title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: The American position shifted in late 1952 when Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected U.S. president. In November and December, British intelligence officials suggested to American intelligence that the Iranian prime minister should be ousted. British prime minister Winston Churchill suggested to the incoming Eisenhower administration that Mosaddegh, despite the latter's open dislike of communism, would become reliant on the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party, resulting in Iran "increasingly turning towards communism" and towards the Soviet sphere at a time of high Cold War fears.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: Though his suggestion was rebuffed by Eisenhower as "paternalistic", Churchill's government had already begun "Operation Boot", and simply waited for the next opportunity to press the Americans. On 28 February 1953, rumours spread by British-backed Iranians that Mosaddegh was trying to exile the Shah from the country gave the new Eisenhower administration the impetus to join the plan. The United States and the United Kingdom agreed to work together toward Mosaddegh's removal and began to publicly denounce Mosaddegh's policies for Iran as harmful to the country. In the meantime, the already precarious alliance between Mosaddegh and Kashani was severed in January 1953, when Kashani opposed Mosaddegh's demand that his increased powers be extended for a period of one year. Finally, to end Mossadegh's destabilizing influence that threatened the supply of oil to the West and could potentially pave the way for a communist takeover of the country, the US made an attempt to depose him.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to overthrow Mossadegh. On 4 April 1953, Dulles approved $1 million to be used "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddegh". Soon the CIA's Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mossadegh. Finally, according to "The New York Times", in early June, American and British intelligence officials met again, this time in Beirut, and put the finishing touches on the strategy. Soon afterward, according to his later published accounts, the chief of the CIA's Near East and Africa division, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. the grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, arrived in Tehran to direct it. In 2000, "The New York Times" made partial publication of a leaked CIA document titled "Clandestine Service History – Overthrow of Premier Mosaddegh of Iran – November 1952 – August 1953".


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: The plot, known as Operation Ajax, centered on convincing Iran's monarch to issue a decree to dismiss Mosaddegh from office, as he had attempted some months earlier. But the Shah was terrified to attempt such a dangerously unpopular and risky move against Mosaddegh. It would take much persuasion and many U.S. funded meetings, which included bribing his sister Ashraf with a mink coat and money, to successfully change his mind.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: Mosaddegh became aware of the plots against him and grew increasingly wary of conspirators acting within his government. According to Dr. Donald N. Wilber, who was involved in the plot to remove Mossadegh from power, in early August, Iranian CIA operatives pretending to be socialists and nationalists threatened Muslim leaders with "savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh", thereby giving the impression that Mossadegh was cracking down on dissent earlier than planned, and stirring anti-Mossadegh sentiments within the religious community. A referendum to dissolve parliament and give the prime minister power to make law was submitted to voters, and it passed with 99 percent approval, 2,043,300 votes to 1300 votes against. According to Mark J. Gasiorowski, "There were separate polling stations for yes and no votes, producing sharp criticism of Mosaddeq" and that the "controversial referendum...gave the CIA's precoup propaganda campaign to show up Mosaddeq as an anti-democratic dictator an easy target". On or around 16 August, Parliament was suspended indefinitely, and Mosaddeq's emergency powers were extended.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: Declassified documents released by the CIA in 2017 revealed that—after the Shah had fled to Italy—CIA headquarters believed the coup to have failed. Following the initial failed coup by the foreign-backed General Fazlollah Zahedi, the CIA sent Roosevelt a telegram on 18 August 1953 telling him to flee Iran immediately, but Roosevelt ignored it and began work on the second coup, circulating a false account that Mossadegh attempted to seize the throne and bribed Iranian agents.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: Soon, massive popular protests, aided by Roosevelt's team, took place across the city and elsewhere with tribesmen at the ready to assist the coup, with anti- and pro-monarchy protesters, both being paid by Roosevelt. By paying mobs to demonstrate, tricking Mossadegh into urging his supporters to stay home, and bribing and mobilizing officers against Mossadegh, he was able to force a military confrontation outside Mossadegh's home.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: The protests turned increasingly violent, leaving almost 300 dead, at which point the pro-monarchy leadership, led by retired army General and former Minister of Interior in Mosaddegh's cabinet, Fazlollah Zahedi, interceded, joined with underground figures such as the Rashidian brothers and local strongman Shaban Jafari. Pro-Shah tank regiments stormed the capital and bombarded the prime minister's official residence. With loyalist troops overwhelmed, Mossadegh was taken into hiding by his aides, narrowly escaping the mob that set in to ransack his house. The following day, he surrendered himself at the Officers' Club, where General Zahedi had been set up with makeshift headquarters by the CIA. Zahedi announced an order for his arrest on the radio, and Mosaddegh was transferred to a military jail shortly after.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: The Shah finally agreed to Mossadegh's overthrow after Roosevelt said that the United States would proceed with or without him, and formally dismissed the prime minister in a written decree, an act that had been made part of the constitution during the Constitution Assembly of 1949, convened under martial law, at which time the power of the monarchy was increased in various ways by the Shah himself. As a precautionary measure, he flew to Baghdad and from there hid safely in Rome. He actually signed two decrees, one dismissing Mosaddegh and the other nominating the CIA's choice, General Fazlollah Zahedi, as Prime Minister. These decrees, called "Farmāns", played a major role in giving legitimacy to the coup, and were further spread by CIA officials. On 22 August, the Shah returned from Rome.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: Zahedi's new government soon reached an agreement with foreign oil companies to form a consortium and "restore the flow of Iranian oil to world markets in substantial quantities", giving the United States and Great Britain the lion's share of the restored British holdings. In return, the US massively funded the Shah's resulting government, until the Shah's overthrow in 1979.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: As soon as the coup succeeded, many of Mosaddegh's former associates and supporters were tried, imprisoned, and tortured. Some were sentenced to death and executed. The minister of foreign affairs and the closest associate of Mosaddegh, Hossein Fatemi, was executed by order of the Shah's military court. The order was carried out by firing squad on 10 November 1954.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: On 21 December 1953, Mossadegh was sentenced to three years' solitary confinement in a military prison, well short of the death sentence requested by prosecutors. After hearing the sentence, Mossadegh was reported to have said with a calm voice of sarcasm: "The verdict of this court has increased my historical glories. I am extremely grateful you convicted me. Truly tonight the Iranian nation understood the meaning of constitutionalism."


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: He was denied a funeral and was buried in his living room, despite his request to be buried in the public graveyard, beside the victims of the political violence on 30 Tir 1331 (21 July 1952).


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: Although Mosaddegh was never directly elected as Prime Minister, he enjoyed massive popularity throughout most of his career. Despite beginning to fall out of favor during the later stages of the Abadan Crisis, the secret U.S. overthrow of Mosaddegh served as a rallying point in anti-US protests during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and to this day he is one of the most popular figures in Iranian history.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: The withdrawal of support for Mosaddegh by the powerful Shia clergy has been regarded as having been motivated by their fear of a communist takeover. Some argue that while many elements of Mosaddegh's coalition abandoned him, it was the loss of support from Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani and another cleric that was fatal to his cause, reflective of the dominance of the Ulema in Iranian society and a portent of the Islamic Revolution to come. The loss of the political clerics effectively cut Mosaddegh's connections with the lower middle classes and the Iranian masses which are crucial to any popular movement in Iran.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: The US role in Mosaddegh's overthrow was not formally acknowledged for many years, although the Eisenhower administration vehemently opposed Mossadegh's policies. President Eisenhower wrote angrily about Mosaddegh in his memoirs, describing him as impractical and naive.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: Eventually, the CIA's involvement with the coup was exposed. This caused controversy within the organization and the CIA congressional hearings of the 1970s. CIA supporters maintained that the coup was strategically necessary, and praised the efficiency of the agents responsible. Critics say the scheme was paranoid, colonial, illegal, and immoral—and truly caused the "blowback" suggested in the pre-coup analysis. The extent of this "blowback", over time, was not completely clear to the CIA, as they had an inaccurate picture of the stability of the Shah's regime. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 caught the CIA and the US very much off guard (as CIA reporting a mere month earlier predicted no imminent insurrectionary turbulence whatsoever for the Shah's regime), and resulted in the overthrow of the Shah by a fundamentalist faction opposed to the US, headed by Ayatollah Khomeini. In retrospect, not only did the CIA and the US underestimate the extent of popular discontent for the Shah, but much of that discontent historically stemmed from the removal of Mosaddegh and the subsequent clientelism of the Shah.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: In March 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated her regret that Mosaddegh was ousted: "The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America." In the same year, "The New York Times" published a detailed report about the coup based on declassified CIA documents.


title: Mohammad Mosaddegh

text: Mosaddegh's overthrow had a direct relationship with the creation of an Islamic revolution and the collapse of the Pahlavi government. America's close relationship with the Shah and the subsequent hostility of the United States to the Islamic Republic and Britain's profitable interventions caused pessimism for Iranians, stirring nationalism and suspicion of foreign interference.


title: Taylor Jenkins Reid

text: Taylor Jenkins Reid is an American author most known for her novels "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo", "Daisy Jones & The Six", and "Malibu Rising".


title: Taylor Jenkins Reid

text: Reid graduated from Emerson College in Boston and majored in media studies. She began her career in film production.


title: Taylor Jenkins Reid

text: After graduating from college, she moved to Los Angeles and worked as a casting assistant. Reid also worked at a high school before she got a book deal. She signed with her first literary agent at age 24.


title: Taylor Jenkins Reid

text: Her debut novel, "Forever, Interrupted", was published in 2013. Reid co-wrote the Hulu television show "Resident Advisors", which premiered in 2015.


title: Taylor Jenkins Reid

text: Her novel "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" was published in 2017 to commercial and critical acclaim. The novel tells the story of fictional Old Hollywood star, Evelyn Hugo, as she reveals the long-held secrets tarnishing both her mysterious life and glamorous marriages.


title: Taylor Jenkins Reid

text: Reid's 2019 novel "Daisy Jones & The Six" recounts the ups and downs of a fictional 1970s rock band and is loosely based on Fleetwood Mac, a band in which real-life romances between bandmates transpired into the songs, and the recording of their hit album "Rumours." "Daisy Jones & The Six" won the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award in 2020. The novel was a finalist for Book of the Month's Book of the Year award in 2021. The audiobook version was named of Apple’s Books’ Best Audiobooks of 2019. Amazon Studios is developing "Daisy Jones & The Six" into a web-based miniseries, also called "Daisy Jones & The Six".


title: Taylor Jenkins Reid

text: Reid published "Carrie Soto is Back" in 2022. It is the fourth and presumed final book of Reid's "famous women quartet," following "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo", "Daisy Jones & The Six", and "Malibu Rising". With recurring characters appearing in all, the four novels share a universe and similar theme but narratively stand alone. Reid stated that she intends to take an extended break before beginning her next literary project.


title: Taylor Jenkins Reid

text: Reid was born in Maryland on December 20, 1983. At age twelve, Reid and her family moved to Acton, Massachusetts. While working in the film industry, she met and married Alex Jenkins Reid, a screenwriter. They now live in Los Angeles with their daughter and squirrel.


title: Gluttony

text: Gluttony (, derived from the Latin "gluttire" meaning "to gulp down or swallow") means over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, or wealth items, particularly as status symbols.


title: Gluttony

text: In Christianity, it is considered a sin if the excessive desire for food causes it to be withheld from the needy. Some Christian denominations consider gluttony one of the seven deadly sins.


title: Gluttony

text: In Deut 21:20 and Proverbs 23:21, it is זלל. The Gesenius Entry (lower left word) has indications of "squandering" and "profligacy" (waste).


title: Gluttony

text: In Matthew 11:19 and Luke 7:34, it is φαγος ("" transliterated character for character), The LSJ Entry is tiny, and only refers to one external source, Zenobius Paroemiographus 1.73. The word could mean merely "an eater", since φαγω means "eat"


title: Gluttony

text: Rambam, for example, prohibits excessive eating and drinking in Hilchot De'ot (e.g., halachot 1:4, 3:2, 5:1). The Chofetz Chaim (Yisrael Meir Kagan) prohibits gluttony on the basis of Leviticus 19:26, in "Sefer Ha-Mitzvot Ha-Katzar" (Prohibition #106).


title: Gluttony

text: Pope Gregory I (St. Gregory the Great), a doctor of the Church, described the following ways by which one can commit sin of gluttony, and corresponding biblical examples for each of them:


title: Gluttony

text: 3. Seeking to "stimulate" the palate with overly or elaborately prepared food (e.g. with luxurious sauces and seasonings).


title: Gluttony

text: 5. Taking food with too much "eagerness", even when eating the proper amount, and even if the food is not luxurious.


title: Gluttony

text: The fifth way is worse than all others, said St. Gregory, because it shows attachment to pleasure most clearly. To recapitulate, St Gregory the Great said that one may succumb to the sin of gluttony by: 1. Time (when); 2. Quality; 3. Stimulants; 4. Quantity; 5. Eagerness. He asserts that the irregular desire is the sin, not the food: "For it is not the food, but the desire that is in fault".


title: Gluttony

text: In his "Summa Theologica" (Part 2-2, Question 148, Article 4), St. Thomas Aquinas reiterated the list of five ways to commit gluttony:


title: Gluttony

text: St. Aquinas concludes that "gluttony denotes inordinate concupiscence in eating"; the first three ways are related to the food itself, while the last two related to the manner of eating. He says that abstinence from food and drink overcome the sin of gluttony, and the act of abstinence is fasting. (see: Fasting and abstinence in the Roman Catholic Church) In general, fasting is useful to restrain concupiscence of the flesh.


title: Gluttony

text: "Pope Innocent XI has condemned the proposition which asserts that it is not a sin to eat or to drink from the sole motive of satisfying the palate. However, it is not a fault to feel pleasure in eating: for it is, generally speaking, impossible to eat without experiencing the delight which food naturally produces. But it is a defect to eat, like beasts, through the sole motive of sensual gratification, and without any reasonable object. Hence, the most delicious meats may be eaten without sin, if the motive be good and worthy of a rational creature; and, in taking the coarsest food through attachment to pleasure, there may be a fault."


title: Gluttony

text: “and eat and drink but waste not by extravagance, certainly He (Allah) likes not Al‑Musrifoon (those who waste by extravagance)”


title: Gluttony

text: The Prophet said: The son of Adam does not fill any vessel worse than his stomach. It is sufficient for the son of Adam to eat a few mouthfuls, to keep him going. If he must do that (fill his stomach), then let him fill one third with food, one third with drink and one third with air.” Narrated by al-Tirmidhi (2380); classed as saheeh (truthful) by al-Albaani in al-Silsilah al-Saheehah (2265).


title: Gluttony

text: Callimachus the famous Greek poet states, "All that I have given to my stomach has disappeared, and I have retained all the fodder that I gave to my spirit."


title: Gluttony

text: Popular quote "Eat to live, not live to eat" is commonly attributed to Socrates. A quotation from "Rhetorica ad Herennium" IV.28 : ""Esse oportet ut vivas; non vivere ut edas"" ("It is necessary to eat in order to live, not to live in order to eat") is credited by the "Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs" to Cicero.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Kirill or Cyril (, , secular name Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev, ; born 20 November 1946) is a Russian Orthodox bishop. He became Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' and Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church on 1 February 2009.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Prior to becoming Patriarch, Kirill was Archbishop (later Metropolitan) of Smolensk and Kaliningrad beginning on 26 December 1984, and also Chairman of the Russian Orthodox Church's Department for External Church Relations and a permanent member of the Holy Synod beginning in 1989.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: A close ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Kirill has described Putin’s rule as "a miracle of God." According to Putin, Kirill's father baptized him. During his tenure as Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus', Kirill has brought the Russian Orthodox Church closer to the Russian state. Kirill's relationship with Bartholomew I of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch and the spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide, has been tense. After Kirill lauded Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, clergy in other Orthodox dioceses condemned Kirill's remarks, with Bartholomew I saying that Kirill's support for Putin and the war were "damaging to the prestige of the whole of Orthodoxy."


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Kirill was born Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev in Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) on 20 November 1946. His father, Rev. Mikhail Gundyaev, died in 1974. His mother, Raisa Gundyaeva, a teacher of German, died in 1984. His elder brother, Archpriest Nikolay Gundyaev, is a professor at Leningrad Theological Academy and rector of the Holy Transfiguration Cathedral in St. Petersburg. His grandfather, Rev. Vasily Gundyaev, a Solovki prisoner, was imprisoned and exiled in the '20s, '30s and '40s for his church activity and struggle against Renovationism.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: After finishing the eighth grade (year 9), Vladimir Gundyayev got a job in the Leningrad Geological Expedition and worked for it from 1962 to 1965 as cartographer, combining work with studies at secondary school. After graduation from school, he entered the Leningrad Seminary and later the Leningrad Theological Academy, from which he graduated cum laude in 1970.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 3 April 1969, Metropolitan Nicodemus (Rotov) of Leningrad and Novgorod tonsured him with the name of Kirill after saint Cyril the Philosopher and on 7 April ordained him as hierodeacon and on 1 June as hieromonk.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: From 1970 to 1971, Father Kirill taught Dogmatic Theology and acted as rector's assistant for students’ affairs at the Leningrad Theological Schools and at the same time worked as personal secretary to Metropolitan Nicodem and supervising instructor of the first-grade seminarians.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 12 September 1971, Kirill was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and was posted as a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church to the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva. On 26 December 1974, he was appointed rector of the Leningrad Academy and Seminary. Since December 1975, he has been a member of the WCC central committee and executive committee.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In 1971, he was appointed representative of the Moscow Patriarchate at the World Council of Churches and has been actively involved in the ecumenical activity of the Russian Orthodox Church since then.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Since 1994, Kirill has hosted a weekly Orthodox television program "Слово пастыря" (The Word of the Shepherd) on ORT/Channel One.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 6 December 2008, the day after the death of Patriarch Alexy II, the Russian Holy Synod elected him locum tenens of the Patriarchal throne. On 9 December, during the funeral service for Alexey II in Christ the Saviour Cathedral (which was broadcast live by Russia's state TV channels), he was seen and reported to have fainted at one point. On 29 December, when talking to journalists, he said he was opposed to any reforms of a liturgical or doctrinal nature in the Church. On 27 January 2009, the ROC Local Council (the 2009 Pomestny Sobor) elected Kirill I of Moscow as Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus; with 508 votes out of 700.) He was enthroned on 1 February 2009.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: The conservative wing in the Russian Orthodox Church criticized Kirill for practicing ecumenism throughout the 1990s. In 2008, breakaway Bishop Diomid of Anadyr and Chukotka criticized him for associating himself with the Catholic Church. However, in a 2009 statement, Kirill stated that there could be no doctrinal compromise with the Catholic Church, and that discussions with them did not have the goal of seeking unification.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Still, contact with Pope Benedict XVI was characterized as greatly warm and with mutual respect with relations between the churches following. In 2012, Kirill's visit to Poland advanced greatly relations with the Roman Catholic hierarchy of Poland. Visits and encounters with Roman Catholics in Russia and abroad continue to enjoy support, if tacit, from many Orthodox clergy and lay people.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 12 February 2016, Kirill and Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, met at José Martí International Airport near Havana, Cuba, and signed a thirty point joint declaration, prepared in advance, addressing global issues including their hope for re–establishment of full unity, the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, the Syrian Civil War and church organisation in Ukraine. This was the first meeting between a pope and a Russian Orthodox patriarch.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 3 September 2019, Kirill and Paulose II, the head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, met at the Patriarchal and Synod residence in St. Daniel Monastery, Moscow. Paulose II was accompanied by Malankara representatives, Zachariah Nicholovos (head of the Malankara Church department of ecumenical relations), Yuhanon Diascoros (secretary of the Malankara Church Holy Synod), Abraham Thomas (secretary of the Malankara Church department for external church relations), Aswin Zefrin Fernandis (head of the Malankara Catholicos’ protocol service), Jiss Jonson (personal secretary to the Catholicos), Jacob Mathew (member of the Malankara Church Council), Kevin George Koshi (head of the communication service of the Malankara Church department for external church relations) and Cherian Eapen (representative of the Malankara diaspora in Russia). Representatives of the Patriarch included Metropolitan Hilarion (head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations (DECR)), Bishop Dionisy of Voskresensk (deputy chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate), Archimandrite Philaret (Bulekov) (DECR vice-chairman), Hieromonk Stephan Igumnov (DECR secretary for inter-Christian relations) and R. Akhtamkhanov (DECR secretariat for inter-Christian relations). During this meeting, Kirill supported the proposals made by Paulose II for cooperation in academics pertaining to iconography, church choristers, monasticism, pilgrimages, summer institutes and academic conferences.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Patriarch Kirill introduced significant changes in the administrative structure of the Church. On 31 March 2009, the Holy Synod, at its first meeting under the chairmanship of the newly elected Patriarch Kirill, reformed the DECR, forming new synodal institutions, which were entrusted with certain areas of activity previously dealt with by the DECR. The , independent from the DECR, was created; this department was responsible for "the implementation of relations with legislative bodies, political parties, professional and creative unions, and other civil society institutions in the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate." Dioceses, , metochions, monasteries and stavropegic parishes far abroad, which were previously under the authority of the DECR, were directly subordinated to the Patriarch of Moscow of All Russia; to manage them, the Moscow Patriarchate's Secretariat for Institutions Abroad was created. The was created. The post-graduate department of the Moscow Theological Academy, which operated under the DECR, was transformed into the .


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 27 July 2011, the Holy Synod of the Church established the Central Asian Metropolitan District, reorganizing the structure of the Church in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. Since 6 October 2011, at the request of the Patriarch, the diocesan reform began, in which 2–3 dioceses were created on the territory of one region instead of one with the formation of a metropolis (, mitropoliya), administrative structure bringing together neighboring eparchies.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 20 October 2008, while on a tour of Latin America, he had a meeting with First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Fidel Castro. Castro commended Metropolitan Kirill as his ally in combating "American imperialism". Kirill awarded Fidel and Raúl Castro the Order of St. Daniel of Moscow on behalf of Patriarch Alexy II in recognition of their decision to build the first Russian Orthodox Church in Havana, to serve the Russian expatriates living there.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Kirill "heartily congratulated" Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko for winning the Belarusian presidency in 2010 in a non-democratic election.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: According to the "Financial Times", "Keenly aware that Putin’s actions severely undermined his authority in Ukraine, Kirill refused to absorb Crimea’s parishes and boycotted a ceremony in the Kremlin to celebrate Russia’s annexation."


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: During the Orthodox Church of Ukraine autocephaly controversy, Patriarch Kirill was the presiding chairman of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church when the decision was made to break Eucharistic communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 15 October 2018.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Kirill praised the invasion. Kirill blamed the conflict on "gay parades" and made baseless claims that Ukraine was "exterminating" Russians in Donbass, Kirill's remarks prompted clergy in some other Orthodox dioceses to condemn Kirill's remarks and seek independence from the Moscow church.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: When Kirill was elected Patriarch on 27 January 2009, by the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church by secret vote he gained 508 out of 702 votes and enthroned during liturgy at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow on 1 February 2009 the service was attended, among others, by President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev and then prime minister Vladimir Putin.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: The following day, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev hosted a reception (a formal banquet) for the ROC bishops in the Grand Kremlin Palace, where Patriarch Kirill held forth about the Byzantine concept of symphonia as his vision of the ideal of church-state relations, though acknowledging that it was not possible to fully attain to it in Russia today.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 8 February 2012, at a meeting of religious leaders in Moscow, Kirill contrasted the economic and social chaos of the 1990s with the 2000s and said "What were the 2000s then? Through a miracle of God, with the active participation of the country’s leadership, we managed to exit this horrible, systemic crisis", and likened anti-government protesters' "demands to “ear-piercing shrieks” and said the protesters represented a minority of Russians."


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In cultural and social affairs, the Church under Kirill has collaborated closely with the Russian state under President Vladimir Putin.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Patriarch Kirill has backed the expansion of Russian power into Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Despite calling for the "speedy restoration of peace", Patriarch Kirill also referred to Moscow's opponents in Ukraine as "evil forces", stating "we must not allow dark and hostile external forces to laugh at us."


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: He has been described as a "committed nationalist of the imperial variety", as someone "who thinks nothing of using the familiar words of a faith to their most egregious effect".


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: As Patriach, Kirill said that Putin's rule is a miracle. He openly supported Putin's presidential bid in 2012 and said that Putin corrected the historically wrong path of Russia after coming to power, and conducted a special prayer ceremony in honor of Putin's re-election twice, on 7 May 2012 and in May 2018.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: During Kirill's visit to Bulgaria in 2018 in honor of the 140th anniversary of Bulgaria's liberation from the Ottoman empire, Bulgaria's president Rumen Radev said he thanks all ethnicities that were struggling for Bulgaria's independence from the Ottomans as a part of Russia's Imperial Army: Russians, Romanians, Finns, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Lithuanians, Serbs, Montenegrins.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In response, Kirill criticised the statement and said Bulgarians should only thank Russia, not anyone else, and that there was no place for "false interpretations of history". Kirill also added that Bulgarians have been known since the Soviet era for being bad speechmakers, who are unable to speak without paper notes.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In turn, Bulgaria's Vice Prime Minister Valeri Simeonov called Kirill a "2nd rate KGB agent", "the Tobacco Metropolitan" (see relevant article: ) and said Kirill is "not a saint". After a litigation launched by a local Bulgarian pro-Russian activist, a local court found there was no defamation in Simeonov's words.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In 2015, Kirill's envoy delivered his letter to Russian servicemen at Russia's Khmeimim Air Base in Syria. The letter claimed that Russians troops in Syria are to deliver love and peace with the hope of Jesus Christ's descending to Syria. Kirill also said that Russia's actions in Syria are just.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Journalists of the newspapers "Kommersant" and "Moskovskij Komsomolets" accused Kirill of profiteering and abuse of the privilege of duty-free importation of cigarettes granted to the church in the mid-1990s and dubbed him "Tobacco Metropolitan". The Department for External Church Relations was alleged to have acted as the largest supplier of foreign cigarettes in Russia. The profits of this operation allegedly under Kirill's direction were estimated to have totaled $1.5 billion by sociologist Nikolai Mitrokhin in 2004, and at $4 billion by "The Moscow News" in 2006. However, Nathaniel Davis said that "There is no evidence that Metropolitan Kirill has actually embezzled funds. What is more likely is that profits from the importation of tobacco and cigarettes have been used for urgent, pressing Church expenses." The duty-free importation of cigarettes ended in 1997. In his 2002 interview with "Izvestia", Metropolitan Kirill called the allegations about his profiteering a political campaign against him.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Alexander Pochinok, who was the minister of taxes and levies (1999–2000), said in 2009 that Kirill had no involvement in the violations.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Three female members of the feminist group Pussy Riot were arrested in March 2012 for performing a song in Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow during which they called on the Virgin Mary to "chase Putin out". The women were arrested for hooliganism and were later sentenced to two years' imprisonment. The song contained swear words offending the church itself, as well as being performed in the part of church near the altar where no laity are allowed to enter. This act was considered a desecration and offence by many of Orthodox believers in Russia, and depicted as such in media. It was also said that few people had known this feminist group before their act in the cathedral. Commenting on the case, Kirill said they were "doing the work of Satan" and should be punished. This sparked criticism of the Orthodox Church on the Runet for not showing mercy, while Amnesty International described the women as "prisoners of conscience". In their closing statements, members of Pussy Riot said that Patriarch Kirill had used the church to support the cultural position of Putin's government. Polls by Levada Center showed that a majority of Russians thought the punishment of the punk group was excessive, although only six percent of Russian were sympathetic to the group.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Pope Benedict XVI, who was pontiff of the Catholic Church at the time, supported the position of the Russian Orthodox Church on this issue.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In March 2012, the former Russian Health Minister (1999–2004) Yury Shevchenko, pursuant to a court ruling, paid about 20 million rubles ($676,000) in compensation for the dust resultant from the renovation work that had settled in a flat upstairs in the prestigious House on the Embankment privately owned by Patriarch Kirill and occupied by the Patriarch's long-time friend businesswoman Lidia Leonova. According to the media reports, the former minister is personally acquainted with the then Russian Federation prime-minister Vladimir Putin.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: "I sold my apartment in St. Petersburg, and we paid the required sum", said Shevchenko's son, also Yury, in early April 2012.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: According to the lawsuit, renovation works in Shevchenko's apartment stirred up a lot of dust, which settled on a collection of valuable books owned by Kirill. The Patriarch confirmed his ownership of the dusty apartment in a private conversation with journalist Vladimir Solovyov.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Most of the reports in the media tended to be critical of Patriarch Kirill and laughing at the claims that the dust was harmful, saying that it was just sand and it would have been far more efficient to just hire a maid to vacuum it up. The Patriarch himself then said he thought it to be inappropriate to forgive Shevchenko.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In 2012, Kirill was accused of wearing a Swiss Breguet watch worth over £20,000 (US$30,000). In an interview with Vladimir Solovyov, Kirill said that he owned a Breguet, among other gifts, but he had never worn it. Concerning a photo which appeared to show him wearing the Breguet at a liturgy, Kirill stated


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: "I was looking at that picture and suddenly I understood - it was a collage! But after that photograph was posted I began examining. As many people come and make presents. And often there are boxes that were never opened and you don't know what is there. And I found out that in fact there is Breguet watch, so I've never given commentaries that the Patriarch doesn't have it. There is a box with Breguet, but I've never worn it." This triggered at least one Internet blogger to study the issue and collect images of Kirill's wristwear. Some time later, photographs on his official website showed him wearing what appeared to be an expensive watch on his left wrist, and later one even showed the watch airbrushed out, but with a reflection of it still visible on the table's glossy surface. Later, it was stated by the Russian Church officials that it was a 24-year-old employee who "acted out of stupid, unjustifiable and unauthorized initiative" in editing the photo.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: A spokesperson added that it was "unethical" to discuss Kirill's private life, and the Russian Orthodox Church said on 4 April 2012 that foreign forces were taking revenge on it for supporting Putin: "The attacks have become more prominent during the pre-election and post-election period [... This] shows their political and also anti-Russian motives."


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In June 2012, Kirill was given the 2011 (given in Russia each year "for the most dubious achievements in show business") for "immaculate disappearance of a watch" in the category "Miracles up to the elbows". The award found a pained reaction from representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In 2016, Kirill stated that silencing priests that speak against same-sex marriage is similar to censorship, such as those that existed under Soviet totalitarianism. In May 2017, he again likened silencing such priests to totalitarianism seen in Nazi Germany, and referred to same-sex marriage as a threat to family values during a visit to Kyrgyzstan.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Since the 1990s, Kirill has advocated for banning Jehovah's Witnesses. Under Kirill's leadership, he remained the chief architect behind the ban of 170,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in 2017. On 2 May 2017, the Russian Orthodox Church issued a press release stating, "Russian Orthodox Church supports [the] ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia," and again, on 13 February 2019, it reiterated full support of the ban. Sam Brownback, a U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, stated, "You may agree or disagree with their [Jehovah's Witnesses'] ideology, but they are peaceful practitioners of faith, and they are entitled to practice their faith." Since then, the United Nations and others have accused Russia of human rights abuses. Kirill has a goal of establishing a global Eastern Orthodox movement in Greece, Cyprus, Ukraine, Belarus, various Balkan states, Georgia, Armenia, and Moldova.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Forbes reported on 20 February 2009 that, "Kirill, who was the Metropolitan of Smolensk, succeeds Alexei II who died in December after 18 years as head of the Russian Church. According to material from the Soviet archives, Kirill was a KGB agent (as was Alexei). This means he was more than just an informer, of whom there were millions in the Soviet Union. He was an active officer of the organization. Neither Kirill nor Alexei ever acknowledged or apologized for their ties with the security agencies." Further reporting from 7 March 2022 from "The Guardian"'s Emma Graham-Harrison interviewed local Ukrainians for their opinions about Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The response was mostly a pessimistic view of Kirill and his motives towards Ukraine based on his past as a KGB agent:


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In his sermon on 28 May 2022, Kirill stated that Vladimir Lenin has "tragically" dismembered "the historical Russia" into different countries, signing decrees destroying the country, which was a terrible decision that still leads to consequences even today.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 18 July 2014, despite Russia's intervention in Donbas and Russia's occupation of Crimea (during which Putin, according to his own statement, threatened to use nuclear weapons in case of resistance to the Russians), Kirill said that Russia poses no military threat to anyone.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On the same day, Putin stated that he wants to involve Patriarch Kirill as a negotiator for the peace process in Ukraine.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 14 August 2014, in an address to the heads of other Orthodox churches, Patriarch Kirill stated that the anti-terrorist operation in Eastern Ukraine is a war to eradicate Orthodoxy, waged by Catholics and Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalists, whom he called "schismatics".


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 9 April 2015, at a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Patriarch Kirill thanked him for his geopolitical support he gives to Russia and called the sanctions imposed on Russia for the occupation of Crimea and the aggression in Donbas "illegal and unfair."


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 25 December 2017, according to the website of Russia's occupation administration of Crimea, Patriarch Kirill by his decree awarded the head of the occupation administration Serhiy Aksyonov and the head of the occupation "State Council of Crimea" Volodymyr Kostiantynov (both contributed to the occupation of Crimea and are wanted in Ukraine on charges of committing the actions aimed at seizing power by force, subverting the constitutional order, Ukraine's territorial integrity, and charges of committing a treason against the state and creating a criminal organization) with 2 church awards, respectively, the Order of St. Prince Daniel of Moscow of the 2nd rank and the Order of St. Seraphim of Sarov of the 2nd rank.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In May 2019, Patriarch Kirill said that the people who set the Odesa Trade Unions House alight "were possessed of the Devil", but didn't condemn Odesa anti-Maidan activists who had killed two Maidan activists, Igor Ivanov and Andrei Biryukov, on the same day earlier.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: During the vote on amendments to Russia's constitution, Kirill called upon Russians to support the amendments.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: While he explicitly mentioned a single amendment, the one that adds the mention of faith in God, saying that even atheists should vote for it, the voting itself was actually about the entire set of amendments, with people voting on all amendments at once, instead of voting on each amendment individually, one-by-one.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Among the amendments was the amendment to protect Russia's territorial integrity, which prohibits negotiations on the transfer of Russia's territories to other countries. Since Russia considers Crimea as its own territory, this amendment would effectively bar Russia from returning Crimea to Ukraine.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 15 October 2021, at the opening of the VII Congress of Russian Compatriots in Moscow, he accused the West of trying to impose "false narratives" about World War II, stating the need to "protect" compatriots and Russians from Russia around the world, and said that not only do parishes of The Moscow Patriarchate unite Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians through religion, but also through Russian language. Kirill urged families of these peoples to teach their own children to love their "historical homeland" Russia and to raise their children as Russophones.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Patriarch Kirill has referred to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine as "current events" and has avoided using terms like "war" or "invasion", thereby complying with Russian censorship law. Kirill approves of the invasion, and has blessed the Russian soldiers fighting there. As a consequence, several priests of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine have stopped mentioning Kirill's name during the divine service. The Moscow patriarchate views Ukraine as a part of their "canonical territory". Kirill has said that the Russian army has chosen a very correct way.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Kirill sees gay pride parades as a part of the reason behind Russian warfare against Ukraine. He has said that the war is not physically, but rather metaphysically, important.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 6 March 2022 (Forgiveness Sunday holiday), during the liturgy in the Church of Christ the Savior, he justified Russia's attack on Ukraine, stating that it was necessary to side with "Donbas" (i.e. Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republic), where he said there is an ongoing 8-year "genocide" by Ukraine and where, Kirill said, Ukraine wants to enforce gay pride events upon local population. Despite the holiday being dedicated to the concept of forgiveness, Kirill said there can't be forgiveness without delivering "justice" first, otherwise it's a capitulation and weakness. The speech came under international scrutiny, as Kirill parroted President Putin's claim that Russia was fighting "fascism" in Ukraine. Throughout the speech, Kirill did not use the term "Ukrainian", but rather referred to both Russians and Ukrainians simply as "Holy Russians", also claiming Russian soldiers in Ukraine were "laying down their lives for a friend", the Gospel of John.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 9 March 2022, after the liturgy, he declared that Russia has the right to use force against Ukraine to ensure Russia's security, that Ukrainians and Russians are one people, that Russia and Ukraine are one country, that the West incites Ukrainians to kill Russians in order to sow discord between Russians and Ukrainians and gives weapons to Ukrainians for this specific purpose, and therefore the West is an enemy of Russia and God.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In a letter to the World Council of Churches (WCC) sent in March 2022, Kirill justified the attack on Ukraine by NATO enlargement, the protection of Russian language, and the establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In this letter, he did not express condolences over deaths among Ukrainians.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Kirill participated in a Zoom video call with Pope Francis on 16 March 2022, of which Francis stated in an interview that Kirill "read from a piece of paper he was holding in his hand all the reasons that justify the Russian invasion."


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 27 March 2022, Kirill expressed his support for the actions of Rosgvardiya in Ukraine, praising its fighters for performing their military duty, and wished them God's help in this matter.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In the aftermath of the Bucha massacre on 3 April, Kirill, speaking in the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, Kirill praised the armed forces for "feats" of service, saying Russia is "peaceful".


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Representatives of the Vatican have criticized Kirill for his lack of willingness to seek peace in Ukraine. On 3 April, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said there was a strong case for expelling the Russian Orthodox Church from the WCC, saying, "When a Church is actively supporting a war of aggression, failing to condemn nakedly obvious breaches of any kind of ethical conduct in wartime, then other Churches do have the right to raise the question ... I am still waiting for any senior member of the Orthodox hierarchy to say that the slaughter of the innocent is condemned unequivocally by all forms of Christianity."


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: The Russian Orthodox St Nicholas church in Amsterdam, Netherlands, has declared that it is no longer possible to function within the Moscow patriarchate because of the attitude that Kirill has to the Russian invasion, and instead requested to join the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Russian-Orthodox Church in Lithuania has declared that they do not share the political views and perception of Kirill and therefore are seeking independence from Moscow.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 10 April 2022, 200 priests from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) released an open request to the primates of the other autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches, asking them to convene a Council of Primates of the Ancient Eastern Churches at the Pan-Orthodox level and try Kirill for the heresy of preaching the "Doctrine of the Russian World" and the moral crimes of "blessing the war against Ukraine and fully supporting the aggressive nature of Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine." They noted that they "can't continue to remain in any form of canonical subordination to the Moscow Patriarch," and requested that the Council of Primates "bring Patriarch Kirill to justice and deprive him of the right to hold the patriarchal throne."


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 4 May 2022, Kirill was included in a list of 58 entities proposed for sanctions by the European Commission in relation to the invasion of Ukraine, according to Agence France-Presse. However, later reports stated that he was removed from the list following intervention by the Hungarian government.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: On 23 May 2022, Kirill stated that Russian schoolchildren must take Russian troops fighting against Ukraine as an example of heroic behaviour.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: When the Ukrainian Orthodox Church removed itself from the Moscow Patriarchate on 27 May 2022, Kirill claimed that the "spirits of malice" wanted to separate the Russian and Ukrainian peoples but they will not succeed.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said that the patriarch's legitimization of the "brutal and absurd war" is "a heresy."


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Kirill supported the mobilization of citizens to go to the front in Ukraine, he urged citizens to fulfill their military duty and that if they gave their lives for their country they will be with God in his kingdom.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: According to a "Forbes" article in 2006, Kirill's wealth was $4 billion, and a 2019 "Novaya Gazeta" report estimated his worth at $4 billion to $8 billion, although the figures have not been verified. According to a 2020 investigation by Proekt, Kirill and two of his second cousins owned nine separate pieces of real estate worth $2.87 million in the Moscow Region and St. Petersburg.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: In 2009, Kirill was photographed wearing a $30,000 gold Breguet watch. The Orthodox Church airbrushed the watch (but not its reflection on the table at which Kirill was sitting) out of the photo, while Kirill claimed that the watch had been doctored into the image. Kirill later admitted that he did in fact own the watch.


title: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

text: Lukoyanovsky District of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast (2000), Smolensk Oblast (5 February 2009), Kaliningrad Oblast (5 March 2009), Kemerovo Oblast (2010), Smolensk (2003), the "selo" of Rizskoye of Smolensk Oblast (2004), Neman of Kaliningrad Oblast (2006), Vyazemsky District of Smolensk Oblast (2006), Kaliningrad (2006), Khoroshyovo-Mnyovniki District of Moscow (2006), Republic of Mordovia (2011 – for outstanding contribution to the preservation and development of domestic spiritual and moral traditions, strengthening of interaction of church and state).


title: Kari Byron

text: Kari Elizabeth Byron (born December 18, 1974) is an American television host, best known for her role on the "MythBusters" and "White Rabbit Project" series.


title: Kari Byron

text: Byron was born in the Bay Area, California. She graduated from Los Gatos High School in Los Gatos, California, and studied at San Francisco State University, graduating in May 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts in film and sculpture. She spent the following year backpacking, primarily in South Asia, and was involved in a number of art projects.


title: Kari Byron

text: Byron was a cast member on "MythBusters" from 2004 to 2014. Along with fellow cast members Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara she was part of what is commonly referred to as "The Build Team" or B Team. This Build Team worked with Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman to test the plausibility of various myths throughout their tenure with the show. She and the others also hosted their own segments. She became involved in the show after persistently showing up at Hyneman's M5 Industries workshop in a desire to get hired by his company. She and the other Build Team members were given a more prominent role beginning with the show's second season. Not having had a long history in show business, Byron at first found it difficult to act naturally with this more visible position but gradually became more accustomed to it.


title: Kari Byron

text: During the second half of the 2009 season, Byron was on maternity leave and was temporarily replaced by Jessi Combs. From 2010–2011, Byron had her own show, "Head Rush", on the Science Channel, geared toward science education and teens.


title: Kari Byron

text: Byron has also hosted the 2010 and 2011 editions of "Large, Dangerous Rocket Ships" for the Science Channel. She and Belleci made a guest appearance on the October 3, 2012, episode of the Discovery series "Sons of Guns". They test-fired some of the weapons in the Red Jacket shop and watched as the staff re-tested a myth previously busted by the Build Team: that a propane tank could explode if struck by a bullet. She left the show in 2014.


title: Kari Byron

text: Byron and Belleci hosted coverage of "Pumpkin Chunkin" on the Science Channel from 2011 to 2014. In 2015, Byron and Belleci hosted "Thrill Factor", a new show for the Travel Channel.


title: Kari Byron

text: Byron, along with Imahara and Belleci, hosted the Netflix production "White Rabbit Project", released on Netflix on December 9, 2016. The series focused on unusual aspects from history and pop culture.


title: Kari Byron

text: Byron is currently host of the series "Crash Test World". The first season of six episodes aired on Science Channel starting January 8, 2021.


title: Kari Byron

text: Byron is currently the co-founder of EXPLR Media, an education streaming service. "I want our audience to be able to look at every show that we do and find somebody that looks like them." (Byron)


title: Kari Byron

text: Byron married artist Paul Urich in March 2006. They have a daughter. On June 26, 2019, Byron petitioned for separation from Urich and their marriage was dissolved on March 20, 2020.


title: Kari Byron

text: Byron continues to create art, including paintings created by igniting gunpowder. In 2018 she published a memoir "Crash Test Girl", with HarperOne. Byron is credited with creating the original cover art, and providing interior art, for "canvas: poems" (Viewless Wings Press, 2021), using the black powder technique.


title: Kari Byron

text: In "Crash Test Girl", Byron states she has "contended with severe bouts of depression" since she was twelve. She states she has depressive episodes "a few times a year"; in addition, she had postpartum depression, more severe than her normal depression, for six months after her daughter was born.


title: Gustave (crocodile)

text: Gustave is a large male Nile crocodile from Burundi. He is notorious for being a man-eater and is rumored to have killed as many as 300 people from the banks of the Ruzizi River and the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika. Though the actual number is difficult to verify, he has obtained near-mythical status and was greatly feared by people in the region.


title: Gustave (crocodile)

text: Gustave was named by Patrice Faye, a herpetologist who has been studying and investigating him since the late 1990s. Much of what is known about Gustave stems from the film "Capturing the Killer Croc", which aired in 2004 on PBS. The film documents a capture attempt and study on Gustave.


title: Gustave (crocodile)

text: Since Gustave has not been captured, his length and weight are unknown, but in 2002 it was stated that he could be "easily more than " long, and weigh more than . He was estimated to be around 100 years old in order to achieve such outstanding size; however, further more careful observation of Gustave revealed a complete set of teeth when he opened his mouth. Since a 100-year-old crocodile "should be nearly toothless" (according to the documentary), he was estimated to be "probably no older than 60, and likely still growing".


title: Gustave (crocodile)

text: Gustave is known for the three bullet scars on his body. His right shoulder blade was also found to be deeply wounded. Circumstances surrounding the four scars are unknown. Scientists and herpetologists who have studied Gustave claim that his uncommon size and weight impede his ability to hunt the species' usual agile prey such as fish, antelope and zebra, forcing him to attack larger animals such as hippopotamus, large buffalo and, to some extent, humans. According to a popular local warning, he was said to hunt and leave his victims' corpses uneaten. The documentary film also stated that since crocodiles can go several months without eating, Gustave could afford to select his prey carefully.


title: Gustave (crocodile)

text: In "Capturing the Killer Croc", and other scientists attempted to capture Gustave. According to the film, Patrice performed two years of investigations before the attempt. Patrice and his team were given two months for their capture attempt; thereafter a change of government would risk plunging the country into civil war.


title: Gustave (crocodile)

text: A trap cage weighing a tonne and nearly 9 meters (30 feet) in length was developed. The team then located Gustave and installed and baited the trap, placing a hidden infrared camera inside as well. Several kinds of bait were used, yet none of them attracted Gustave or any other creature. The scientists then installed three giant snares on strategic banks to increase their chances of capture; although smaller crocodiles were caught by the traps, Gustave was not.


title: Gustave (crocodile)

text: In the last week before being forced to leave the country, the team placed a live goat in the cage. Nothing happened until one night, the camera failed during stormy weather. The next morning, the cage was found partially submerged, and the goat had disappeared. The team speculated that the rising waters helped the goat to escape, or that the cage had failed, but without the camera recording, no conclusion could be drawn.


title: Gustave (crocodile)

text: In a 2019 article about travel in Burundi, a writer for "Travel Africa Magazine" reported learning that Gustave had been killed. It is not said how he was killed or by whom and no photographic evidence has ever surfaced, leaving these claims dubious until more concrete evidence is brought forward.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (, abbreviated OUN) was a Ukrainian ultranationalist political organization established in 1929 in Vienna. The OUN was the largest and one of the most important far-right Ukrainian organizations operating in the Kresy region (Eastern Galicia) of the Second Polish Republic. OUN emerged as a union between the Ukrainian Military Organization, smaller radical right-wing groups, and right-wing Ukrainian nationalists and intellectuals represented by Dmytro Dontsov, Yevhen Konovalets, Mykola Stsiborskyi, and other figures.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: The ideology of the OUN has been described as similar to Italian Fascism. The OUN sought to infiltrate legal political parties, universities and other political structures and institutions. The OUN's strategies to achieve Ukrainian independence included violence and terrorism against perceived foreign and domestic enemies, particularly Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Kingdom of Romania, and the Soviet Union.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: In 1940, the OUN split into two parts. The older, more moderate members supported Andriy Atanasovych Melnyk and the OUN-M, while the younger and more radical members supported Stepan Bandera's OUN-B. After the start of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), the OUN-B in the person of Yaroslav Stetsko declared an independent Ukrainian state on 30 June 1941 in occupied Lviv, while the region was under the control of Nazi Germany, pledging to work closely with Germany, which was presented as freeing Ukrainians from Russian oppression. In response, the Nazi authorities suppressed the OUN leadership. In October 1942 the OUN-B established the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). In 1943–1944, in an effort to pre-empt Polish efforts to re-establish Poland's pre-war borders, UPA combat units carried out large-scale ethnic cleansing against Polish people. Historians estimate that 50-130,000 Polish civilians were massacred in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: After World War II, the UPA fought against Soviet and Polish government forces. During Operation Vistula in 1947, the Polish government deported 140,000 Ukrainian civilians in Poland to remove the support base for the UPA. In the struggle, Soviet forces killed, arrested, or deported over 500,000 Ukrainian civilians. Many of those targeted by the Soviets included UPA members, their families, and their supporters. During and after the Cold War, Western intelligence agencies, including the CIA, covertly supported the OUN.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: A number of contemporary far-right Ukrainian political organizations claim to be inheritors of the OUN's political traditions, including Svoboda, Right Sector, the Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian National Self Defence, and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. One of the reasons the role of the OUN remains contested in historiography, is the fact that some of these later political inheritors developed literature justifying or denying the organization's fascist political heritage and collaboration with Nazi Germany and even celebrating the "SS" Division Galicia.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: In 1919, with the end of the Polish–Ukrainian War, the Second Polish Republic took over most of the territory claimed by the West Ukrainian National Republic (the rest was absorbed by the Soviet Union). One year later, exiled Ukrainian officers set up the Ukrainian Military Organization (Ukrainian – Українська Військова Організація: Ukrayins'ka Viys'kova Orhanizatsiya, the UVO), an underground military organization composed of Ukrainian veterans with the goals of continuing the armed struggle against Poland, of destabilizing the political situation, and of preparing disarmed veterans for an anti-Polish uprising. The UVO was strictly a military organization with a military command structure. Originally the UVO operated under the authority of the exiled government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, but in 1925 following a power struggle all the supporters of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic's exiled president Yevhen Petrushevych were expelled.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: Yevhen Konovalets, the former commander of the elite Sich Riflemen unit of the Ukrainian military, led the UVO. West Ukrainian political parties secretly funded the organization. Although it engaged in acts of sabotage and attempted to assassinate the Poland's Chief of State Józef Piłsudski in 1921, it functioned more as a militant protective organization rather than as a terrorist organization. When in 1923 the Allies recognized Polish rule over western Ukraine, many members left the organization. The Ukrainian legal parties turned against the UVO's militant actions, preferring to work within the Polish political system. As a result, the UVO turned to Germany and Lithuania for political and financial support. It established contact with militant anti-Polish student organizations, such as the Group of Ukrainian National Youth, the League of Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Union of Ukrainian Nationalist Youth. After preliminary meetings in Berlin in 1927 and Prague in 1928, at the founding congress in Vienna in 1929 the veterans of the UVO and the student militants met and united to form the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Although the members consisted mostly of Galician youths, Yevhen Konovalets served as its first leader and its leadership council, the "Provid", comprised mostly veterans and was based abroad.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: At the time of its founding, the OUN was originally a fringe movement in western Ukraine, where the political scene was dominated by the mainstream and moderate Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (UNDO). This party promoted constitutional democracy and sought to achieve independence through peaceful means. UNDO was supported by the Ukrainian clergy, intelligentsia, and the traditional establishment and published the main western Ukrainian newspaper, "".


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: In contrast, the OUN accepted violence as a political tool against foreign and domestic enemies of their cause. Most of its activity was directed against Polish politicians and government representatives. Under the command of the Western Ukrainian Territorial Executive (established in February 1929), the OUN carried out hundreds of acts of sabotage in Galicia and Volhynia, including a campaign of arson against Polish landowners (which helped provoke the 1930 Pacification), boycotts of state schools and Polish tobacco and liquor monopolies, dozens of expropriation attacks on government institutions to obtain funds for its activities, and assassinations. From 1921 to 1939 UVO and OUN carried out 63 known assassinations: 36 Ukrainians (among them one communist), 25 Poles, 1 Russian and 1 Jew. This number is likely an underestimate because there were likely unrecorded killings in rural regions. Some of the OUN's victims included Tadeusz Hołówko, a Polish promoter of Ukrainian/Polish compromise, Emilian Czechowski, Lwow's Polish police commissioner, Alexei Mailov, a Soviet consular official killed in retaliation for the Holodomor, and most notably Bronisław Pieracki, the Polish interior minister. The OUN also killed moderate Ukrainian figures such as the respected teacher (and former officer of the Ukrainian Galician Army of the West Ukrainian People's Republic) Ivan Babij. Most of these killings were organized locally and occurred without the authorization or knowledge of the OUN's emigre leaders abroad. In 1930 OUN members assaulted the head of the Shevchenko Scientific Society Kyryl Studynsky in his office. Such acts were condemned by the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky, who was particularly critical of the OUN's leadership in exile who inspired acts of youthful violence, writing that they were "using our children to kill their parents" and that "whoever demoralizes our youth is a criminal and an enemy of the people."


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: As Polish persecution of Ukrainians during the interwar period increased, many Ukrainians (particularly the youth, many of whom felt they had no future) lost faith in traditional legal approaches, in their elders, and in the western democracies who were seen as turning their backs on Ukraine. This period of disillusionment coincided with the increase in support for the OUN. By the beginning of the Second World War, the OUN was estimated to have 20,000 active members and many times that number of sympathizers. Many bright students, such as the talented young poets and Olena Teliha (executed by the Nazis at Babi Yar) were attracted to the OUN's revolutionary message.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: As a means to gain independence from Polish and Soviet oppression, before World War II the OUN accepted material and moral support from Nazi Germany. The Germans, needing Ukrainian assistance against the Soviet Union, were expected by the OUN to further the goal of Ukrainian independence. Although some elements of the German military were inclined to do so, they were ultimately overruled by Adolf Hitler and his political organization, whose racial prejudice against the Ukrainians and desires for economic exploitation of Ukraine precluded cooperation. The interwar Lithuanian government had particularly close ties with the OUN.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: Tensions between young radical Galician students and the older military veteran leadership based abroad existed within the OUN from the beginning. The older generation had the experience of growing up in a stable society and of having fought for Ukraine in regular armies; the younger generation perceived Polish repression and an underground struggle. The leadership abroad, or "Provid", thought of itself as an unapproachable elite. Most of the "Provid", such as general Mykola Kapustiansky, referred to themselves using their military titles acquired during the war, which the youthful members could never attain. The older faction was also more politically moderate and adhered to an officer's code of honor and standards of military discipline that prevented them from fully following the belief that any means could be used to achieve the goal. In contrast, the younger faction was more impulsive, violent, and ruthless. The older leaders living in exile admired aspects of Benito Mussolini's fascism but condemned Nazism while the younger more radical members based within Ukraine admired fascist ideas and methods as practised by the Nazis.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: Despite these differences, the OUN's leader Yevhen Konovalets, thanks to his considerable political skill and reputation, was able to command enough respect to maintain unity between both groups within the organization. This was shattered when Konovalets was assassinated by a Soviet agent, Pavel Sudoplatov, in Rotterdam in May 1938. Andriy Melnyk, a 48-year-old former colonel in the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic and one of the founders of the Ukrainian Military Organization was chosen to lead the OUN despite not having been involved in political or terrorist activities throughout the 1930s. Melnyk was more friendly to the Church than were any of his associates (the OUN was generally anti-clerical), and had even become the chairman of a Ukrainian Catholic youth organization that was regarded as anti-Nationalist by many OUN members. His choice was seen as an attempt by the leadership to repair ties with the Church and to become more pragmatic and moderate. However, this direction was opposite to the trend within western Ukraine itself.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: The Galician youths formed the majority of the membership. Due to their presence in western Ukraine rather than in exile abroad, they faced the danger of arrest and imprisonment. Yet, they were shut out of the leadership. After failing to come to an agreement with their elder leaders in the "Provid", in August 1940 they held their own leadership conference, choosing Stepan Bandera, who as an iron-willed, extremist conspirator was in many ways the opposite of the cautious, moderate and dignified Melnyk. On the eve of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the OUN was thus divided into two competing and hostile factions: the "legitimate" OUN-M headed by Andrii Melnyk and the OUN-B (or OUN-R for "revolutionary") headed by Stepan Bandera. Each group had its strengths. The OUN-M retained the loyalty of some youths in Galicia as well as a majority of the youths in the regions of Bukovina and Trancarpathia, whose political leader monsignor Avgustyn Voloshyn praised Melnyk as a Christian of European culture, in contrast to many nationalists who placed the nation above God. The OUN-M's leadership was more experienced and had some limited contacts in Eastern Ukraine; it also maintained contact with German intelligence and the Germany army. The OUN-B, on the other hand, enjoyed the support of the majority of the nationalistic Galician youth, who formed the backbone of the underground Ukrainian nationalist movement. It had a strong network of devoted followers and was powerfully aided by Mykola Lebed, who began to organize the feared "Sluzhba Bezpeky" or SB, a secret police force modelled on the Cheka with a reputation for ruthlessness.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: Within the Bandera group but somewhat apart from its political leaders such as Stepan Bandera or Mykola Lebed were a number of young Galicians who were less concerned with ideology and whose interests were primarily pragmatic and military. The most prominent among them was Roman Shukhevych. This group was not yet very significant, although their importance would increase rapidly later, during the period of OUN war-time activity.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, both factions of the OUN collaborated with the Germans and used the opportunity of the invasion to send their activists into Soviet-controlled territory. OUN-B leader Stepan Bandera held meetings with the heads of Germany's intelligence, regarding the formation of Ukrainian staffed forces. On 25 February 1941, the head of Abwehr Wilhelm Franz Canaris sanctioned the creation of the "Ukrainian Legion" under German command. The formation was planned to have 800 persons. OUN-B expected that it would become the core of the future Ukrainian army. In the spring of 1941, the Legion was organized as two units; one unit became known as Nachtigall Battalion, while the other became the Roland Battalion.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: Eight days after Germany's invasion of the USSR, on 30 June 1941, the OUN-B proclaimed the establishment of Ukrainian State in Lviv, with Yaroslav Stetsko as premier.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: In response to the declaration, OUN-B leaders and associates were arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo (ca.1500 persons). Many OUN-B members were killed outright or perished in jails and concentration camps (both of Bandera's brothers were eventually murdered at Auschwitz). On 18 September 1941 Bandera and Stetsko were sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in "Zellenbau Bunker". Bandera was imprisoned along with some of the most important prisoners of the Third Reich, such as the ex-prime minister of France Léon Blum and ex-chancellor of Austria, Kurt Schuschnigg. The prisoners of Zellenbau received help from the Red Cross unlike common concentration camp prisoners and were able to send and receive parcels from their relatives. Bandera also received help from the OUN-B including financial assistance. The Germans permitted the Ukrainian nationalists to leave the bunker for an important meeting with OUN representatives in Fridental Castle which was 200 meters from Sachsenhausen., where they were kept until September 1944.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: As a result of the German crackdown on the OUN-B, the faction controlled by Melnyk enjoyed an advantage over its rival and was able to occupy many positions in the civil administration of former Soviet Ukraine during the first months of German occupation. The first city which it administered was Zhitomir, the first major city across the old Soviet-Polish border. Here, the OUN-M helped stimulate the development of Prosvita societies, the appearance of local artists on Ukrainian-language broadcasts, the opening of two new secondary schools and a pedagogical institute, and the establishment of a school administration. Many locals were recruited into the OUN-M. The OUN-M also organized police forces, recruited from Soviet prisoners of war. Two senior members of its leadership, or "Provid", even came to Zhitomir. At the end of August 1941, however, they were both gunned down, allegedly by the OUN-B which had justified the assassination in their literature and had issued a secret directive (referred to by Andriy Melnyk as a "death sentence") not to allow OUN-M leaders to reach Ukrainian SSR's capital Kiev (now Kyiv, Ukraine). In retaliation, the German authorities, often tipped off by OUN-M members, began mass arrests and executions of OUN-B members, to a large extent eliminating it in much of central and eastern Ukraine.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: As the Wehrmacht moved East, the OUN-M established control of Kiev's civil administration; that city's mayor from October 1941 until January 1942, Volodymyr Bahaziy, belonged to the OUN-M and used his position to funnel money into it and to help the OUN-M take control over Kiev's police. The OUN-M also initiated the creation of the Ukrainian National Council in Kiev, which was to become the basis for a future Ukrainian government. At this time, the OUN-M also came to control Kiev's largest newspaper and was able to attract many supporters from the central and eastern Ukrainian intelligentsia. Alarmed by the OUN-M's growing strength in central and eastern Ukraine, the German Nazi authorities swiftly and brutally cracked down on it, arresting and executing many of its members in early 1942, including Volodymyr Bahaziy, and the writer Olena Teliha who had organized and led the League of Ukrainian Writers in Kiev. Although during this time elements within the Wehrmacht tried in vain to protect OUN-M members, the organization was largely wiped out within central and eastern Ukraine.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: As the OUN-M was being wiped out in the regions of central and western Ukraine that had been east of the old Polish-Soviet border, in Volhynia the OUN-B, with easy access from its base in Galicia, began to establish and consolidate its control over the nationalist movement and much of the countryside. Unwilling and unable to openly resist the Germans in early 1942, it methodically set about creating a clandestine organization, engaging in propaganda work, and building weapons stockpiles. A major aspect of its programme was the infiltration of the local police; the OUN-B was able to establish control over the police academy in Rivne. By doing so the OUN-B hoped to eventually overwhelm the German occupation authorities ("If there were fifty policemen to five Germans, who would hold power then?"). In their role within the police, Bandera's forces were involved in the extermination of Jewish civilians and the clearing of Jewish ghettos, actions that contributed to the OUN-B's weapon stockpiles. In addition, blackmailing Jews served as a source of added finances. During the time that the OUN-B in Volhynia was avoiding conflict with the German authorities and working with them, resistance to the Germans was limited to Soviet partisans on the extreme northern edge of the region, to small bands of OUN-M fighters, and to a group of guerillas knowns as the UPA or the Polessian Sich, unaffiliated with the OUN-B and led by Taras Bulba-Borovets of the exiled Ukrainian People's Republic.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: By late 1942, the status quo for the OUN-B was proving to be increasingly difficult. The German authorities were becoming increasingly repressive towards the Ukrainian population, and the Ukrainian police were reluctant to take part in such actions. Furthermore, Soviet partisan activity threatened to become the major outlet for anti-German resistance among western Ukrainians. By March 1943, the OUN-B leadership issued secret instructions ordering their members who had joined the German police in 1941–1942, numbering between 4,000 and 5,000 trained and armed soldiers, to desert with their weapons and to join the units of the OUN-B in Volyn. Borovets attempted to unite his UPA, the smaller OUN-M and other nationalist bands, and the OUN-B underground into an all-party front. The OUN-M agreed while the OUN-B refused, in part due to the insistence of the OUN-B that their leaders be in control of the organization.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: After negotiations failed, the OUN commander Dmytro Klyachkivsky coopted the name of Borovets' organization, UPA, and decided to accomplish by force what could not be accomplished through negotiation: the unification of Ukrainian nationalist forces under OUN-B control. On 6 July, the large OUN-M group was surrounded and surrendered, and soon afterward most of the independent groups disappeared; they were either destroyed by the Communist partisans or the OUN-B or joined the latter. On 18 August 1943, Taras Bulba-Borovets and his headquarters were surrounded in a surprise attack by an OUN-B force consisting of several battalions. Some of his forces, including his wife, were captured, while five of his officers were killed. Borovets escaped but refused to submit, in a letter accusing the OUN-B of among other things: banditry; of wanting to establish a one-party state; and of fighting not for the people but in order to rule the people. In retaliation, his wife was murdered after two weeks of torture at the hands of the OUN-B's SB. In October 1943 Bulba-Borovets largely disbanded his depleted force in order to end further bloodshed. In their struggle for dominance in Volhynia, the Banderists would kill tens of thousands of Ukrainians for links to Bulba-Borovets or Melnyk.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: By the fall of 1943 the OUN-B forces had established their control over substantial portions of rural areas in Volhynia and southwestern Polesia. While the Germans controlled the large towns and major roads, such a large area east of Rivne had come under the control of the OUN-B that it was able to set about creating a "state" system with military training schools, hospitals and a school system, involving tens of thousands of personnel. Its combat organization, the UPA, which came under the command of Roman Shukhevich in August 1943, would fight only limited skirmishes and defensive actions against the Germans. The USSR was considered the primary enemy, and the fight against the Soviets continued until the mid-1950s. It would also play a major role in the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia from western Ukraine.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: After the war, the OUN in eastern and southern Ukraine continued to struggle against the Soviets; 1958 marked the last year when an OUN member was arrested in Donetsk. Both branches of the OUN continued to be quite influential within the Ukrainian diaspora. The OUN-B was formed in 1943 by an organization called the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (headed by Yaroslav Stetsko). The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations it created and headed would include at various times emigre organizations from almost every eastern European country with the exception of Poland: Croatia, the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, anti-communist emigre Cossacks, Hungary, Georgia, Bohemia-Moravia (today the Czech Republic), and Slovakia. In the 1970s, the ABN was joined by anti-communist Vietnamese and Cuban organizations. The Lithuanian partisans had particularly close ties with the OUN.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: In 1956 Bandera's OUN split into two parts, the more moderate OUN(z) led by Lev Rebet and Zinoviy Matla, and the more conservative OUN led by Stepan Bandera.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, both OUN factions resumed activities within Ukraine. The Melnyk faction threw its support behind the Ukrainian Republican Party at the time that it was headed by Levko Lukyanenko. The OUN-B reorganized itself within Ukraine as the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (KUN) (registered as a political party in January 1993). Its conspirational leaders within the diaspora did not want to openly enter Ukrainian politics and attempted to imbue this party with a democratic, moderate facade. However, within Ukraine, the project attracted more primitive nationalists who took the party to the right. Until her death in 2003, KUN was headed by Slava Stetsko, widow of Yaroslav Stetsko, who also simultaneously headed the OUN and the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: On 9 March 2010 the OUN rejected Yulia Tymoshenko's calls to unite "all of the national patriotic forces" led Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko against President Viktor Yanukovych. OUN did demand that Yanukovych should reject the idea of cancelling the Hero of Ukraine status given to Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, Yanukovych should continue the practice of recognizing fighters for Ukraine's independence, which was launched by (his predecessor) Viktor Yushchenko, and posthumously award the Hero of Ukraine titles to Symon Petliura and Yevhen Konovalets.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: On 19 November 2018 Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and fellow Ukrainian nationalist political organizations Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, Right Sector and C14 endorsed Ruslan Koshulynskyi's candidacy in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. In the election Koshulynskyi received 1.6% of the votes.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: The OUN was led by a "Vozhd" or Supreme Leader. Originally the Vozhd was Yevhen Konovalets ; after his assassination he was succeeded by Andriy Melnyk resulting in a split where the Galician youths followed their own "Vozhd", Stepan Bandera. Underneath the Vozhd were the "Provid", or directorate. At the start of the second world war the OUN's leadership consisted of the "Vozhd", Andrii Melnyk, and eight members of the Provid. The Provid members were: Generals Kurmanovych and Kapustiansky (both generals from the times of Ukraine's revolution in 1918–1920); Yaroslav Baranovsky, a law student; Dmytro Andriievsky, a politically moderate former diplomat of the revolutionary government from eastern Ukraine; Richard Yary, a former officer of the Austrian and Galician militaries who served as a liaison with the German intelligence services, the Abwehr; colonel Roman Sushko, another former Austrian and Galician officer; Mykola Stsyborsky, the son of a tsarist military officer from Zhytomir, who served as the OUN's official theorist; and Omelian Senyk, a party organizer and veteran of the Austrian and Galician armies who by the 1940s was considered too moderate and too conservative by the youngest generation of Galician youths. Yary would be the only member of the original "Provid" to join Bandera after the OUN split.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: The OUN was formed from the Ukrainian Military Organization and several extreme right-wing organizations, including the Ukrainian National Association, the Union of Ukrainian Fascists and the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine. Initially, it was led by war veterans who failed to establish a Ukrainian state in 1917–1920. The ideology of the organization was heavily influenced by the philosophy of Nietzsche, German National Socialism and Italian Fascism; combining extreme nationalism with terrorism, corporatism, and antisemitism, as well as anti-democratic.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: According to its initial declaration, the primary goal of OUN was to establish an independent and ethnically pure Ukrainian state. This goal was to be achieved by a national revolution, that would drive out all foreign element and set up an authoritarian state led by a strong man. The OUN's leadership felt that past attempts at securing independence failed due to democratic values in society, poor party discipline and a conciliatory attitude towards Ukraine's traditional enemies. Its ideology rejected the socialist ideas supported by Petliura, and the compromises of Galicia's traditional elite. Instead, the OUN, particularly its younger members, adopted the ideology of Dmytro Dontsov, an émigré from Eastern Ukraine.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: The Ukrainian nationalism of the 19th and early 20th centuries had been largely liberal or socialist, combining Ukrainian national consciousness with patriotism and humanist values. In contrast, the nationalists who emerged in Galicia following the First World War, much as in the rest of Europe, adopted the form of nationalism known as Integral nationalism. According to this ideology, the nation was held to be of the highest absolute value, more important than social class, regions, the individual, religion, etc. To this end, OUN members were urged to "force their way into all areas of national life" such as institutions, societies, villages and families. Politics was seen as a Darwinian struggle between nations for survival, rendering conflict unavoidable and justifying any means that would lead to the victory of one's nation over that of others. In this context willpower was seen as more important than reason, and warfare was glorified as an expression of national vitality.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: Integral nationalism became a powerful force in much of Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. The OUN's conceptualization of this idea was particular in several ways. Because Ukraine was stateless and surrounded by more powerful neighbors, the emphasis on force and warfare was to be expressed in acts of terrorism rather than open warfare, and illegality was glorified. Because Ukrainians did not have a state to glorify or serve, the emphasis was placed on a "pure" national language and culture rather than a State. There was a strain of fantastic romanticism, in which the unsophisticated Ukrainian rejection of reason was more spontaneous and genuine than the cynical rejection of reason by German or Italian integral nationalists.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: The OUN viewed the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church as a rival and condemned Catholic leaders as police informers or potential informers; the Church rejected integral nationalism as incompatible with Christian ethics. The conflict between the OUN and the Church eased in the late 1930s.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: Dmytro Dontsov claimed that the 20th century would witness the "twilight of the gods to whom the nineteenth century prayed" and that a new man must be created, with the "fire of fanatical commitment" and the "iron force of enthusiasm", and that the only way forward was through "the organization of a new violence." This new doctrine was the "chynnyi natsionalizm" – the "nationalism of the deed". To dramatize and spread such views, OUN literature mythologized the cult of struggle, sacrifice, and emphasized national heroes.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: The OUN, particularly Bandera, held a romantic view of the Ukrainian peasantry, glorified the peasants as carriers of Ukrainian culture and linked them with the deeds and exploits of the Ukrainian Cossacks from previous centuries. The OUN believed that a goal of professional revolutionaries was, through revolutionary acts, to awaken the masses. In this aspect the OUN had much in common with 19th-century Russian Narodniks.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: According to political scientist Ivan Gomza, the "morphological structure" of the OUN's ideology in the 1930s and early 1940s could be defined as fascist because it had the following principles:


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: (2) The search for some new form of political and economic organization, which transcends liberal democracy and collectivistic communism


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: OUN writers rejected both Soviet communism and liberal democracy and wished to instill a single-party state, living in the unrealized glory of battles past and an economic system that aimed to avoid class conflict. Gomza argues that violence was also an "extensive, widespread and frequent" occurrence and was central in the group's ideology and policy; the group took advantage of wartime chaos to eliminate Polish, Muscovite and Jewish activist groups. However, Gomza argues that after 1943 some "peripheral concepts" came to substitute the fascist core, which led to a splinter within the OUN and subsequent democratization of the one on its factions.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: The political scientist Ivan Katchanovski describes it as "a semi-totalitarian organization which combined elements of extreme nationalism and fascism".


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: Marples has described how some writers in the OUN tradition, as well as some later Ukrainian writers, have been "self-deceptive" in emphasizing the absence of racism from OUN ideology, downplaying its connection to western European fascism, and suggesting that the Ukrainian brand of nationalism was a product of domestic development.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: Many Ukrainian historians, such as Peter Potichnyj, have argued that from 1941 and especially after the war, the OUN developed in a pro-democratic and anti-Nazi direction. After the Second World War, OUN émigrés and UPA members began to produce documents that emphasised this shift and downplayed the controversial aspects of the organization. For example, they published anti-Nazi texts by OUN activists. In some documents they removed statements related to fascism or the Holocaust, or they reprinted the April 1941 resolution in Cracow of the Second Great Congress of OUN, omitting that the organization adopted the official salute which consisted in the fascist salute while shouting "Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes!".


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: In 1943 the OUN developed a new political program that focused on a "new order of a free individual. A man's free will should animate social life." The group also accepted the following:"(1) the OUN renounced the principles of economic centralism and adopted the idea of a market economy (Zakordonni chastyny Orhanizatsiyi Ukrayinskykh Natsionalistiv, 1955, 261; Iarlan, 1986, 159)(2) it rejected the aggressive rhetoric concerning national minorities and claimed "we must abandon the chauvinism and


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: assimilation politics towards the minorities and create optimum conditions for national and cultural tolerance" (Stepanov


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: 1946, 113e114)(3) the idea of a unique labor union was rejected (Resolutions of the 3rd Extraordinary Great


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: Council of the OUN, 1943, 231)(4) the OUN adopted central political ideals of liberal democracy, proclaiming to "stand for


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: real democracy, liberty of speech, freedom of assembly, and liberty of conscience, but against all kinds of dictatorship and


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: Though the groups realized allegiance to these edits, and whether the group could in fact remove itself from the label of fascism is debated among historians, the result of these changes led to a split, which divided the faction into two groups, the fascists, and the liberals. The infighting of these groups was limited to diasporic communities in the US, Canada, and Germany. notably, the liberal faction became more powerful due to support from the United States Government which funded multiple thinktanks including the Prolog Research and Publishing Company.


title: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

text: The nation was to be unified under a single party led by a hierarchy of proven fighters. At the top was to be a Supreme Leader or "Vozhd." In some respects the OUN's creed was similar to that of other eastern European, radical right-wing agrarian movements, such as Romania's Legion of the Archangel Michael (more commonly known as the Iron Guard), Croatia's Ustashe, Hungary's Arrow Cross Party, and similar groups in Slovakia and Poland. There were, however, significant differences within the OUN regarding its relationship to fascism. The more moderate leaders living in exile admired some facets of Benito Mussolini's fascism but condemned Nazism while the younger more radical members based within Ukraine admired the fascist ideas and methods as practised by the Nazis. The faction-based abroad supported rapprochement with the Ukrainian Catholic Church while the younger radicals were anti-clerical and felt that not considering the Nation to be the Absolute was a sign of weakness.