Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Dear Editor,

I just read your on line article Russian patriarch seeks unity on Moscow terms. There is a serious factual error in the article in the sentence:

Patriarch Filaret, head of the unrecognized Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate, led a procession of several hundred followers on June 28 to protest against Kirill’s visit.

I saw the procession along Volodymyrska while in front of the Leonardo building. The column was proceeding from the Volodymyrsky Sobor on Tarasa Shevchenka and turning onto Volodymyrska. At that point, the end of the procession was not yet visible, but because of the dip in the road I could see its head, which was at Prorizna. At that point, therefore, the incomplete procession extended from Tarasa Shevchenka to Prorizna, with one side of the road fully occupied by people who also spilled onto the other side, walking between cars which were stopped and backed up by the procession turning from Tarasa Shevchenka onto Volodymyrska. This clearly was significantly more than Alina Pastukhova’s reported “several hundred followers”. The drivers were obviously amazed by the thousands of people they saw and waited surprisingly peacefully, reminding me of the peacefulness of Maidan. I have seen the numbers of followers reported in online articles as being between 10-50,000 but would be prepared to estimate the number I saw as being in the range 10-15,000. The reports I have read that several hundred priests of Patriarch Filaret were in the procession appeared correct to me.

In general, the procession and service at the Sobor and later statue of St Volodymyr led by Patriarch were poorly reported in the media, with TV media selecting camera angles that minimised the numbers of people participating.

I expect better, more unbiased coverage from the Kyiv Post. The report by Alina Pastukhova of “several hundred followers” is a factual error that I hope was not made purposefully.

It does a disservice to your newspaper.

The only photos I have seen that give an indication of numbers consistent with what I saw in the procession I found at:

www.cerkva.info/2009/07/28/urochystosti.htmland www.cerkva.info/2009/07/29/foto.html .

Yours truly,

Myroslaw Kohut,

Kyiv