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Mission Outreach to East and West
Ukraine Honours a Patriarch-Martyr In addition, the Holy New Hieromartyr Gregory V, Patriarch of Constantinople, was hanged by the Turks over the door of the Patriarchal Residence in Constantinople. His body was then thrown into the Bosphorus where it was picked up by Ukrainian sailors and taken to Odessa. St Gregory’s Relics remained in the Odessa Cathedral until his formal Glorification at which time they were returned to Greece where they are now enshrined in the National Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Athens, along with the Relics of St Philothea of Athens. He is a patron of the city of Odessa as well. To this day, the door of the Patriarchal Residence over which St Gregory V was hanged is never closed, but is always left open. The Ukrainian Kozaks are warmly remembered by the Greeks during the time of the Turkish Yoke because of their self-sacrifice in defending Orthodoxy and rescuing Orthodox prisoners taken by the Turks and the Tatars. One Greek Archbishop wrote movingly about how God took the Kozaks who fell in battle with the enemies of Orthodoxy directly into His Heaven. In the seventeenth century, the locally venerated Patriarch of Jerusalem, St Theophan, consecrated a new Orthodox Hierarchy for the Kozak Ukraine. The Kozaks maintained their own traditions, some of which were derived from pre-Christian times in Rus'-Ukraine. For example, kolbasa was actually a ritual food associated with the pagan cult of the wild boar, which was once extensively practiced throughout central Europe. Scotland's first Royal Banner was that of the wild boar. For this reason, the Orthodox Patriarchs sometimes wrote missives to the Kozaks asking them to give up a number of such practices dating from pagan times. Of course, the Kozaks never would listen . . . |
