Memorial Plaque to Josyf Slipyj Dismantled in Kharkiv

In Kharkiv, a memorial plaque in honor of Patriarch Josyf Slipyj, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, on a former deportation prison was dismantled. 

The plaque, which reported that the persecuted Greek Catholic patriarch was transfered from the Kharkiv prison to the Gulag in 1961. Remarkably, now the Leninsky police station is located in the former prison known as the Kharkiv Prison Castle. The guards, however, say that they did not notice anyone take the plaque.

"We live in Ukraine, which has condemned Stalin's repressive machine, but still there are people who have great influence on the authorities and doing everything possible to erase this memory," commented Bishop Stephen (Meniok), Exarch of the Donetsk-Kharkiv Eparchy.

"We will fight legally, but there is also a higher court – the Court of God. We are religious people, we are not proponents of violence, and eventually pay the entire sentence into the hands of just Judge – God," said the hierarch in his message and appeals to the perpetrators with these words "Having removed the table, you still can not erase the memory of the martyrs because their names are written in the Book of Life. And where your names will be recorded?"