The Cross, or the Chocolates That Exploded

When an ambitious young Communist, Pasha Kharkavyj decides to scale the local church and tear the cross from the roof in a sleepy Ukrainian village, he thinks he will make it all the way to the Kremlin. However, a tank of sunflower oil, left in the wagon he drove to the church, explodes leaving dozens of Red Army soldiers dead and Pasha with some explaining to do. Meanwhile his nemesis, Andrij, a youth who combines a flair for football with devout Christianity is wooing Svitlana, the daughter of the local KGB chief who happens to be Pasha's rival and mentor. This is Romeo and Juliet under the shadow of the hammer and sickle and the onion domes of Eastern Christianity. The outrage perpetrated on the church calls forth a popular uprising. The USSR, with Khrushchev at its head, wages war against one Ukrainian village, as Moscow throws an entire army into the fray against these new Knights Templar.