Orthodox Reflections has invited all Orthodox Christians who can to protest the granting of the “Beacon of Hope Award” in NYC on September 26th. (Click here for more information on the award.) We have asked locals, and those who can come in, to organize with their fellow Orthodox Christians to gather at 6:30 p.m. as close as they can to Casa Cipriani, 10 South Street, New York NY 10004. Below is a guide on how to hold a successful protest in New York, and anywhere else. The principles here can work anywhere, for any protest. They also are a good guide to online activity as well. Keep in mind that as Orthodox Reflections doesn’t have a central organization with professional organizers and a budget, participants will need to prepare themselves in advance for this (or any such protest) to be successful.
Why Are We Protesting
Why even do this? Here is the narrative the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Greek Archdiocese, the Archons, the Zelensky regime, and the U.S. Government want to use this event to reinforce: “The Orthodox Church stands united under its spiritual leader, Patriarch Bartholomew, the First Among Equals, in supporting President Zelensky and Ukraine in a valiant fight against Russian aggressors. The Patriarch’s bold move in recognizing the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) gave the Ukrainian people religious freedom by giving them a beloved, popular national church of their own, free from Russian influence. The Patriarch is a hero leading a globally united Orthodox Church in continuing to stand for people of Ukraine.”
That is the narrative they want to be reported from this event. Street protestors outside the event clash with that narrative, and provide a counternarrative for the media, and social media posts, to report to the public. No protests, no counternarrative and the average American will accept that Orthodoxy is fully behind the OCU and the Zelensky regime in its religious discrimination policies. No protestors means there is no opposition.
The Patriarchate of Constantinople narrative is, of course, completely false in regards to OCU and religious freedom. OCU is recognized by only 3 of the world’s Orthodox Churches. The vast majority of Orthodox Christians, probably even most Orthodox directly under Constantinople, continue to support the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Metropolitan Onuphry. Far from granting religious freedom to Ukrainians, the moves by the U.S. Govt, the Ukrainian Govt, and Patriarch Bartholomew have resulted in severe persecution of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians who simply want to continue to worship in the same Church they have belonged to all their lives.
You know that. I know that. But absent even a small demonstration to the contrary, over 300 million Americans will not know that. The goal of protesting in person is to “make news.” Your presence at the event breaks the narrative of unified support, and calls attention to the horrific persecution of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians that the official narrative desperately wants to bury. Standing up and holding a sign is the most effective thing you could ever do to support Orthodox Christians who are actively enduring martyrdom for Christ.
The Message of the Protest
The message of the protest is simple and direct. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is an independent canonical Orthodox Church of Ukrainian citizens, led by Ukrainian bishops, which is being severely persecuted by its own government led by Zelensky. Churches are being seized, people beaten, bogus criminal charges are being filed, priests are being forcibly mobilized into the army, monks are being murdered. A flyer attached to this article provides more details. As protestors, we are calling upon the U.S. government, the Ukrainian Government, and the Patriarchate of Constantinople to live up to their legal and moral obligation to support religious freedom. Americans don’t want the government involved in their church affairs. Why would American taxpayers want to fund a foreign government that is actively persecuting the largest religious body in its own country?
They don’t. But most also don’t know that this is happening. It is our job to make them aware. This protest is not about the war. It is not about Russia. It is not about the Russian Church. It is not about geopolitics, or the mid-term elections, or anything else.
This protest is about religious freedom, the same freedom guaranteed to Americans in the U.S. Constitution. The faithful and clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have the God-given right to organize their church governance and worship as they see fit. That right has been taken away from them by force through the actions of the Zelensky regime, with the active support of the Patriarch of Constantinople (plus subordinate organizations such as the Greek Archdiocese) and the financial support of the U.S. Government.
That is the message – religious freedom. Stay on message. Always.
Bring Signs with Extras
To make an impact, people have to notice you. Signs are essential. They should be impactful messages and could have optional images. Do not make the perfect the enemy of the good. If you just have a sign that says, “Zelensky murders monks” or “Religious Freedom for Ukrainians” or “Bartholomew – Christian Persecutors are not Beacons of Hope” in bold letters painted on a piece of white cardboard, that is good enough. Hand drawn signs emphasize the grass roots nature of this protest. Add in a printed picture of murdered monk or the archbishop which was beaten (images below) or government agents attacking a Church. Images are optional, however, as the message is the most important.
Bring extra signs. People will show up without signs, and some bystanders will want to join. If you are coming with four people, bring at least 6 signs. You can also rotate the signs you use during the protest for maximum effect.
Never use profanity in your signs. If anyone shows up with signs featuring profanity, refuse to stand with them unless they hide them. One sign in poor taste becomes the message the media will report. Don’t allow that to happen. Sample signs below:
Bring Flyers
Flyers reach people long after they forgot what you said, or what was on your signs. Attached is a PDF of a flyer you can print and bring out. For any one who contacts us quickly enough, Orthodox Reflections would be happy to send you 1,000 of these already printed. Visit our contact page and send us a phone number and address where we can contact you. Otherwise, print as many of these as you can. Feel free to create your own or edit this one, but keep the same general format. People need facts to make up their mind. A flyer gives them those.
Chants / Slogans
Group chants and group prayers are highly effective. Work it out with people around you. Suggestions:
“Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on the Ukrainian Church!”
“Zelensky murders monks!”
“Freedom for Ukrainian Christians!”
“You will face Jesus!”
“God save the Ukrainian Church!”
“Shame on you, Greek Archdiocese!”
“Freedom of Religion is not negotiable!”
Just a few suggestions, not an exhaustive list. Chants get attention to your signs, which then generates social media and media coverage.
Do not use profanity in your chants. Behave as if Jesus were there Himself. If you wouldn’t say it to Jesus, don’t say it to anyone else. Use of profanity makes you the story, not the message you are trying to get across. This is a good rule for online, in person, anywhere. Profanity never, ever helps. You can be angry. We are talking about murdering and abusing Orthodox Christians. It is okay to be angry. But it has to be controlled anger, not unhinged anger.
Profanity equals unhinged in the public mind. Don’t be unhinged.
Answering Objections / Challenges and Talking to the Media
You could get questions or challenges from either the media, bystanders, or there could even be counter protestors who are paid to be there. Common challenges would be:
“Do you support Russia?”
“What about Patriarch Kirill and the Russian Church supporting a genocidal war?”
“Why aren’t you protesting Putin?”
“Don’t the Ukrainian people deserve their own Church?”
“Who paid you to be here?”
We could go on. Who supports murdering monks, stealing churches, and beating old ladies? No one. Literally no one. The actions of the Zelensky regime are the definition of indefensible. So anyone trying to support or justify them has to redirect the conversation and/or discredit you as a person.
Do not take that bait. Remember the message of the protest. You are there to support religious freedom for persecuted Orthodox Christians. That is all. A good response to any question or challenge is, “I am a concerned American Orthodox Christian who believes the Ukrainian people should be free to practice the Orthodox Faith as they see fit, without government persecution financed by my tax dollars and supported by a jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church.”
Period.
Do not debate. Do not get angry. Do, however, respectfully and lovingly answer questions from those who want more information. But never go off on tangents. Keep it simple and clear. If you get into an angry shouting match over such challenges – then the story quickly becomes, “Angry Putin Supporters Protest Orthodox Christians Giving Award to Zelensky.” That kind of headline does not help the persecuted Orthodox Christians of Ukraine.
If someone really gets in your face, then walk away. Do not stand there and fight it out. That is most likely exactly what the person is trying to provoke. Walk away, and even be prepared to go home if it gets too bad. We help the Ukrainians by getting the message of their persecution out, and by showing support for them. Anything that shifts from the message to you, to Putin, to the Russian Church, etc. is not helping – it’s hurting.
A final note, if you are repeatedly challenged about why you are not protesting Russia or Putin, then simply repeat, “I am a concerned American Orthodox Christian who believes the Ukrainian people should be free to practice the Orthodox Faith as they see fit, without government persecution financed by my tax dollars and supported by a jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church.” As American Orthodox Christians we have absolutely ZERO influence on the Russian Orthodox Church or the Russian Government. None. Zippo. We could protest against the seizure of UOC parishes in Russian occupied territory every day of our lives. It would accomplish nothing. The Russians don’t care. On the other hand, Zelensky is completely dependent on aid from the United States. As Americans, we are objecting to an award unjustly given in Christ’s name to a man who takes our money while presiding over a government that murders, beats, imprisons, and displaces Orthodox Christians. That is the reason you are there. We are protesting injustices we are directly accountable for to God by virtue of our tax dollars, and (for Greek Orthodox) our tithing that supports the Greek Archdiocese and the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Do Not Tolerate Bad Behavior
Do not tolerate profanity, shoving, threats of violence, or any other type of bad behavior. Shun anyone engaging in any such behavior. Ask them to leave. If they don’t, move away from them. If the situation gets too bad, go home. It is better to simply walk away from a protest, than allow it to be hijacked in a way that does damage to the cause of religious freedom for Ukrainians. If someone tries to provoke you, walk away. If you can’t get away from the person, then go home. Confrontations become the story, and the message of the protest will be intentionally buried.
We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to forgive our enemies. If you would not do it or say it in front of Christ, or to Christ, don’t do it and don’t tolerate it.
Video and Photograph the Protest
Photos and videos of an event live forever on the Internet. It is great to get media coverage, and we are trying to do so. However, many protest actions have been ignored by the media, but still reached millions by going viral. Keep a record of everything in videos and pics.
Questions?
If you have any questions, please contact us via our contact page. Also reach out if you think there is anything we missed in this guide.
Clip:
https://abcnews.com/International/zelenskyy-ukrainian-people-honored-longstanding-new-york-greek/story?id=136957966
Still no videos of event.
Clip:
https://greekreporter.com/2026/10/03/greek-orthodox-saint-nicholas-new-york-ukraine-zelenskyy/
My dear friends from Orthodox Reflections!
We have One Judge—our Savior, the Lord – our God Jesus Christ.
And His Kingdom will have no end! And Ukraine has become a land stained with the BLOOD of martyrs for the Orthodox faith.
Patriarch Bartholomew and Zelensky, as well as all your close associates! Earthly life passes quickly, and then comes the ordeals of the soul and God’s judgment! Aren’t you afraid? Prepare for God’s judgment!
Here is important information. Please distribute it widely.
With love in Christ
Your sister in Christ and your Ukrainian friend
Tetyana Avramenko
_____________________________________________________________________________
https://spzh.eu/en/zashhita-very/96119-two-murders-one-silence
Faith Protection
Two murders, one silence
28 September 14:52
Zelensky condemned the killing of a Catholic priest in Poland the very same day. A month earlier, a UOC monk was murdered at the Sviatohirsk Lavra – and the president has remained silent ever since.
On September 24, 2026, in the Polish city of Jarosław, a citizen of Ukraine, a former soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, attacked a convent of Benedictine sisters and killed a Catholic priest. That very evening, the crime was condemned by Volodymyr Zelensky.
Shortly afterward, the Ukrainian Embassy in Poland issued a statement of its own. Zelensky’s same-day condemnation and call for a thorough investigation were publicly reported.
And rightly so, one might think. When a citizen of your country commits such an atrocity abroad, the head of state should respond.
But there is another question.
A month earlier, on August 23, Monk Varsonofiy (Turianskyi) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was killed at the Sviatohirsk Lavra. He was killed on Ukrainian soil, behind Ukrainian army lines. Yet neither Zelensky, nor his Office, nor the Interior Ministry, nor the SBU has publicly responded to the killing to this day.
Why, then, does a Catholic priest murdered in Poland merit condolences from the Ukrainian president, while an Orthodox monk murdered in Ukraine does not?
Let us try to understand.
How Poland responded – and how Kyiv responded
First, let us recall what happened in Jarosław. At about 9:30 a.m., a 31-year-old Ukrainian entered the monastery grounds through open gates and began attacking people with a knife. Five people were injured, three of them Catholic priests. One of them later died in the hospital. The attacker was detained at the scene, and the mayor of Jarosław convened an emergency crisis team with the participation of the voivode the same day.
Contemporary reports confirm that one person was killed and four wounded in the attack. More details emerged later. The 31-year-old Ihor M. had previously served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and fought at the front. He reportedly held Ukrainian and German passports, as well as a Polish PESEL number allowing him to obtain temporary protection status.
Poland’s top officials responded almost immediately. Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote: “The Jarosław killer is in the hands of the Polish police. Investigative measures are underway. The perpetrator is a Ukrainian citizen. He will face the full severity of Polish law. I share the pain of the loved ones of the victims of this brutal attack.”
President Karol Nawrocki was even more forceful: “In the face of such acts, the state must be strong, act swiftly and relentlessly within the law… The task of the state is to ensure the safety of its citizens.”
One may have different views of Nawrocki’s tone, but his central point was clear: the state is responsible for people’s safety. When a priest is murdered in a monastery, it is a matter for the state, not merely for the police.
Zelensky responded to the killing in Poland that same day: “A horrific crime was committed at the Benedictine Sisters’ Abbey in Jarosław by a citizen of Ukraine. We are shocked by this evil… We extend our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased.”
He continued: “The person responsible for this evil must be held fully accountable under the law. We expect a swift and thorough investigation into all the circumstances. It is painful that people are capable of such horrific crimes. Justice must prevail.”
The Ukrainian Embassy in Poland did not remain silent either: “We strongly condemn the brutal attack… We consider all manifestations of violence unacceptable. It is especially painful that such a tragedy occurred in a place that should be a sanctuary of prayer and mercy.” The diplomats stressed that “there can be no justification for violence or attacks against people.”
The following day, Ambassador Vasyl Bodnar was already telling journalists where the suspect was being held and what condition he was in. The Embassy’s public condemnation was also reported at the time.
It is not difficult to understand why Kyiv reacted so quickly. Poland is a key ally, relations are already complicated, and now the killer was a former Ukrainian serviceman – something Polish politicians were already highlighting. Silence would have carried too high a reputational cost for Ukraine.
The author’s contention is that the speed of the response reflected not only sympathy, but political calculation. UOC believers inside Ukraine, by contrast, have neither Poland’s Confederation party nor a Polish president capable of putting pressure on Bankova Street – and, in this view, there has consequently been no comparable response.
No one is criticizing Zelensky for what he said. Quite the opposite: those were the right words, spoken at the right time.
The question is why he could not find the same words for his own citizen – a UOC monk murdered at the Lavra.
The diplomats wrote that it was especially painful when tragedy struck “a place that should be a space of prayer and mercy.” They were speaking about a Polish monastery.
No Ukrainian official wrote anything comparable about the Sviatohirsk Lavra.
Sviatohirsk: a month of silence
At around 11 a.m. on August 23, a group of people attacked residents of the Sviatohirsk Lavra near St. Nicholas Church in the monastery’s upper grounds. Monk Varsonofiy (Turianskyi) died from a through-and-through gunshot wound to the head and neck. Monk Gregory was wounded, as was Andrii Kyriienko, who was living at the monastery.
The UOC reported the attack that same day, and the Lavra later said the forensic medical certificate identified a gunshot wound to the head and neck as the cause of Varsonofiy’s death. A criminal investigation remains underway.
Kyriienko spoke about the attack in the days that followed. According to his account, he was assaulted after responding “incorrectly” to the greeting “Glory to Ukraine!” with the words “Glory to God.” The article argues that the circumstances suggest Monk Varsonofiy paid with his life for similarly “incorrect” words.
Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Bunge) later put it this way: “That monk could easily have saved his life if he had obeyed his killers’ demand. But he did not. He answered as a Christian: glory belongs to God alone.”
Of course, the investigation into the Sviatohirsk killing formally continues. But already now we can say that the theory of a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group appears untenable. We can judge this from a statement by Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the 3rd Army Corps – a man hardly likely to be suspected of sympathy toward the UOC: “There has never been a Russian soldier in Sviatohirsk… The city of Sviatohirsk lies within the defensive sector of the 60th Mechanized Brigade of the 3rd Army Corps. It is a rear area of our corps.”
In other words, the monk was killed behind Ukrainian army lines, in territory controlled by the Ukrainian state.
In Jarosław, the killer was a former Ukrainian serviceman. In Sviatohirsk, the article says, a monk was killed by people in military clothing behind Ukrainian lines. The president spoke about the former soldier who committed a crime abroad on the very same day. About the people in uniform who killed a monk at home – not a word.
Can that simply be coincidence?
Former Ukrainian MP Ihor Mosiychuk put his interpretation of the Sviatohirsk killing bluntly: “It sends a signal to the military that nobody cares – you can do whatever you want.”
Where did the hatred come from?
It is hard to believe that Zelensky simply failed to notice a tragedy in a small frontline city. More likely, the problem lies elsewhere. To honestly condemn the Sviatohirsk murder would mean having to say where the atmosphere came from in which a man in a cassock could be killed outside a church.
And that is something the authorities clearly do not want to do. Because that atmosphere was years in the making. And it was created by people who were anything but marginal.
Let us remember Kvartal 95 – the studio Zelensky himself once founded and headed. In late 2022, presenters on its Bayraktar News program used obscene language to insult UOC clergy and read out a mock “price list”: “spit at an MP priest – 20 hryvnias”; “hit him on the left cheek and automatically on the right – 100 hryvnias.”
Some people found it funny.
But on January 2, 2023, a man burst into a UOC church in Vinnytsia and slashed the rector across the throat with a straight razor. Beneath the Kvartal video, one user later wrote: “His blood is on your hands too.”
Government officials also spoke out in sweeping terms. Oleksii Danilov, then secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, said: “This institution [the UOC – Ed.] contained many representatives of the so-called intelligence community of the Russian Federation.”
Note the distinction: he was not speaking about specific individuals whose guilt had been established in court, but about the Church as an institution. When the official responsible for national security speaks this way during wartime, millions of believers can effectively find themselves branded without trial. The rhetoric was then picked up by lawmakers, “experts,” television “religious scholars,” and bloggers.
Gradually, it was reduced to three labels: “sect,” “Muscovites,” and “FSB in cassocks.”
A recent Kyiv FM broadcast offers a telling example. Journalist Bohdan Butkevych, appearing on the program Kyiv Speaks. War with activist Maryna Koval, discussed the question: “Is there a chance to ban the Russian Church in Ukraine?”
Speaking about UOC believers, he said: “I have my own score to settle with them – with that scum who pretend to be Christians even though they are not.”
Butkevych said the point of the broadcast was to determine whether it was possible to “cut off the head of this hydra.” He called the clergy “bastards in black cassocks.” By the end of the program, Butkevych said he would gladly serve as executioner at a trial of the UOC.
And this was not 2022, when emotions were running white-hot in the first weeks of the war. Butkevych said all this after the killing at the Lavra.
Such statements are nothing new for him. Back in 2014, appearing on Hromadske.TV, he spoke of “a certain category of people who simply need to be killed.”
Twelve years have passed. He is still on the air, and no state institution has publicly responded to those words.
Imagine for a moment that a journalist on Kyiv radio called OCU members, Catholics, Greek Catholics, Jews, or Muslims “scum” and volunteered to become their executioner. How long would it take for the National Council, prosecutors, or perhaps even the president himself to respond? Hardly more than a day.
But when such things are said about UOC Orthodox Christians, no one bats an eye.
Metropolitan Timotheos of Bostra of the Jerusalem Patriarchate put the danger this way: “When people are taught for years to see an enemy in their baptized brother, sooner or later someone will inevitably carry that idea to its ultimate conclusion.”
The Odesa Eparchy of the UOC put it more simply: “Words have consequences.”
And there is the answer to why the authorities remain silent about Sviatohirsk. If they seriously condemn the murder of Fr. Varsonofiy, they will have to admit that it has a prehistory.
And there are too many familiar faces in that prehistory – from former Kvartal colleagues to the former secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.
It is far easier to pretend nothing happened.
But when the head of state remains silent in a situation like this, that silence is still perceived as a signal.
The signal was understood correctly
Mosiychuk, as we have already noted, called this silence a “signal to the military.” Someone may argue with that. But what is happening in practice speaks for itself.
First – mobilization.
Reports appear almost daily of UOC priests being detained by Territorial Recruitment Center (TRC) officers. At the same time, we have repeatedly stressed that the Church is not asking for any special privileges for its clergy. The issue is equal treatment and the fact that, under Church canons, a priest cannot take up arms – something DESS is perfectly well aware of.
Under the Geneva Conventions, military chaplains are considered noncombatants. Yet in Ukraine, UOC priests are sent to the front regardless of their clerical status or cassocks.
Second – the information environment.
Butkevych is not an exception. He simply says openly what others say in more veiled terms. When a capital-city radio station discusses how to “cut off the hydra’s head,” while the news routinely speaks of “Moscow priests,” a simple picture takes shape in people’s minds: these people are beyond the pale, and no one will stand up for them.
Bishop Job of Stuttgart warned about precisely this. He said that violence against a representative of a Church “that for many years in Ukraine has stood on the brink of a state ban” takes us “back to the days of early Christianity, when representatives of a religio illicita – a forbidden religion – could and should be destroyed for the good of society.”
And third – impunity.
Almost four years have passed since the attack in Vinnytsia. Throughout that time, attacks on UOC priests have become neither occasions for statements from the authorities nor high-profile court cases.
Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich), Chancellor of the UOC, asked: “Has someone really been given the right to kill with impunity simply because another person is of the ‘wrong faith’?”
More than a month later, there is still no answer from the state.
And that silence is understood perfectly well by everyone – including those carrying weapons.
What the authorities should remember
Ukraine’s authorities are very fond of talking about the country’s European choice and European values.
Well then, let us remember what those values say about freedom of conscience.
Article 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine guarantees everyone freedom of worldview and religion. Article 24 prohibits privileges or restrictions on grounds of religious belief. Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, ratified by Ukraine, protects the freedom to practice one’s religion. And the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly stressed that the state must remain neutral and impartial toward different religious denominations and has no right to decide whose faith is “correct.”
And then there is the simplest point of all: the state exists to protect the lives of its citizens. All of its citizens – not just the ones it likes.
In the European Union, which Ukraine is so eager to join, people look not only at laws governing prosecutors and anti-corruption agencies. They also look at how a state protects minorities.
German CDU member Irina Volfson put it very clearly: “Freedom of religion and the protection of minorities must never depend on which religion a person belongs to.”
The picture is a strange one.
Gather together all the reactions to the tragedy in Sviatohirsk, and it turns out that some of the loudest demands for an investigation into the killing of a Ukrainian citizen on Ukrainian soil are coming from Europe.
Kyiv simply remains silent.
Instead of an afterword
So it appears that the Ukrainian state divides the dead into those whose deaths deserve acknowledgment and those whose deaths are better left unmentioned. And the dividing line is neither citizenship nor the place where the crime occurred.
It is church affiliation.
UOC believers will remember this.
They do not need to be told what war is. Many of them are fighting. Many are burying their sons. Many have lost their homes.
They do not need anyone to explain what it means to love Ukraine. They understand perfectly well. And they see everything – above all, the radically different responses to the same kind of crime.
The tragedy is that while the authorities remain silent, the Butkevychs keep talking.
And where the Butkevychs keep talking, sooner or later someone will once again pick up a weapon and walk to the gates of a monastery. And by then, he will no longer care which one.
___________________________________________________________________________
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWyuarg0Sb4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zjv-7T16b0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIMtMvr0jZg
Clip:
https://hellenicnews.com/2026/09/29/elpidophoros-russian-invaders-cannot-stand-free-people/
Clip:
Η ντροπή των Ελλήνων! Aπονεμήθηκε βραβείο στον Ζελένσκι από τον Ελπιδοφόρο…
The shame of the Greeks! Zelensky was awarded an award by Elpidophoros…
The shame of the Greeks is the Archdiocese of America and Archbishop Elpidophoros…. The regime’s persecutor of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, with a permanent chair named after him in a synagogue in Kiev, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was awarded the “Beacon of Hope” award during the annual event of the National Pilgrimage of Saint Nicholas at Ground Zero.
Link:
https://www.press-gr.com/2026/09/blog-post_328.html
Clip about event:
Instead of attending the award ceremony in New York in person, Zelensky sent participants a video message
https://spzh.eu/en/news/96126-zelensky-skips-constantinople-award-ceremony-in-new-york
Russian invaders ‘cannot stand free people,’ Archbishop Elpidophoros says as Ukrainians receive Beacon of Hope Award
https://orthodoxobserver.org/russian-invaders-cannot-stand-free-people-archbishop-elpidophoros-says-as-ukrainians-receive-beacon-of-hope-award/
Thanks for sharing this beautiful story.
This is a news clip of the event in order to update everyone. I do not approve of anything in the clip.
Another clip; same slop, different day:
https://orthodoxtimes.com/archbishop-of-america-russian-invaders-cannot-stand-free-people/
St. Nicholas Church & National Shrine Honors Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Beacon of Hope Dinner
“As President Zelenskyy was unable to attend the Award Dinner in person, the Beacon of Hope award was received on his behalf by the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations, Andrii Melnyk.”
https://www.thenationalherald.com/st-nicholas-church-national-shrine-honors-volodymyr-zelenskyy-at-beacon-of-hope-dinner/
Thank you very much for the information. God bless you!
This is a news clip of the event in order to update everyone. I do not approve of anything in the clip.
Please share video of the protest!
We don’t have video of the protest, because it was mostly rained out & no one has sent us any. We don’t have video of the event itself because it was such a mess that a GOARCH damage-control lockdown in force — until there is a leaker.
Attention, all leakers: Please email photos & videos to Orthodox Reflections. See contact info in website header.
CSJ, I’m confused… weren’t you, as the organizer, at the protest?
Orthodox Reflections called for an in-person protest organized at parish level and printed this guide, telling how to conduct it. Helleniscope echoed the call.
Go back and read all of the Zelensky dinner articles and the comments beneath them for further details on what transpired.
The 9/26 protest was rained out, due to a Nor’easter storm and flooding.
Zelensky did not show up to his own event and was awarded in absentia. No videos of speeches have been posted, although there are videos of a Ukrainian singing his own national anthem at the Greek event, and videos of boozy dancing at the after-party.
Reportedly, there are 1.64 million Orthodox Christians in America. There are 312 parishes within 100 miles of NYC, near all of the diocesan HQs. Only the ROCOR bishops publicly issued a statement about the Zelensky event, a few days beforehand.
The question to ask is: When and how are the American Orthodox faithful going to hold their hierarchs accountable and get all of their houses in order?
An addendum to my post below: Here is an example of keeping up the pressure: https://www.helleniscope.com/2026/09/25/bulgarians-to-bartholomew-you-are-not-welcome-at-sacred-rila-monastery/
Yes, everyone. Please be more Bulgarian. Follow their lead.
Excellent guidelines. I would love to review videos and testimonies submitted to OR by the protestors. And any formal responses to the protestors from the GOA archdiocese, if any. As this fight is a marathon, keeping up the pressure and spotlighting ongoing antics are a must. Keep it up!
Thank you very much for the petition!
Of course, I signed it.
The BLOOD of the Orthodox UOC is on the hands of Zelenskyy, his security forces, especially the SBU, the Ukrainian courts, the Ukrainian propagandists against the UOC, Ukrainian media Telemarathon, the OCU, Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian parliament, Patriarch Bartholomew, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Archons as well as to all those, who actively contributed to the persecution of the UOC in Ukraine!
I don’t live in the USA, but I hope there will be many protesters against this horrific, anti-Christian event awarding the BLOODY TYRANT Zelenskyy on September 26, 2026!
Shame on them all!
With love in Christ
God bless you!
Your sister in Christ and parishioner of the UOC
Tetyana Avramenko
Here is the phone number for the Greek Archdiocese in New York to leave a message begging them not to honor Zelensky with the award and such an extravagant dinner: (212) 570-3500
That neo- nazis penis piano player is pure evil, support by left wing propagandist, the OCU is not to be recognized, purely illegal . Why can’t the West see it????
Excelente, el jefe!
My persona preference is as follow .. and being handout to the arriving guest of the Dinner
What kind of people.. use Religion to sponsor and honor Zelensky for persecuting and Terrorising Christian Churches and Clergy of the Ukraine , the kind who sponsored Adolph Hitler, Netanyahue, and Trump against Jews, Muslims, and Christians Churches, Mosques and Temples …