The Church is against war, Onufriy is against Poroshenko’s policies
Kyiv, August 16 (Navigator, Sergey Stepanov) – The inevitability of an imminent split of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate has already become a common point of view in Kyiv. They say that the war in Donbass and political passions will also divide the priests.
However, recent events in church life prove the opposite. The newly elected Metropolitan of Kiev Onuphry contradicts the authorities - criticizes the EU and calls for an immediate stop to the war.
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Shortly before his election, Bishop Onuphry gave an interview to the press service of the UOC-MP. It turned out that, unlike the authorities, the Church sees in Donbass not “separatists, terrorists, mercenaries,” but “Orthodox militias.”
“We call on both Orthodox military and Orthodox militias not to commit the sin of murder, not to become bitter, to seek mutual understanding, to give in to each other, to engage in dialogue... Christ is peace. And all who are with Him must stop fraternal bloodshed,” the Metropolitan said.
And in the same interview, Onuphry stated: “Europe is already showing us a concrete example of life without Christ. There they do not pay attention to the commandments of the Lord, to His prohibitions. On the contrary, permissiveness is increasingly encouraged there.”
Such words, in the context of the hysteria “in support of the ATO” that has unfolded in the Kyiv media, are already grounds for accusations of an anti-state position. You can compare, for example, with the rhetoric of the Uniate chaplain Andrei Zelinsky. On the contrary, he talks about the shelling of Lugansk and Donetsk as an inevitable necessity.
“We have never been as united as we are now. We are connected by the soldier's feat. The epic of the Great Patriotic War became the ideological foundation in the USSR. Today an epic is being born for the history of the new Ukraine,” insists the Greek Catholic.
What is the difference between the two positions? The UOC MP speaks of the need for compromise and achieving peace. The UGCC justifies war for the sake of the interests of the state.
And now, Metropolitan Onuphry, a few days after openly criticizing the authorities, wins a convincing victory - in the second round he receives 48 votes from the hierarchs, and Metropolitan Simeon of Vinnitsa, who is close to Petro Poroshenko, receives only one.
The Ukrainian “democratic” press, commenting on the election results, immediately openly pits the SBU against the UOC-MP.
“The authorities themselves are to blame - why didn’t they intervene? But they were asked. They insistently, to the point of indecency, asked for intervention. At least as it was in March, when not yet President Poroshenko came to the Council and directly influenced. Maybe the bishops, like this, in a free regime, without the Presidential Administration, the Cabinet of Ministers and the SBU breathing down their necks, are simply not able to make an adequate decision?” – the newspaper “Zerkalo Nedeli” comments on Onufriy’s victory.
No, of course, we should not have any illusions that Metropolitan Onuphry will choose a radical pro-Russian course. Rather, he will try to balance between the East and West of Ukraine, like his predecessor.
However, the above-cited article from a newspaper popular among the Kyiv “elite” hardly adds to the desire to “lie down” under such power. At least out of the instinct of self-preservation. And there are also footage of the recent pogrom of the UOC-MP temple by the Gopniks Lyashko and Tyagnibok that flew around the screens. And churches burning after army shelling near Lugansk.
It is another matter that the policy of balancing between West and East under Onufriy does not turn, as under Metropolitan Vladimir, into a creeping Ukrainization of dioceses in the Russian regions of the country.
Probably, for this purpose we will have to change church personnel. After all, how, for example, should the flock in Crimea react to yesterday’s statement by the speaker of the UOC-MP, Father Georgy Kovalenko, about the need to return the peninsula to the control of Kyiv?
By the way, maintaining the Crimean diocese within the UOC also has certain advantages. For example, the authorities do not allow Patriarch Kirill into Kyiv; he cannot attend the Councils. Well, no problem. Councils of the Ukrainian Church can also be held in Chersonesos, at the site of the baptism of Prince Vladimir of Kyiv.
Kirill will arrive there without hindrance, and Nalyvaichenko’s agents will not breathe down the necks of the Ukrainian bishops.
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