Kharkiv Governor: Memorial Plaque to Josyf Slipyj in Kharkiv will stay, but with no mention of UPA

After the New Year the dismantled memorial plaque to Patriarch Josyf Slipyj of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church will return to the former prison in Kharkiv, Governor of Mykhail Dobkin reported today. The plaque is being funded by the Lviv City Council. According to Dobkin, the project will be approved by Kharkiv authorities, "so the (board) does not upset anyone…It will be a memorial plaque to Josyf Slipyj the pastor. With no mention of UPA at all…His is praised here as a hero of the UPA. But he was simply a pastor and just did his job," said Dobkin. The memorial plaque, according to the governor, will be installed "not where it was nailed hastily," but where the patriarch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church really stayed – in the courtyard of the Leningrad police department building of Kharkiv, which was once a transit prison. The first memorial plaque was installed  in 2005. On November of this year it was dismantled by the decision of the Court, which decided that the board was installed illegally without the consent of local authorities. The UGCC patriarch, who was accused by the Communists of cooperating with the Germans, was arrested in 1945 and accused of "hostile activities against the USSR.” After 18 years of imprisonment, at the request of Pope John XXIII he was released and exiled from the USSR. http://www.radiosvoboda.org/