Final Thoughts

Dictatorships find easy prey in the dead, for they cannot defend themselves.

In October, a memorial to victims of Soviet repression in Vladimir's Prince Vladimir Cemetery was dismantled after state media decried the memorial for commemorating “ardent enemies of our country.”

One of the plaques on the memorial was dedicated to the memory of Archimandrite of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Klemens Szeptycki, who was persecuted for refusing to cooperate with Soviet authorities. In 1995, the Israeli Yad Vashem Center for Holocaust Studies declared Szeptycki “righteous among the peoples of the world” for saving Jewish people during World War II. In 2001, he was blessed by the Catholic Church.