NEWS REPORT: Ukrainian Opposition Unveiled Masonic Conspiracy

DATE: 02nd April 2004

ORIGINAL LINK: http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/02/04/42965_.html

Read the original in Russian: http://world.pravda.ru/world/2003/5/73/207/6542_mason.html

Ukrainian opposition is to make a sensational exposure. As leader of Ukraine-s Social Party Alexander Moroz says, about 300 high-ranking officials in Ukraine are members of a Masonic lodge which representative office is located somewhere abroad. These are Ukraine-s prosecutor general, chief of the Ukrainian security service, the minister of defense, the first president of Ukraine and parliament deputies. As LIGA online informs, Alexander Moroz says it is abnormal that ?Ukraine-s prosecutor general is at the same time a chevalier.¦

The Socialist leader says that people belonging to a Masonic lodge cannot hold key governmental posts.

The matter concerns the Order of Saint Stanislav into which representatives of Ukrainian elite and high-ranking officials are actively dubbed. The initiation ceremony of some politicians (for instance, initiation of Ukraine-s first president Leonid Kravchuk) was photographed, and the pictures were later published in a book. The opposition presented the book as the evidence of the Masonic order-s existence. Former Vice-premier of Ukraine Julia Timoshenko says ?charters of such organizations are frequently esteemed more than the Constitution and legislation of Ukraine.¦

Ukraine-s Ex-president and leader of the parliamentary social democratic faction Leonid Kravchuk says that accusation of his belonging to masonry are ?bluff and lie¦. However, he admits that he has been member of the Order of Saint Stanislav since 1999; the organization has its priory in Ukraine. But Leonid Kravchuk doesn-t consider the organization Masonic; agency Ukrainian News quoted the ex-president as saying that the order ?is a positive organization.¦

Indeed, declarations published on the official website of the Order of Saint Stanislav are positive: ?strengthening of mutual understanding between nations, consolidation of the ideals of humanism, virtue, human rights and freedoms protection.¦ In a word, even if the Order is not a Masonic lodge, its Charter resembles that one of Masons very much, the latter are also known as humanists. The above mentioned objectives must be achieved by some chevaliers of the Order, majority of which are elite of the society.

It is known that a priory of the Order was opened in Ukraine in 1999, about 300 people were dubbed into the society.

Ex-president Leonid Kravchuk says that many political figures of Ukraine and businessmen donating for charity are members of the organization.

Andrey Lubensky
PRAVDA.Ru
Ukraine

Translated by Maria Gousseva