ΕΑΝ ΠΡΟΤΙΜΑΤΕ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΠΑΤΗΣΤΕ ΤΗ ΣΗΜΑΙΑ ΣΤΟ ΚΑΤΩ ΜΕΡΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΟΘΟΝΗΣ
OUR MAIN PHOTO: A monument in honor of Stepaan Banderas in Lviv.
As St. Nicholas National Shrine prepares to honor Zelensky in New York, his government is building a National Pantheon that could eventually include some of Ukraine’s most controversial wartime nationalist figures, esp. Bandera and the nationalists who cooperated wwith the Nazis and participated in the elimination of over 1 million Jews!!
By Helleniscope’s Editorial Team
Helleniscope has already reported on the decision by the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine at Ground Zero to honor Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with its 2026 Beacon of Hope Award on September 26 at Casa Cipriani in Manhattan (link here).
The Shrine presents Zelensky as a symbol of freedom, courage and human dignity. Yet developments in Ukraine raise a question that deserves an answer before an Orthodox institution confers such moral prestige upon a political leader: what historical vision is Zelensky’s government simultaneously legitimizing at home?
Ukraine is establishing a National Pantheon to honor political, cultural, and military figures regarded as national heroes. The law specifically opens eligibility to commanders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the UPA, while major figures of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN, have already received extraordinary state recognition during Zelensky’s presidency.
Even more striking, the Ukrainian government has decided to place the new National Pantheon on the grounds of the nearly thousand-year-old Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, one of Orthodoxy’s most ancient monastic sanctuaries. The precise location within the sprawling Lavra complex has not yet been selected.
At the center of this controversy stands Stepan Bandera, leader of the radical OUN-B faction and one of the most divisive figures in Eastern European history.
BANDERA REMAINS PART OF OFFICIAL UKRAINIAN MEMORY
On January 1, 2023, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada commemorated Bandera’s birthday through its official social-media account, displaying then-commander-in-chief Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi beneath his portrait and connecting Bandera’s nationalist rhetoric to Ukraine’s contemporary struggle against Russia. The post provoked immediate protests from Poland and was subsequently deleted.
Official commemorations continued elsewhere. The Lviv Regional Military Administration marked Bandera’s birthday in 2024 and 2025, while the Donetsk Regional State Administration published another tribute in January 2026 describing his name as a symbol of Ukraine’s struggle for national self-determination.
These were not fringe nationalist groups. They were Ukrainian governmental institutions.
The controversy becomes considerably more significant now that Ukraine is creating a permanent institution through which such historical figures can be elevated into the country’s official national memory.
ZELENSKY’S NATIONAL PANTHEON
President Zelensky submitted legislation establishing the Ukrainian National Pantheon on June 28, declaring that Ukrainians themselves should determine which heroes the nation honors. Parliament approved the legislation on July 1 by 287 votes to none, and Zelensky subsequently signed it.
The law specifically makes eligible commanders and equivalent leaders of the UPA, while also allowing the recognition of individuals considered to have made exceptional contributions to Ukrainian independence and statehood.
No final list of Pantheon honorees has been published, so it would be premature to state that Bandera will definitely be included. But given that he is consistently honored in annual commemorations and anniversaries, it is very likely he will be.
Mykyta Poturayev, a member of Zelensky’s Servant of the People faction and one of the legislators involved with the project, was directly asked whether Bandera could eventually be included. His answer was that Bandera, because of his lifelong struggle for Ukrainian independence, “without doubt can be in the Pantheon.”
Former president Viktor Yushchenko has also advocated returning Bandera’s remains to Ukraine along with those of other nationalist figures. Bandera’s inclusion has not been decided, but mainstream Ukrainian political circles are plainly discussing it.
POLAND AND ISRAEL ARE ALREADY PROTESTING THIS HISTORICAL DIRECTION
Poland understands exactly what is at stake. On August 24, Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki warned that placing Bandera or Roman Shukhevych in the National Pantheon would create “major problems” not merely between Poland and Ukraine but for Ukraine’s broader relationship with Europe and its aspirations for EU membership.
Warsaw’s objection centers largely on the massacres of Polish civilians in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, atrocities associated with the OUN-B and UPA movement and remembered in Poland as one of the darkest chapters of Polish-Ukrainian history.
Israel has raised a parallel warning over the treatment of Holocaust-era nationalist figures.
On May 25, Zelensky personally attended the state reburial of Andriy Melnyk, a principal historical leader of the OUN. Zelensky praised Melnyk and his wife and thanked those working to return prominent Ukrainian historical figures and give Ukrainians their own “pantheon of heroes.”
Israel’s reaction was unusually sharp. Yad Vashem said it was “deeply troubled” by such national commemorations, warning that honoring the leader of a movement that supported and collaborated with Nazi Germany during the persecution and murder of Jews undermined the moral integrity essential to Holocaust remembrance. Israel’s Foreign Ministry likewise declared that there was “no place for ignoring historical truth and the memory of the victims murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.”
To be precise, Israel was protesting Melnyk’s state rehabilitation rather than issuing a formal diplomatic protest against the Pantheon statute itself. But Zelensky explicitly connected that ceremony to Ukraine’s emerging “pantheon of heroes,” making the Israeli objection directly relevant to the historical project now underway.
These objections did not come from Moscow. They came from Poland, Israel and Yad Vashem.
THE OUN IS ALREADY ENTERING THE PANTHEON
The Pantheon is not merely theoretical.
In August, Zelensky participated in the reburial of Yevhen Konovalets, founder and first leader of the OUN. According to the Ukrainian presidency, Konovalets is temporarily buried at the National Military Memorial Cemetery and is intended eventually to be transferred to the National Pantheon.
That development also exposes the connection to the modern Azov movement.
The official website of the 1st Corps of the National Guard “Azov” describes Konovalets as a “central” figure in its tradition. Brig. Gen. Denys Prokopenko, one of Ukraine’s best-known Azov commanders, participated in the reburial, while Andriy Biletskyi, founder of the original Azov Battalion, has risen to major military prominence during the war.
The evidence does show a growing convergence between the historical tradition embraced by Azov and the official national memory promoted by the Ukrainian state. Konovalets is central to Azov’s tradition. Zelensky gave him a state reburial. And he is already intended for eventual placement in the National Pantheon.
Those facts require little embellishment.
PHOTO: The Ukro-Nazi Azov Battalion, proud Banderites, is getting ready to go to the front to face a sure death by the advancing Russian Army… Until now, they sat in comfortable quarters in Kyiv, their main task protecting Zelensky’s behinds and controlling him.
BANDERA’S HISTORY NEEDS NO EXAGGERATION
Historical accuracy matters because this subject is saturated with propaganda.
Stepan Bandera led the radical OUN-B faction, whose ideology contained authoritarian, fascist, and antisemitic elements, and his organization sought cooperation with Nazi Germany in the hope that Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union could produce an independent Ukrainian state.
After Bandera’s followers proclaimed Ukrainian independence in Lviv in 1941 without German approval, Nazi authorities arrested him. He was later held at Sachsenhausen until being released in 1944 as Soviet forces advanced.
OUN activists and related formations were implicated in antisemitic persecution, anti-Jewish violence and atrocities against Polish civilians. The historical record is serious enough without exaggerating it.
The Holocaust in Ukraine occurred principally after the German invasion in 1941. At least 1.5 million Jews were murdered within the borders of present-day Ukraine, overwhelmingly by Nazi German forces together with collaborators and auxiliary formations. The role of elements of the wartime Ukrainian nationalist movement is part of that difficult history, but the Holodomor and Holocaust are separate catastrophes.
AND NOW, A “BEACON OF HOPE” IN MANHATTAN
Which brings us back to St. Nicholas.
On September 26, the National Shrine at Ground Zero intends to honor Zelensky as a “Beacon of Hope,” invoking freedom, courage, dignity and moral leadership.
Those words carry particular weight when spoken by an Orthodox Christian institution.
The question is whether anyone at the Shrine examined the historical policies being pursued by the government of the man it intends to honor. Did anyone ask why OUN leaders are receiving presidential state funerals? Did anyone examine Yad Vashem’s condemnation? Did anyone consider Poland’s explicit warning regarding Bandera and Shukhevych?
And did anyone at GOARCH investigate the fact that the Pantheon law specifically opens the door to UPA commanders, while a legislator from Zelensky’s own party says Bandera could “without doubt” qualify?
Ukraine’s independence is a rather novel concept in itself, as “Ukraine” even as a name is a couple of centuries old and as a country/land/entity about a century old – while linguistically/racially/culturally it is not easily distinguishable from Russian. Zelensky’s native tongue is Russian (!), and he had the gall to make using Russian unlawful even in grocery stores!! Pat. Bartholomew himself – who is burdened with heavy blame for the expansion and continuation of the war – REPEATEDLY referred to the Ukraine war as a war between brothers.
That makes GOARCH’s decision to transform one wartime political leader into a “Beacon of Hope” all the more remarkable. If the Ecumenical Patriarch himself warns against nationalism, describes this bloodshed as fratricidal and teaches that Christians must remain peacemakers, should an institution under his spiritual jurisdiction not exercise particular caution before turning a political alliance into an Orthodox moral endorsement?
Supporting Ukraine’s independence – if this is your political preference – does ot require a Greek Orthodox institution in New York to confer unqualified moral prestige upon every policy pursued by the Ukrainian state.
The evidence here comes largely from the Ukrainian presidency, parliament, and regional governments; Azov’s own communications; Polish authorities; Israel; and Yad Vashem. Calling every uncomfortable question “Russian propaganda” is therefore no longer a serious answer.
ST. NICHOLAS SHOULD ANSWER BEFORE SEPTEMBER 26
If the Beacon of Hope Award by St. Nicholas WTC intends to confer moral authority upon a president whose government is simultaneously building a National Pantheon that may elevate deeply controversial, pro-Nazi and truly antisemitic OUN and UPA figures — possibly including Stepan Bandera — then Greek Orthodox faithful have every right to ask whether these issues were considered.
The symbolism is difficult to ignore. St. Nicholas stands at Ground Zero, a sacred place built around memory, innocent victims and the obligation not to forget. Ukraine is constructing another national sacred space around a deeply contested twentieth-century memory.
On September 26, those two worlds will meet in Manhattan.
Before GOARCH calls Volodymyr Zelensky a Beacon of Hope, perhaps it should answer the question that Poland, Israel, and Yad Vashem are already forcing into the open:
Whose heroes, whose history — and whose victims — are being remembered?
September 1, 2026, www.helleniscope.com, n.stamatakis@aol.com
DISCLAIMER: The views and statements expressed in this article constitute constitutionally protected opinions of this author.
