nothing! So I decided to give it to Khuzia Roman (?). He promised to review it. He treats me well. But a year and a half has passed, and it's impossible to get to him. There's a certain Mrs. Aniuta sitting there, and she lets absolutely no one see him: either he's sick or abroad.

You know, someone needs to compromise our Church before the Universal Church, and to compromise our hierarchs and clergy before the people. And they are succeeding very well at it!

V.O.: They find the weak spots in our people, they bet on them and successfully destroy everything that can be destroyed.

P.H-K.: Yes, for example, the married clergy. Bishop Khomyshyn, Bishop Kotselovskyi had introduced the unmarried clergy—those priests who were to be completely dedicated to the service of God, the Church, and the people. Well, the bishop was arrested. The Moscow church allowed them to marry. Now our Church has been restored, and they didn't want to restore celibacy; they allowed married men to serve. But I see it this way: they are craftsmen, not priests. In first place is the car, the house, the children, the wife. And the people and the Church are in last place. This is a stain on our clergy.

Why, look, are the Poles coming here? They already know the Ukrainian language, they know the customs, they don't ask for jurisdiction, they just go and work. Eastern Ukraine was initially besieged. Why not send priests to Eastern Ukraine? “We don't have jurisdiction, there's no permission.”

V.O.: And the Poles are building Roman Catholic churches in Ukraine.

P.H-K.: They are renovating their old ones. They are seizing their old churches and renovating them.

V.O.: That's a kind of expansion. I'm from Zhytomyrshchyna myself. We used to have quite a few Poles—in Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, and Zhytomyr regions. They are working very intensively in this belt: restoring old churches, building new ones, and then they'll say that where our churches are—that's our land. Right?

P.H-K.: Yes, yes. But there are some among them like, for example, Bishop Padevskyi. He is the Archbishop of Lviv. He has accepted Ukrainian citizenship, speaks Ukrainian beautifully. Once I needed to go to the pharmacy, and the medicine was supposed to be ready at two o'clock. I had to wait until two. I had nowhere to go, so I went into the Polish cathedral, listened to the service. Two of them were celebrating—the bishop and another priest. I know Polish well because I graduated from a Polish gymnasium. And at the end, there was a prayer for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. I was stunned by that!

V.O.: By doing that, they win people over.

P.H-K.: Yes. The son of our committee chairman, who is studying by correspondence in Mykolaiv, is already in his third year. There is no Greek Catholic church there, so he goes to the Roman Catholic church. He says that the service there is held in four languages: Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and German.

V.O.: In the center of Kyiv, there is also a huge church where services are held in several languages, including Ukrainian. That's the Polish St. Nicholas Cathedral.

P.H-K.: Now in Lviv, there is a publishing house called “Dobra Knyzhka” (Good Book). The Poles there publish a ton of books in Ukrainian. And now they have been given the task of translating the “Breviary” and the “Trebnyk” (Book of Needs) from Latin and Polish into Ukrainian at that publishing house. You know, in time they will flood everything with this, and I don't know if it will be good for everyone to be Roman Catholic.

L. Starosolskyi: It won't be good! They are conducting a powerful campaign.

V.O.: And a good half of Ukraine prays in Russian churches, of course, for the Moscow patriarch, and accordingly for the government and army. The one that is fighting against Chechnya. And our President goes there. I don't know if he prays, but he goes to the Moscow church for ceremonies.

P.H-K.: At that inauguration, when he took the oath, Sabodan was the first one to speak.

V.O.: Sabodan, yes. One of the wise Western Europeans said that a Ukrainian state cannot arise as long as half the nation prays not for its own state, but for a foreign one.

P.H-K.: Some of our people from the brotherhood wrote a letter to the President, saying that the church is falling apart and needs repairs, asking for something for the repairs. For a long time, there was no answer. And then there was a notification that they had sent it to the regional executive committee. We went there. They say that a month ago they sent it to the district center, to Drohobych. In Drohobych: “There was, there was something somewhere.” And so it all disappeared.

L. Starosolskyi: They say, write to the President, and the President will send it to Lviv, and Lviv will send it to the district, and the district will say: sort it out locally. And here they'll say we have no funds, we can't do anything.

P.H-K.: This is an old Bolshevik practice.

V.O.: Alright. Perhaps you need to be going now? We sincerely thank you for this conversation.

P.H-K.: You're welcome. You know, it was so unexpected. If I had prepared a little, I could have told more.

V.O.: It's all fine. Thank you! We will transcribe this conversation. When it is transcribed, we will send it to you to correct any mistakes. And we will compile the biographical note for the Dictionary of the Resistance Movement ourselves and also give it to you to correct. There is hope to publish such a Dictionary, and someday, the autobiographical stories of former political prisoners. With photographs. I have a camera and would like to take your picture. May I?

P.H-K.: That could be done. I only have this one picture.

V.O.: If I may take it, I won't refuse.

This was Father Petro-Yosafat Heryliuk-Kupchynskyi. The city of Sambir, January 31, 2000.