Lviv regional board restores UGCC temple where OUN leader’s ancestor served

The head of the Lviv Regional State Administration Maksim Kozitsky (right) received a letter of gratitude from the UGCC. Photo: loda.gov.ua

On December 7, 2021, the head of the Lviv Regional State Administration Maksim Kozitsky took part in a prayer service at the UGCC church in the village of Cherepin, which had been restored with the financial support of the regional council, where the grandfather of one of the leaders of the OUN Yevhen Konovalets was a priest, the official website of the Lviv Regional State Administration reports.

After the prayer service with the Uniates, Kozitsky recalled that this year marks the 130th anniversary of Konovalets, and also said that the spirit of those who stood during the formation of the Ukrainian state “hovers in the church”. “Today, in this place, where the spirit of those who stood during the formation of the Ukrainian state, we prayed for the craftsmen, restorers, villagers, as well as our soldiers – and those who forged statehood at the beginning of the 20th century,” stressed Maxim Kozitsky.

The official supported the allocation of 800 thousand UAH from the budget of the Lviv region for the temple and said that it is necessary to take care of the old churches, which testify to the Ukrainians being an ancient nation. “We must understand: our heritage is proof that we are an ancient nation, with a huge and outstanding cultural potential, with an age-old heritage. Legacy is also a factor in our security,” the head of the Regional State Administration said.

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was created in 1929, and Yevhen Konovalets became its first head. The organization chose terror and sabotage as the key tools of the struggle to achieve its goals. During the Great Patriotic War, members of the OUN entered the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), whose units carried out ethnic cleansing against the Polish population, attacked individual units of German troops, Polish and Soviet partisan detachments.

Other members of the OUN took part in the formation of the 14th SS Grenadier Division "Galicia". The Nuremberg Tribunal recognized the SS Galizien division alongside other SS divisions as a criminal organization that committed war crimes. In 2016, the Polish parliament qualified the crimes of the division's soldiers against the Polish population as genocide.

As reported by the UOJ, the Ternopil Regional Council called for the creation of a pantheon-mausoleum in Kyiv, where the remains of the OUN leaders would be reburied.

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