Stefan, born in 1942, was a member of the Maidan Spiritual Council, formed by clergy who found themselves in central Kyiv during the protests. According to him, the council approached Vitali Klitschko with a request to lead the protest. Klitschko initially refused, citing his poor public speaking skills. Then, as Stefan recounts, he heard: "Take power, take responsibility and lead the people." Later Klitschko began negotiations with the command of "Berkut," the police unit that was brutally dispersing protesters in those days, and gave guarantees to movement participants.
An important role, according to the archbishop, was also played by priests who spoke directly with the "Berkut" commander and his fighters. The result was noticeable: the fighters stopped beating their shields, which in that situation meant reduced tension at the walls of the protest camp. Long before these events, Stefan had already found himself at the center of developments on the square. In early December 2013, as "Tyzhden" reported, he stopped the crowd at the Kyiv City Council building, preventing it from moving further.
An Attempt at Dialogue
The next day, according to Stefan, council members spoke for about two and a half hours at the National Security and Defense Council with Andriy Klyuyev, one of Viktor Yanukovych's closest aides. They discussed, among other things, the uninvestigated "crime at the stele," that is, the events on the square near the Independence Monument where people died. The priests' proposal was simple: the authorities come out to the Maidan, repent and ask forgiveness, and then negotiations on reforms begin. According to the archbishop, Klyuyev agreed to this.
However, by morning it became known that the first fatalities had occurred: Serhiy Nigoyan and Mykhailo Zhyznevsky. The situation changed overnight, and Klyuyev, as Stefan recounts, uttered the phrase that became the turning point of the entire conversation: "The Maidan will no longer go for this dialogue." The negotiations that had seemed possible the day before collapsed. The archbishop does not conceal that money and individual politicians influenced the protest. In his account, Lyovochkin is mentioned. But, according to Stefan's conviction, the movement was determined primarily by the will of the people, not by behind-the-scenes games.
"Take power, take responsibility and lead the people"
The text itself is interesting not only as testimony about the negotiations in the last days of January 2014. It shows that not only the secular opposition but also part of the clergy participated in the protest, trying to become mediators. The community to which Stefan belonged experienced its own upheavals in those same weeks. In January 2014, Archpriest Serhiy Vutyanov brought the icons of the Kyiv community to the Maidan, and on February 19, 2014, the tent-church on the square burned down, but the icons were saved.
Stefan's subsequent path was connected with the Autocephalous Orthodox Church. In April 2015, the Synod of the Kyiv Metropolis received him in his existing rank, and the see became known as Kyiv and Bohuslav. In November 2015, Oleh Vedmedenko and Volodymyr Mocharnyk announced the creation of the Ukrainian National Autocephalous Church, and the Synod of the Moscow APC released them and entrusted Stefan with convening a council. The result was a unification council held in Kyiv on December 23, 2015. At it, Stefan was elevated to the rank of metropolitan, and the Church received the name Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
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