On November 27, in the headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Stauropegion in Ukraine, St. Andrew’s Church, Bishop Michael of Koman (Anishchenko) led a memorial service for all innocent victims murdered by the godless government through the artificial Holodomor in 1932-1933. The exarch voiced a prayer for all those starved to death, in which he asked the Lord to accept as martyrdom their pain and tears, and to cleanse all the living from indifference and cruelty, hatred and intolerance.
This was reported by the Stauropegion Mission of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Ukraine.
After the prayer, Bishop Michael, Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Ukraine, called on believers to educate the younger generation in love for each other, never to repeat this inhuman crime, which even the beasts cannot repeat. The bishop stressed that the Holodomor was engineered and provoked by the godless Soviet authorities.
“Dear friends, today we remember, as we do annually, one of the most horrific events in the history of our people. In the last century, millions were tortured by starvation, tortured consciously and heartlessly. And when we turn to history, many are always looking for the reasons behind what happened. How could it happen that a good, pious, hard-working people, who since childhood had been accustomed to work, including on land, to hard work, suffered from such a terrible famine? And you and I find the answer to this in history, that this famine was engineered by the ungodly government. And it is probably difficult to choose a way to describe these people’s actions, which led to the deaths of millions of others. As a rule, to emphasize some very horrible act, people use the word ‘beastly.’ But it’s not even beastly in this case. Beasts don’t do that. This is simply inhuman behavior, evidence of how much hatred people had for other people, for their faith, and for life as such. You and I have read many stories about the way they could shoot to death even small children who would go out to the mown fields to collect ears of wheat to cook at least something to eat at home.”
Bishop Michael of Koman stressed that the Holodomor is a call for us to appreciate what we have as a gift from God.
“It is a mortifying event that has no justification or explanation. And this bleeding wound on the body of our people will always be there. But it’s not only a constant reminder to us of what our people have gone through, but also a call for us to appreciate what we have, that we appreciate our well-being. Some have less, some have more, but thank God we don’t starve. That we may value every day as a gift from God, and remember what happened to our people, and make every effort to ensure that this never happens again. After all, treating other people with Christian love, with Christian goodness is born in our hearts. The people who provoked the horrible deaths of millions of innocent people did not have it and the consequence was the genocide of the Ukrainian people,” the exarch said during the sermon.
Bishop Michael urged everyone to try not to allow such inhuman treatment of others throughout our lives.
“Let’s raise children in believing that we must treat others with respect and love, and appreciate human life that God has given us. May this event that we remember today teach us to be real humans, and then, once we learn to be human, we can learn to be worthy Christians. ”
“May the Lord rest the souls of his dead slaves, innocently tortured by the Holodomor, by the godless government, help us value our own lives, help us raise our children in love, and never forget this difficult event in the history of our people. Amen,” Bishop Michael concluded.
