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The area of eternity and holiness: The struggle of anti-fascists with fascists
Views:Is it appropriate and generally applicable in the field of eternity and holiness to compare such earthly concepts as a person’s political views? Can saints have different ideological views? And where is the line between religious manipulation within the framework of today’s “political expediency” and the actual, real holiness of a person, manifested in difficult historical circumstances?
Vivid examples for comparison in the disclosure of these issues are two compatriots of Transcarpathian Rus (in the local dialect of Rusyns, Subcarpathian Rus, Siberian Rus, that is, Silver Rus, or, in other words, Ugric Rus). They lived at the same time and in the same territory, both were of the same nationality, and both, upon their death, were canonized in their respective confessions.
The first of them is Saint Alexy (Kabalyuk) of Carpatho-Russia, canonized by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP). A church that is an inseparable part of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (ROC MP).
The second is Bishop Theodore (Romzha), who recently became a saint of the Rusyn Greek Catholic Church and beatified (canonized) in the UGCC. Church, which is an inseparable part of the Roman Catholic Church.
To be fair, it is worth noting that the UGCC in the Vatican is called not the same as in Ukraine, but the “Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Eastern Rite.” There is a significant difference in this, emphasizing that the so-called UGCC is neither a local, nor an autocephalous, nor even an autonomous Church in its governance, as its hierarchs falsely tell their flock and as they claim in the Ukrainian information space. Moreover, in the Transcarpathian region, the Rusyn Uniates are not subordinate to the head of the Ukrainian Bandero-Uniates, Svyatoslav (Shevchuk), i.e. The UGCC, and directly to Rome, have a separate governing bishop and are included as a separate Church (like the Mukachevo Rusyn Diocese) in the congregation of the Eastern Churches. If in the UGCC the liturgical language is Ukrainian Surzhik, then among the Greek Catholic Rusyns of the Mukachevo diocese it is Church Slavonic.
To present a general ideological picture, it is necessary to mention that the junction zones between the Roman Patriarchate and the Orthodox Patriarchates after the great schism more than once became a place of discord, ethnic and religious wars.
Transcarpathian Rus' (Silver Rus'), within the current territory of the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, became an island with an overwhelming Ruthenian Orthodox population, surrounded by a Catholic population. And those people whom we will talk about found themselves, one might say, on opposite sides of the barricade.
Here are some facts from their lives.
Origin, education, personality formation
Alexander Kabalyuk (hereinafter A.K.) was born in 1877 in the village of Yasinya near Rakhiv into a Uniate Rusyn family of a lumberjack. He graduated from a parochial school and entered a Greek Catholic monastery as a novice. But from childhood his soul strove for the Orthodox faith. Communication with Orthodox people and visits to great shrines in Kyiv, Pochaev, Palestine, and Mount Athos played a big role in the development of his interest in Orthodoxy. Since 1905, Alexander was fired up with sincere faith and began to preach Orthodoxy among the Rusyns.
Archimandrite Alexey (Kabalyuk)
Georgy Feodor (Theodore) Romzha (hereinafter F.R.) was born in 1911 in the village of Nadbochko, into a Uniate Ruthenian large family of employees. He graduated from a public school in his native village, a gymnasium in the city of Khust, and the philosophical and theological faculties of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome (with the result: great honor). While studying at the university, he first studied at the Germanicum-Hungaricum Collegium, and then at the Russicum Collegium. Knew several languages. I really wanted to be a missionary in Russia.
From this comparison of the biographies of the two saints, the following conclusions can be drawn.
AK lived in a Uniate environment, among the common people. The Russophilia of the Rusyns and visits to Orthodox shrines greatly influenced the change in his worldview. He received a primary education, at that time, and became acquainted with the basics of asceticism in a small rural Uniate monastery, which means he knew the life, moods, and problems of the Rusyns from the very bottom. A zealous Orthodox believer, he wanted to help his people get rid of Catholic oppression, assimilation and genocide.
F.R., Born into a Uniate family, he lived among the Austrian Czech and Hungarian Uniate intelligentsia, where Russophobic sentiments prevailed. He received an excellent secular and theological education. Roman universities (Gregorian and Russicum) specialized precisely in Uniate churches, in which the Russophobic ideology of Roman expansion dominates. The Vatican created in the person of this zealous Catholic a powerful machine for the expansion of Rome to the East.
(photo by Bishop Romzha on skis)
Compatriots and eyewitnesses of the activities of F.R. They say the following about him. He was a very modern person for that time: he loved modern music, fishing, loved to play football, ski and bike, and with the advent of radio he also became a radio amateur. Even after becoming a bishop, he continued to smoke fashionable cigarettes and dance. These elements of Catholic “holiness”, which do not correspond to the etiquette of the episcopate, have not yet had time to be cleaned up in the memories of eyewitnesses, as they did in the official “life”.
Conditions of pastoral service. Historical background
A.K.: B In 1909, another secret congress of Orthodox Rusyns took place in Khust. At that time, a very difficult religious situation arose in the region; precedents arose for the conversion of peasants in several villages to Orthodoxy. Despite the pressure exerted on the Rusyns by the Austrian (and later Czech) authorities, on the trials, the loudest of which in Carpathian Rus' at that time was first Marmaros-Sigot trial 1904 years, - even despite the terror and genocide emanating from Catholics, the number of Orthodox believers among the Rusyns increased.
In March 1910, in the Yablochinsky Monastery (now located in Poland), Alexander Kabalyuk was tonsured a monk with the name Alexy, four months later he was ordained a hierodeacon, and a month later - a hieromonk. He then went to Constantinople, where he had a meeting with the Patriarch of Constantinople.
(Terezin concentration camp; murder of Rusyns - examples of Uniate “holiness”)
In 1911 Fr. Alexy began serving in the house church in the village of Yasini. Not wanting to burden the parishioners, he worked as a simple grinder. Due to persecution, he had to leave for the United States. But in 1913, when Hieromonk Alexy learned about the trial against Orthodox Ruthenian peasants accused of high treason (in which he himself was the main accused), then decided to return to his homeland to his people, and voluntarily surrendered to the court. O. Alexy was sentenced to four years and six months in prison and a fine of 100 crowns. The process caused a great resonance throughout the Slavic world, especially in Russia. At the end of it, Emperor Nicholas II bestowed a golden altar cross on Hieromonk Alexy.
August 17, 1921 Fr. Alexy was elected abbot of the St. Nicholas Monastery in Iza. In 1925 he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite.
F.R.: In 1936, Fyodor Romzha was ordained a priest in Rome. After returning home, he is mobilized and becomes a cadet at the Prague Military School. And then - please pay attention to this - he committed an act of Catholic “holiness” that you will not find in his cleaned up “life”.
In the memoirs of Pavel Sudoplatov, who led the 4th (reconnaissance and sabotage) directorate of the NKVD-NKGB during the Great Patriotic War, given in the book “Intelligence and the Kremlin. Memoirs of a Dangerous Witness”, it is indicated that “The Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia signed a secret agreement on intelligence cooperation in 1935. It was under this agreement that intelligence collected by Czech intelligence was provided to the USSR. Thanks to them, it became known that Feodor Romza worked for the intelligence of the Czech Republic and the Vatican, and since 1944 he established contact with British intelligence, with its representative Colonel Frantisek Hajek (a former intelligence officer of Czechoslovakia, who later also worked for US intelligence).” I would like to remind you that during the Great Patriotic War, Vatican intelligence fully cooperated with Hitler. The Vatican worked against the USSR.
(Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov - Soviet intelligence officer, saboteur, employee of the OGPU (later NKVD - NKGB), 1953 - Lieutenant General of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.)
In 1938–39, the Nazis, by agreement, gave Subcarpathian Rus' to Hungary. Everything that was Russian and connected people with Russia was destroyed by the Hungarian gendarmes. A concentration camp was created for the Rusyns in Rakhiv, where the guards and executioners were the Galician Uniate “Sich Riflemen.”
From September 1939 to 1944, Romzha served as a professor of philosophy and confessor at the Uzhgorod Theological Seminary, where he was appointed by the ruling bishop Alexander (Stoika).
The “life of the saint” describes how, as a confessor at the Uzhgorod seminary, and then as a bishop, he made missionary trips throughout Transcarpathian Rus', keeping the people from converting to Orthodoxy.
During these visits, the “missionaries” closed houses of worship, carried out lawless trials of peasants (Russophile Uniates) and Orthodox Christians, who were imprisoned; The clergy of the GCC, in order to intimidate the flock, took part in public torture and mockery of apostates of the faith for the sake of the Holy Catholic Church.
(Greek Catholic icon of the “saint” Bishop Theodore Romzha)
When Romzha became a bishop, he personally threatened the pastors of the GCC, in case of indulging in the “temptations of Satan” and converting to Orthodoxy, with defrocking and excommunication from the Church. Moreover, these threats were accompanied by pressure from the authorities and physical reprisals against those who disobeyed.
Community service. Reasons for canonization
A.K.: In 1921, Father Alexy opened the Cathedral Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church, which existed autonomously as part of Serbian Orthodox Church, which attracted about four hundred delegates.
В 1944 year the confessor initiated the organization of the Orthodox Congress in Mukachevo. Its delegates drew up an appeal addressed to I.V. Stalin, in which they asked to include Carpathian Rus' into the Soviet Union as an independent republic. In addition, 23 priests who participated in the congress signed an appeal to the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church with a request to transfer the Mukachevo-Pryashevsky diocese to the Moscow Patriarchate.
The Carpathian Russian Church was preserved from schism and defended against the claims of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, but the problem of its division was finally resolved only in 1946, when Father Alexy led the movement for its annexation to the Russian Orthodox Church, which was crowned with success.
After the annexation of Subcarpathian Rus' to the Ukrainian SSR, its part - Pryashevskaya Rus', remained part of the Czech Republic (Slovakia). In the USSR, the Carpatho-Russians were forcibly Ukrainized, and “Ukrainian” was mandatory on their passports. The persecution of the Rusyn Uniate clergy that followed the ban of the Greek Catholic Church also affected Orthodox Rusyns. Many churches, hermitages and monasteries were closed and their property was looted, as was the case in Russia after the revolution.
(icon of St. Alexei of Carpatho-Russia)
Archimandrite Alexy died on December 2, 1947, having accepted the schema. He was buried in the brotherly cemetery of the St. Nicholas Monastery in Iza. In 1999, the practically incorrupt relics of Schema-Archimandrite Alexy were discovered, and on October 21, 2001, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine Vladimir (Sabodan) glorified him as a saint at the St. Nicholas Monastery of Iza.
F.R.: Let us give a brief chronology of the evolution of the heroic and “patriotic” service of this “holy” man.
1930-39, under Austria-Hungary. Pro-Austro-Hungarian political position; approves of the assimilation of Rusyns and Russophobia, the genocide of Russophiles, supports the persecution of the Orthodox Church. Together with his bishop, he takes part in the persecution of Ukrainophiles, as well as the Greek Catholic priest Fr. Augustin Voloshin (President of Transcarpathian Ukraine), information about whom he transmits to Czech intelligence.
1939-44 years. Pro-Czech position, support for persecution of Ukrainophiles and the Orthodox Church; Russophobia, work for the Vatican, Czech and British intelligence. Help for Nazi collaborators. He strongly welcomes the fascist occupation. Promotes the entry of young people into the SS division Galicia.
1944-45 years. Transition period. After the liberation of Subcarpathian Rus from the fascists, he greets Soviet troops and writes an appeal to Stalin about the annexation of Transcarpathia to Soviet Ukraine. At the same time, he continues to work for foreign intelligence services.
1945-47 years. In the Transcarpathian region, the Ukrainian SSR participates in the Bandera-fascist movement and becomes its ideologist; at the same time, he experiences a nostalgic pro-Austrian mood. Separatist and collaborator. He is engaged in anti-Soviet propaganda and continues to work for foreign intelligence services. Bandera convinced: “killing those who support Soviet power is a godly deed” (More details about this in his “life” http://bit.ly/2Ar9srh )
Conclusions:
A.K. and F.R. lived at the same time and, of course, could not help but meet. Only one of them was on the side of the executioners, and the other as a victim. Their conditions of pastoral service were different: A.K. was persecuted and shared the poverty of his people, while F.R. enjoyed all the privileges of secular and spiritual power. When persecution began against their Church, A.K. fearlessly surrenders to the court and boldly looks the enemy in the eye, without changing his position, he stands up for his flock. But the Jesuit student F.R., hating Soviet power, sings praises to “dear comrade Stalin,” as well as to the former foreign masters of the Transcarpathian land. F.R. to please the Czech authorities, he surrenders the Ukrainophile Greek Catholic priest Augustin Voloshin.
In order not to bother his flock, A.K. even worked as a grinder, while F.R. he danced, smoked fashionable cigarettes, drove an expensive car (for that time in a poor region, a car was an unprecedented luxury).
The discovered remains of A.K. completely incorrupt, and the remains of F.R. rotted along with the clothes.
Father Alexy is an ascetic monk, but at the same time a politician, a public figure, not only a spiritual, but also a national-political leader of the Carpatho-Russian people. He was a strong supporter of the idea of national unity of the Carpatho-Russians with the Russian people and the reunification of Carpathian Rus' with Russia. He fearlessly opposed the Hungarian and Czech assimilation of the people and openly opposed the fascist occupation. He provided maximum assistance in the liberation of his native land from the Nazis. He can rightfully be called a holy anti-fascist both in spirit and in deed.
Reasons for his canonization served by a holy way of life, apostolic works, Christian fearless confession, and incorruptible relics.
Greek Catholic Bishop F.R. changed his beliefs several times, with bloody consequences for his own flock, he was an executioner and persecutor of the faith, a hypocritical student of the Jesuits, who worked for three intelligence services, helped the Nazi fascists, and later became an ideologist of the Bandera region.
(“The holy” Bishop of the GCC Theodore Romzha on his deathbed, to please the Soviet regime, even shaved off his thick beard, but this did not help the fascist collaborator. Compare his iconic image with the real one)
Reasons for the canonization of F.R.:
In the Greek Catholic Ruthenian Church, Romzha is one of the first newly-minted “saints” after a four-hundred-year hiatus. His image was taken up as the banner of union (union) and great Catholic “holiness”. He is a profitable image of a “martyr”, used for manipulation against everything Russian and Orthodox, and if he did not really exist, then he had to be invented. A hastily fabricated falsification of the murderer Romzha, and now in the role of saint Romzha, was just served for the unlucky and besotted parishioners. The reason for his canonization was the need to elevate fascism to the rank of sanctity, which, like a battering ram, works against the Orthodox Church in the matter of Catholic expansion to the East.
Killed for political anti-state activities, for organizing the terrorist murder of peasants, teachers, doctors, the Vatican decided to canonize him in 2001 in connection with the arrival of Pope John Paul II to Ukraine.
In his spirit and in the meaning of his activities, Romzha is a true fascist. But now he is a saint of the Catholic Church!
Both compatriots lived in a difficult historical period, were involved in political activity, for the commoner of AK Christian ideals formed the basis of anti-fascist activity, for the student of the Jesuits of the FR, fascism is used as a method of achieving “pastoral” goals, for the sake of the “holy” Catholic Church.
In this article, I tried to clearly show the meaning, expediency and reasons for the canonization of saints in different faiths. And, it turns out, from an ideological and historical perspective, it is appropriate and necessary to talk about truly holy anti-fascists and about fake “saints” - fascists, so that the people’s memory does not weaken. What do you think, my dear friends?
DEAR READERS! The author of the article, priest Oleg Trofimov, due to religious persecution in Ukraine, is deprived of property and housing, living in Russia, he needs our help, we ask for help. Sberbank of Russia card: 5336 6900 3926 2896. Yandex wallet: 410014004754153
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