EXCLUSIVE: Ukrainian Lobbyist in Leaked Call: Be Careful What Images You Use – A Lot of UOC Churches Were Destroyed by Ukraine’s Armed Forces

A slide from the American Coalition for Ukraine's Wednesday meeting introducing Julian Hayda. Photo: UOJ-USA

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As part of Wednesday night’s emergency call in which the American Coalition for Ukraine said religious freedom is their “Achilles heel,” the associate director of public engagement for Razom for Ukraine spoke about the need to be careful with what images they use in lobbying materials. This was discovered in a recording of the call that was leaked to the Union of Orthodox Journalists of America by a confidential source.

Julian Hayda — who attended the Ukrainian Greek Catholic seminary in Kyiv and whose father is a priest — said, “Visuals also matter. We have to be careful with the images that we use, because a lot of… the UOC churches in Ukraine that were destroyed… were destroyed by Ukrainian Armed Forces. We would use them as staging areas — that’s very not good. We have to be careful about the images that we use.”

On the topic of visuals, Hayda also said that the reason the Society of St. John’s Day of Action was effective is because “they were visibly Orthodox on Capitol Hill.”

“It meant they appeared not to be Russian – there was not a single Russian flag – and they appeared to be just a poor, persecuted, American, homegrown religious group,” he said.

Previously, UOJ reported on a speech by Bp. Theodosius where the hierarch said Ukraine's authorities classify icons as works of art and relics as mummies.

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