Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox in USA Commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day
16.04.2007, [11:39] // Digest //
Friday, 13 April 2007, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the US
The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) issued its annual statement regarding Holocaust Memorial Day, Saturday 15 April 2007. It called on God's children, regardless of faith or denomination, to reflect on one of the most tragic and gruesome events in human history. UAOC Church leaders directed its priests, bishops and faithful throughout the Diaspora to remember the victims in prayers over the weekend.
"Jewish sisters and brothers were abused, tortured and murdered during the Nazi Holocaust," said Bishop Paul Peter Jesep, Director of Public Affairs in the United States, who serves as spokesperson by Appointment of His Beatitude Metropolitan Myfodii of Kyiv and All Ukraine for the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Ukraine's third largest Orthodox Church.
"This crime against humanity is one of history's darkest periods," Bishop Jesep said. "Those murdered must be remembered in our prayers, in our hearts and in our consciences as part of the universal family to which we all belong."
Bishop Jesep said, "Other family members like Gypsies, Communists, the disabled, Slavic gentiles, political mavericks, gays and lesbians, Christian pastors and priests, and uncategorized souls who thought outside the social, cultural and political box were calculatingly and maliciously murdered in the camps as well."
"Holocaust Memorial Day is about one family under the same God," Bishop Jesep said. "Sadly, after the fall of Nazism the world still experienced atrocities in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and Cambodia. And in Ukraine we remember the artificial-famine of the Holodomor. As one, united family we must fight bigotry and racism. An attack against one member is an attack against all of us. It is one of the timeless reminders of Holocaust Memorial Day."
"President Viktor Yushchenko should especially be applauded for his efforts to criminalize those who deny the genocide of the Holocaust and Holodomor," he added. "This weekend is a time of reflection as to what it means to be part of God's family."
Bishop Paul Peter Jesep
By Appointment of His Beatitude Metropolitan Myfodii of Kyiv and All Ukraine
Director of Public Affairs in the United States
