Ukrainian veterans reject award after church annuls gay soldier’s medal

An Orthodox church in Kyiv annulled a medal it awarded to Viktor Pylypenko, a Ukrainian combat medic who served in the battle to fight off Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion, after the church discovered he was gay.

That decision hasn’t gone down well with other Ukrainian soldiers and military volunteers, who have now started publicly disavowing that same honor they had previously been awarded by the church.

For his part, Pylypenko is deeply grateful for the show of support from his comrades.

“I received a wave of solidarity with tears in my eyes — because I was already exhausted by years of constant attacks by various right-wing radicals and clerics — day after day when you hear this, no matter how strong you are, it cuts you down,” Pylypenko told POLITICO. “And suddenly I saw the number of bright people I respect, soldiers who supported and protected me — it was indescribably joyful.”

The ruckus began at the weekend after Pylypenko published a Facebook post announcing that Patriarch Filaret, head of the Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate, had awarded him a Medal for Sacrifice and Love for Ukraine.

“I also deliberately assumed that the church has changed its attitude towards LGBT, since it rewards an openly gay activist for protection — in theory, I thought, this is a sharp reversal of the church to humanity, a noble roadmap to all other denominations to reconciliation, or … just a mistake,” Pylypenko told POLITICO,

But despite Pylypenko’s heroism, Patriarch Filaret wasn’t happy with the combat medic’s Facebook message and promptly canceled the award.

“We thank the soldier for his military merits, but we do not share his sinful preferences and LGBT agitation,” the church said in a statement.

After the church’s statement, dozens of other Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers, who got the same award before, started denouncing the medal and criticizing the church for devaluing the soldier’s sacrifices.

“It was my first award. It was valuable to me. But I do not need an award from an institution that does not fully understand what it is like to give up one’s life and, in anticipation of death, defend people and freedom,” Ukrainian soldier Yulia Mykytenko said in a statement. “God is love. But you are not.”