Fighting for democracy and freedom.

Kiev -- Fraudulent Ukrainian presidential elections have sparked massive, spontaneous protests of over half a million people in Kiev's Independence Square and spilling out to surround nearby government buildings. The peaceful demonstration, held in support of candidate Viktor Yushchenko, began with the erection of a tent city in the capital's central square as election results became known on November 21, 2004.

Yushchenko, leader of the democratic block "Our Ukraine", has faced a barrage of defamation and provocation from his opponent, Viktor Yanukovich, over the course of the election campaign, not to mention poisoning with an unknown biological agent that has left him disfigured and forced medics treating him to undergo decontamination. The opposing government candidate, Prime Minister and ex-convict Yanukovich, is incumbent president Leonid Kuchma's hand-picked successor, and reportedly a front man for the mafia clans, mostly ex-communists based in Eastern Ukraine, who have a stranglehold on Ukraine's government and economy.

According to European and North American observers, electoral fraud was especially prevalent in areas of Eastern Ukraine, where some polls had turnouts of well over 100% of registered voters. Busloads of proxy voters were ferried from one polling station to another to cast their ballots, indulging en route in large quantities of government-sponsored food and vodka. In some cases, Russian tourists were permitted to vote. Ballots marked for Yanukovich were found clogging toilets, littering roadsides and even being sold at the market.

As a proposed resolution to the crisis, President Kuchma had been pushing for new elections, which would require a new slate of candidates, thus eliminating the threat of the popular Yushchenko. Miraculously, on December 3 the Supreme Court of Ukraine ruled the November election invalid and called for a revote by December 26.

As probability mounted that a repeat vote would be called, the predominantly Russian-speaking eastern and southern areas of Ukraine threatened to hold a referendure on autonomy. The mayor of Moscow, "fortuitously" visiting the Eastern cities at the time, voiced his support for the move.

Father Borys Gudziak, rector of Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, spoke his concern about Moscow's meddling, saying, "the government has not denied rumours ... that Russian special forces are already present in the country." He worries that, with the advent of Yanukovich as president, religious freedom could fall victim. "The peaceful protest of millions of Ukrainians in almost all of the cities shows that people see their freedom and dignity jeopardized."

Byzantine-rite Catholic Church leader Major Archbishop Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, together with Ukrainian Orthodox Kyivan Patriarch Filaret and signatories from the Latin-rite Catholic, Evangelical, Evangelical Pentecostal, and Evangelical Baptist Churches, have appealed to Mr. Kuchma in a statement urging him to firm leadership and an "examination of conscience." "When the president as guarantor of the Constitution does not fulfill his responsibilities, the guarantors become the people who go out into the central squares to lay claim to the truth," read the statement, which also charged the government with "criminal and anti-constitutional acts."

In addition to the threat of a crumbling political house, Ukraine teeters on the brink of economic crisis. Fanning the flames of panic, Mr. Kuchma warned of impending doom as depositors continued to withdraw their life savings from Ukrainian banks. On November 29, Sergiy Tyhypko, head of the central bank, resigned, at the same time stepping down as campaign chair for Yanukovich, with the words, "I like what is happening in the square." It is worthy to note that, in the midst of such a crisis, Kuchma found it necessary to visit Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Ongoing negotiations between the two sides have been mediated by representatives of the European Union and Russia, and with Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski and Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus.

Calling itself the Orange Revolution, the Kiev protest is remarkable in its air of determined peacefulness and hope. Many priests and religious are among the mostly young men and women demanding an end to the gluttony of the business elite, and prayers and religious hymns are often heard from the crowd, interspersed with shouts of "Yush-chen-ko!"

Defections of police and military units to the orange side have become commonplace. If he chose to use these powerful assets, Yushchenko would almost certainly be successful in quickly seizing the power that seems, by the will of the people, his. The moderation of this unlikely revolutionary, who begins his shadow government's work each day with a joint prayer with supporters on the square, is apparent, however, in his calls for perseverance without violence. As Bishop Stepan Meniok, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church exarch of Donetsk and Kharkiv, said of Ukraine's struggle for the victory of truth, "If we are quiet, then we will be slaves forever."

P.S. An excellent site on the religious aspect of events in Ukraine is www.risu.org.ua