Communist secret service of Ukraine, Keston News Service (KNS) reported Tuesday September 17.
"They were outside my gate always in the same vehicle and followed me when I went to the church," said a foreign pastor who currently leads a Protestant church in the ex-Soviet republic.
The country’s SBU, successor of the Soviet-era KGB, was also monitoring other church leaders, said the pastor on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. "They just want to show that they know more about you than you think," KNS quoted him as saying.
He recounted the experience of another foreign Protestant working elsewhere in Ukraine. When the Protestant went to renew his residence permit at the visa and registration office (OVIR), officials brought out a large file with print-outs of all his emails and questioned him on statements he had made in them.
FOREIGNERS WATCHED
"Where did the OVIR get these? They have no capacity or ability to monitor emails. It could only have come from the SBU," the pastor told Keston. "They’re right to watch foreigners, but this was beyond the call of duty," he said.
An official of the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) was quoted as saying that a Greek Catholic priest from eastern Ukraine was the latest to mention regular visits by the SBU.
"There certainly seems to be increased interest on the part of the SBU in what Catholic priests know and do," said the official speaking from ACN’s German office. He added that the SBU is interested in the general political mood of the population, and how both Greek- and Latin-rite clergy relate to their faithful.
KNOCK ON DOORS
In addition SBU officials apparently want to know what priests have discussed among themselves. "They knock on the door, introduce themselves as being from the secret police and start asking questions," the official quoted the visiting priest as saying.
However the Vatican nuncio in Kiev, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, did not appear worried about the apparent SBU questioning of Catholic priests.
"I have not especially noticed that it has increased," he said. Greek Catholic Bishop Yulian Boronovskyi of Sambir-Drohobych reportedly told the SBU not to question Catholic priests and not to expect them to cooperate as it "is forbidden under Church law."
The chief press officer of the SBU denied that any Catholic priests were being questioned. "The SBU doesn’t interfere in religious questions or the life of churches," said Oleksandr Skrupnyk.
SBU IN CHURCHES
However church officials have said that the SBU has intervened in church decisions. The SBU lobbied successfully among bishops, priests and laypeople of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church to prevent a United States citizen from becoming head of the Church in 2000.
Metropolitan Constantine Buggan, a Ukrainian bishop in North America under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, was disliked by the SBU, which proposed the positions of spiritual leader of the Church and its chairman.
Elected as the Church’s spiritual leader was Metropolitan Mefodi Kudryakov, whose father had reportedly been an officer of the Ukraine’s the Stalin-era KGB in western Ukraine, KNS said. The latest SBU activities come amidst political turmoil and growing pressure on President Leonid Kuchma to resign.
LARGE DEMONSTRATIONS
On Monday, September 16, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Kiev and other cities to demonstrate for more human rights as well as to honor Ukrainian journalist Georgy Gongadze whose death triggered a political crisis two years ago.
His beheaded and acid-laced body was found a few weeks later. 12 journalists had died unnaturally before him, the British Broadcasting Corporation said.
Some experts and opposition leaders have suggested that audio tapes with allegedly Kuchma’s voice show that the President was involved in the murder of the opposition reporter.
AUTOCRATIC STYLE
Kuchma has denied the allegations. However human rights workers have expressed concern about his autocratic style and the judicial system in Ukraine, which some observers described as among the most corrupt country’s of the world.
The people in Ukraine did not seen much of Monday’s pro-democracy demonstrations: several tv networks went off the air because of what authorities described as "maintenance work at the transmitters."
