UKRAINE: IN THE MIDDLE OF ODESA, A PRESBYTERIAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIEV 000583

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/14/2016
TAGS: PHUM
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: IN THE MIDDLE OF ODESA, A PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH

REF: A. KIEV 578


B. 05 KIEV 1712

C. 05 KIEV 1794

Classified By: Ambassador for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

Summary
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1. (C) Two leaders of Odesa's small Presbyterian community
asserted to us February 8 that the local actors guild had
enlisted political help in an effort to seize the city's
historic Presbyterian church. The actors wanted to turn the
church, which has just gone through a 1.2 million USD
renovation, into a private theater, according to our
contacts. After filing a lawsuit challenging the
Presbyterian community's claim to the property, the guild
allegedly paid bribes to Mayor Hurvits and M.P. Les Tanyuk to
influence the court's handling of the case and produce a
"favorable" verdict. The guild has also been aided by the
local head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow
Patriarchate (UOC-MP),who reportedly chastised Hurvits for
"allowing Protestants to have a church right in the middle of
Odesa." While characterizing themselves as supporters of the
Orange Revolution, our interlocutors expressed disappointment
that under President Yushchenko their church's situation had
not improved. End summary.

Property Restitution "Success Story" Gone Bad
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2. (SBU) The leader of Odesa's small Presbyterian community,
Pastor Valeriy Babuinin, and the director of the Odesa-based
Evangelical Reformed Seminary of Ukraine, Dr. Clay
Quarterman, told us February 8 that the municipal actors
guild was enlisting political help to seize the historic
Odesa Presbyterian Church. The church, which was built in
1896, confiscated during the Soviet era, and then legally
restituted to Odesa's Presbyterian community in 1999, has
just undergone a five-year, 1.2 million USD renovation,
transforming it from a dilapidated, graffiti-covered homeless
hangout into a modern church building with a state-of-the-art
pipe organ.

Actors Get Help from the Mayor, an MP...
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3. (C) Our contacts asserted that, once the renovations were
completed, the Odesa Actors Guild filed a lawsuit challenging
the Presbyterian church's right to the property; guild
members also began "squatting" in the church's first-floor
office space in an apparent effort to establish a claim to
ownership. Babuinin related that the Actors Guild wanted to
turn the renovated facility into a private, for-profit
theater. To achieve that goal, the pastor claimed, the guild
had paid significant bribes to Odesa Mayor Eduard Hurvits and
M.P. Les Tanyuk, a famous actor who serves as the head of the
Rada's Committee on Culture and Spirituality, to favorably
"influence" the local court's handling of the case. Our
contacts speculated that Hurvits and Tanyuk may have been
promised a percentage of the future theater's receipts in
exchange for their "assistance." The trial is currently
postponed, with no trial date set.

...And the Moscow Patriarchate
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4. (C) The guild has also reportedly enlisted Metropolitan
Angafangel, the local leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church-Moscow Patriarchate (the local name for the Russian
Orthodox Church),to support the eviction of the
Presbyterians from the church. According to Quarterman and
Babuinin, Angafangel recently paid a call on Mayor Hurvits,
during which he allegedly berated Hurvits for "allowing
Protestants to have a church right in the middle of Odesa."
With Angafangel's blessing, the guild also used Odesa's
vociferously pro-Russian media to slander the Presbyterian
church, Babuinin said. Media outlets refused to allow the
Presbyterians to respond, the pastor added. While describing
themselves as supporters of the 2004 Orange Revolution, our
contacts nonetheless criticized President Yushchenko.
Echoing similar comments by Odesa's Roman Catholic Bishop
(ref A),Pastor Babuinin said in the last 12 months "things
have gotten worse for us."

Comment
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5. (C) We would note that while the situation for minority
religious groups in Odesa is troubling, it is not
representative of the country as a whole. From Czarist
times, Odesa has been an unruly, crime-ridden port that, as a
city, has set hair-raising standards for corruption and
mismanagement (refs B-C). What is happening to Presbyterians
in Odesa, as well as Roman Catholics, may be an unintended
consequence of Yushchenko's April 2005 decision to abolish
the State Committee on Religious Affairs (SCRA). While badly
flawed and widely criticized, the SCRA did help protect the
interests of minority religious groups in Ukraine. Despite
our contacts' disappointment that their situation may have
worsened in the last year, blame for their worsening
predicament should not be laid at the feet of the central
government in Kiev, but rather to apparent UOC-MP hostility
to the presence of other churches.
HERBST