No current information on the True Orthodox Church of Ukraine that would update UKR34021.E of 27 March 2000 could be found in the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.

However, a parish of the True Orthodox Church, also known as the "Catacomb Church" was reportedly created in late 1997 in the Sumi region, northeastern Ukraine (RIPN 13 Jan. 1998). According to the Russia Intercessory Prayer Network (RIPN), immigrants from Russia living in the Lavlenka community, Yampol district, described as the centre of the True Orthodox Church, "constituted the basis of the new community" (ibid.). Given its small and variable size, the new religious community do not plan to register with the Ukrainian authorities (ibid.). While meeting the assistant director of the Sumi Region Department for Religious Affairs, the clergyman in charge of the parish stated that his parishioners would abide by the laws of Ukraine, in particular with respect to relations between the Church and the State (ibid.).

In summer 1997, approximately 40 parishes located in Russia and Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine reportedly joined the True Russian Orthodox Church (TROC) which was formally founded in May 1990 and is related to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) (East-West Church & Ministry Report, Summer 1997). The same report mentions that the Moscow Patriarchate, represented in Ukraine by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) (ibid.)., seems to view the True Orthodox Church as a "genuine threat to its authority" (ibid.). In 1996, after being refused churches or church sites in Moscow despite petitions sent to President Boris Yeltsin and Moscow Mayor Yurii Luzhkov, the True Orthodox Church asked to join the jurisdictions of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Estonian Orthodox Apostolic Church, both said to be "sympathetic" (ibid.).

The Webpage of the Russkaya Istinno-Pravoslavnaya Tserkov (Russian True Orthodox Church) provides a list of its eparchies and parishes in the Former Soviet Union. According to this list, the Russian True Orthodox Church is present in Ukraine as follows:

The Eparchy of Crimea including:

* The Autonomous Republic of Crimea consisting of the following parishes: Belogorskii raion, Golovanovka village; Kerch (1); Kerch (2); Sevastopol; Simferopol (1); Simferopol (2); Feodosiya (1); Feodosiya (2); Yalta;

* The following provinces of Ukraine: Volynskaya, Zhitomirskaya, Zakarpatskaya, Ivano-Frankovskaya, Kievskaya, Kirovogradskaya, Lvovskaya, Odesskaya, Rovenskaya, Ternopolskaya, Khmelnitskaya, Chernovitskaya and Chernigovskaya divided into the following parishes: Kiev (1); Kiev (2); Kiev (3); Odessa (1); Odessa (2); Khmelnitskaya oblast, Derazhnyanskii raion, Rassokhi village; Chernigov (Russkaya Istinno-Pravoslavnaya Tserkov n.d.a);

The Eparchy of Odessa including:

* The following Russian provinces: Belgorodskaya, Bryanskaya, Voronezhskaya, Kaluzhskaya, Kurskaya, Orlovskaya, Smolenskaya, Tambovskaya oblasti);

* The following provinces of Ukraine: Vinnitskaya, Zaporozhskaya, Luganskaya, Dnepropetrovskaya, Donetskaya, Nikolaevskaya, Odesskaya, Poltavskaya, Sumskaya, Kharkovskaya, Khersonskaya, Cherkasskaya oblasti divided into the following parishes: Luganskaya oblast, Krasnodonskii raion, Krasnodon village; Luganskaya oblast, Krasnodonskii raion, Novonnovka; Luganskaya oblast, Sukhodolsk; Nikolayev; Odessa; Odesskaya oblast; Kherson (Russkaya Istinno-Pravoslavnaya Tserkov n.d. b).

According to the RIPN, both True Orthodox Christians and "ordinary" Orthodox Christians follow the same religious ritual (13 Jan. 1998).

Following is an English translation of a text giving some historical background on the Russian True Orthodox Church:

Having assumed the post of secretary in the Higher Church Administration in 1927, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodski), under pressure from the communist authorities, made a decision to subordinate himself to the Stalinist regime in all of his activities. He took advantage of the fact that the legitimate head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Pyotr (Polyanski), was in exile (for refusing to cooperate with the opponents of God) and was unable to prevent this lawless action. Having appropriated the rights of the Patriarch, Metropolitan Sergius established an ecclesiastical administration consisting of persons holding the same views as he and, with the full support of the Bolsheviks, in fact proclaimed himself head of the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, he went as far as to place a ban on all genuine Orthodox believers, thereby causing a schism of colossal proportions.

Being unable, under conditions of persecution, to assemble a council and to censure the actions of this man, the Church was gradually forced underground.

Numerous groups of Christians formed, united around their bishop or priest. The God-resisting authorities brutally persecuted such assemblies and declared them to be counterrevolutionary organizations, with all of the serious consequences ensuing from that. The Patriarch-Confessor Tikhon foresaw the disappearance underground of the Church in Russia under conditions of persecution. He issued a special edict giving a legal foundation to the existence of parishes under conditions in which links with the central ecclesiastical authorities were lacking, and he personally performed in secret the laying on of hands to consecrate the first catacomb bishops. In the difficult period of apostasy and betrayal, all those nominated by Patriarch Tikhon as candidates for the post of Locum Tenens of the patriarchal throne in the event of his death - metropolitans Kirill (Smirnov), Agafangel (Preobrazhenski) and Pyotr (Krutitski) - and also very many other metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, priests and lay people remained firm in their Orthodox faith.

As a consequence of persecution that was unprecedented in the history of the Church, the Catacomb Church was unable to have its own central administration (despite the enormous efforts made) and was unable even to provide a subsequent generation of bishops. It was often the case that a priest, ministering to a catacomb community, would die, and the people, knowing no one else from the catacomb priesthood, would gather at his grave once every ten years on the anniversary [of his death], performing a "lay ceremony" by reading passages from the church missal. There would be cases in which one priest would be ministering to dozens of communities, travelling all over the country with ecclesiastical utensils packed into a suitcase, often not risking even to spend the night in the home of members of his loyal flock for fear of drawing suspicion upon them. Catacomb Christians were often shadowed by representatives of the legally sanctioned church - "the Moscow Patriarchate" (established by Stalin in 1943) - who, once they had detected them, denounced them there and then to the state punitive organs. Catacomb Christians were no less wary of priests belonging to the Patriarchate, who were almost all secret informants at that time, than they were of other KGB personnel.

The designation "Catacomb Church" is itself a tentative designation. [The Church] was and is also called the "Tikhonic" Church, the "Non-remembering" Church [literal translation] ([so called by] the godless authorities and their protegés) and the "True Orthodox" Church. Most of the catacomb Christians in our time have placed themselves under the canonical authority of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad as the sole canonical ecclesiastical administration of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Catacomb Church is the remnant of the loyal flock of the one and true Mother Church, which the opponents of God simply did not succeed in destroying completely in our long-suffering land.

The Catacomb Church can in some way be compared with the White movement; in neither case did a unified leadership appear. Whereas the White armies left Russia, however, the Catacomb Church remained, and the battle for Truth that it has waged in our mother country continues to this day.

The catacomb parishes that have resumed legal operation and also the newly formed parishes that have placed themselves under the authority of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad bear the designation "Russian True Orthodox Church" (RTOC) (This designation is tentative in that, until the All-Orthodox Local Council of the Russian Church [is convened], none of the parts of the Local Russian Orthodox Church that became separated under conditions of persecution can appropriate its name, as did the "Moscow Patriarchate" illegally.).

In November 1994, by a decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in the territory of the CIS, the Conference of Russian Bishops was formed and began its work. This is the canonical organ for the administration of parishes of the Russian True Orthodox Church, and it is accountable to the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

It is difficult to classify the True Orthodox Church for the reason that it did not have a centre. It is possible to speak of one or another member of a higher order of the clergy who ministered to secret parishes, about individual priests or simply about groups of Orthodox Christians who remained without clerical ministry but [whose affiliation] traces back to one or another priest or bishop. In addition, mixed in with this catacomb movement, there have been considerable numbers of outsiders establishing their own sects under the guise of the True Orthodox Church or the Catacomb Church (this, unfortunately, is actively taking place even now, examples being the True Orthodox church under the direction of Mikhal'chenkov, the group of Ambrosi (Sivers) and the True Orthodox church of the Kiev Patriarchate).

After the promulgation of the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, those who did not accept it divided, as it were, into two streams. Some categorically did not accept it from the outset and immediately began to create an organization of parishes totally separated from Metropolitan Sergius (that is to say, [they began] to create the body of the Catacomb Church), and others, having dissociated themselves from Metropolitan Sergius, adopted a wait-and-see policy - in the hope that he would repent and return to his original faith - and did not set as an objective the creation of a separate organization (the movement of "the non-remembering ones").

From the very first days after the promulgation of the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, Metropolitan Iosif (Petrovykh) set about creating the administration of a true Orthodox Church. The bishops Serafim (Samoilovich), Dimitri (Lyubimov), Sergius (Druzhinin), Pavel (Kratirov), Aleksi (Bui), Varlaam (Ryashentsev) and others were members of the administration created by Metropolitan Iosif. Eparchies and deaneries were actively created. In this way, according to documents from the investigation file, "a counterrevolutionary organization of churches, the 'True Orthodox Church', has developed an extensive network and enveloped with its branches the entire Soviet Union" including Ukraine. In the republic, there existed a rigidly structured network of groups and cells of the True Orthodox Church, directly governed by centres in Leningrad and Moscow. According to the version of the GPU [Russian acronym for the "State Political Administration", a predecessor of the KGB], this network consisted of three branches (eparchies): that of Khar'kov, with Bishop Pavel (Kratirov) at its head, that of Dnepropetrovsk, lead by Bishop Ioasaf (Popov), and that of Odessa, headed by Archpriest G. Seletski and by Abbot Varsonofi (Yurchenko). The Khar'kov eparchy contained 11 groups (okrugs ["districts"]): the Khar'kov, Sumy, Stalino, Kiev, Debal'tsevo, Kadievka, Mariupol', Popasnaya, Berdyansk, Slavyansk and Krasny Luch [districts]; the Dnepropetrovsk eparchy [contained] three: the Novomoskovsk, Krivoy Rog and Ladyzhinka [districts]; and the Odessa eparchy [contained] six: the Khar'kov [sic], Poltava, Zinov'evsk, Aleksandriya, Nikolaev and Kherson [districts]. It is known that the administrator of the Zinov'evsk district of the Odessa eparchy was Archpriest Grigori Seletski. The eparchy contained the Zinov'evsk, Elisavetgrad and Aleksandriya deaneries. In the Krivoy Rog district of the Dnepropetrovsk eparchy, there were two deaneries, those of Ingulets and of Bratolyubovka, and so forth [sic]. At the beginning of 1931, however, mass arrests took place, the legal institutions of the True Orthodox Church were demolished, and the bishops, priests and lay people were subjected to repression. From that time onward, the True Orthodox Church existed almost entirely underground.

Other members of the higher orders of the clergy did not immediately accept the decisions made by Metropolitan Iosif. A case in point was Metropolitan Kirill, who was prepared to admit at the beginning the presence of divine grace in the "Sergian" sacraments but, having become convinced of the impossibility that Metropolitan Sergius would repent, later sided completely with the position of Metropolitan Iosif. Not only Metropolitan Kirill but other "non-remembering" members of the higher orders of the clergy, however, even in the first years after the Declaration, gave their blessing to, and themselves established, secret catacomb parishes (which is obvious from the investigation files).

In this way, the structure of the Catacomb Church (in complete accordance with Edict No. 362 of Patriarch Tikhon) consisted originally of separate eparchies (in fact not having precise geographical boundaries), [which] in turn [consisted] of separate parishes. In our guide, we have therefore arranged the names of priests and of members of the higher orders of the clergy [taking them] as [representing] structural elements of a unified Church. It should be taken into account also that not all new martyrs (that is to say, those who suffered to the point of death for Christ) necessarily belonged to the Catacomb Church. The new martyr Anatoli Odesski, for example, was even a member of the illicit Synod of Metropolitan Sergius and placed bans on priests affiliated with Metropolitan Iosif. The group of schismatics headed by Metropolitan Sergius, however, renounced before God ("not out of fear but out of conscience") all Christian believers and martyrs, including [Anatoli Odesski] himself. Therefore, in being believers in Christ even to the point of death, they too are part of His true Church (Russkaya Istinno-Pravoslavnaya Tserkov n.d.c).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

East-West Church & Ministry Report (Birmingham, Alabama). Summer 1997. Janice Broun. "Jurisdictional Conflicts Among Orthodox and Eastern-Rite Catholics in Russia and Ukraine." http://www.samford.edu/groups/global/ewcmreport/articles/ew05306.htm [Accessed 2 June 2000]

Russia Intercessory Prayer Netrwork (RIPN). 13 January 1998. Svetlana Stepanenko. "True Orthodox Christians in Ukraine. Small Communities in Sumi." News Release http://www.ripnet.org/true [Accessed 2 June 2000]

Russkaya Istinno-Pravoslavnaya Tserkov (Russian True Orthodox Church). n.d.a. Krymskaya Eparkhiya http://www.ipc.od.ua/e_krim.html [Accessed 12 June 2000]

_____.n.d.b. Odesskaya Eparkhiya http://www.ipc.od.ua/e_odessa.html [Accessed 12 June 2000]

_____. n.d.c. Russian True Orthodox Church http://www.russia-talk.com/ipc/ipc_1.html [Accessed 12 June 2000] (Translated by the Translation Services, Multilingual Translation Directorate, Public Works and Government Services Canada, 19 June 2000)

IRB Databases

LEXIS/NEXIS

Nationalities Papers

One oral source did not have any relevant information.

One oral source did not reply within the time constraints.

Internet sites including:

British Helsinki Human Rights Group (BHHRG)

Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press

Central Europe Review

Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme (FIDH)

International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF-HR)

Hokkaido University Slavic Research Center

Human Rights Watch (HRW)

Keesing's

Keston Institute

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)

The Religious Freedom Page

Stetson University News about Religion in Russia

Transitions

UK Immigration and Nationality Directorate.

Ukrainian Weekly (Parsippany, New Jersey)

World News Connection (WNC)