In anticipation of Christmas, the administration of the Ukrainian Catholic University called on the students and the whole university community to remove from the Nativity plays the established stereotypes of the image of the “usurer Jew” as the source of evil.
In anticipation of Christmas, the administration of the Ukrainian Catholic University called on the students and the whole university community to remove from the Nativity plays the established stereotypes of the image of the “usurer Jew” as the source of evil and to find a modern personified image of usury, love of money, corruption, bribery and falseness. This has been defined by the university administration as the “spiritual task” for the community of UCU for the time of this Christmas fast in a special address.
“We cannot deny the historic fact that the image of the 'Jew' was traditional for the Ukrainian Nativity plays. Moreover, this character, as well as other negative characters, such as Herod and Death, was played with enthusiasm, humor and with putting one's soul into the play. In this way, the people presented the dichotomy of good and evil in the baroque manner. This layer of the Ukrainian folk culture shows that in certain ages, the social calamities of the Ukrainian nation were associated with the Jews (and, by the way, vice versa)… the notions of the 'Jew' and 'Goi' were based on their inter-group taboos,” reads the address.
According to the address, no human culture has a monopoly of virtues or vice. The DNA of all people are similar in nature. There is no gene of falseness or goodness. The authors of the address stress that the Jews in history were not only money-changers, traders and usurers. The apostles, members of the oldest Christian community and nearly all the authors of the New Testament were Jews. The modern expressions of evil are diverse and universal and, as the document stresses, "to reduce all this diversity to the triad of the traditional Nativity play (Herod-Death-Jew), particularly, to the archaic figure of the 'Jew' would mean that we cannot see some colors of our changing colorful world like daltonians."
The university administration proposed to reconceptualize the genesis of evil in the Nativity play.
The address was signed by the Rector of UCU Fr. Borys Gudziak, head of the Spiritual and Pastoral Department Yurii Shchurko, and Vice Rector Myroslav Marynovych.