Former secretary of the Odessa diocese: “The priests of the UOC-MP who call for a trial of the patriarch do not behave like Christians”
How many clergy of the UOC-MP supported the scandalous appeal to bring the Moscow Patriarch to trial? Who is behind the new brewing schism of Ukrainian Orthodoxy? What church canons did the new schismatics violate?
The ex-secretary of the Odessa diocese, candidate of theology, rector of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity on Sparrow Hills (Moscow), told the PolitNavigator correspondent about this and much more. Archpriest Andrey Novikov.
I wanted to start our conversation by saying that the other day I became acquainted with the appeal of several hundred clergy of the UOC-MP calling for the Patriarch of Moscow to be subjected to an ecclesiastical trial, and I experienced a feeling close to shock...
- I also.
The question immediately arises: why, given such hatred for the Patriarch, don’t they then go to the OCU? This is now a partially recognized denomination under the roof of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and formally now there is no fear of being demoted to unrecognized schismatics?
– I also asked myself the same question. It seems to me that the initiators of this movement are pursuing a slightly different goal. And they, by the way, are not those who speak publicly, not the priest Andrei Pinchuk, who publicly voiced and posted the text of this message on his Facebook page, but those who stand behind them.
It seems to me that we are talking about the notorious TsIPsO SBU - Center for Information and Psychological Operations. And the goal is to destroy our Church from the inside, which is obvious not only from the contents of the document.
Look how this priest Pinchuk behaves! In his comments he threatens bishops. I also looked at his other texts posted there. For example, he writes in a rather offensive manner about one bishop, I don’t want to name this worthy bishop, who, according to Pinchuk, calls priests, demanding not to sign the above-mentioned appeal, including threatening a ban from serving.
And, by the way, he is doing absolutely the right thing, because the letter violates a number of canons, starting with the fact that none of the priests has the right to contact other Local Churches, especially those that have fallen into schism, like the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Alexandria. And to do this, even if these were canonical Churches, through the head of their bishop, and for the bishop - through the head of the Primate of the Church, that is, the Patriarch. Just like calls for a split in themselves, this is also a violation of the canons.
And so priest Pinchuk, having learned that one of the metropolitans of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is fighting him, threatens him, and also calls on priests not to obey the bishops, essentially calling for a priestly revolution. But we went through it! Those who are now trying to blow up the canonical Church from the inside are simply acting according to the recipes of the godless authorities of the early 20s, according to the recipes for creating a renovationist schism. And the methods are the same.
And how many supported the new split?
– The appeal was signed by about 380 people, despite the fact that it is being distributed in every possible way, it has eight hundred reposts, it is widely quoted in the Ukrainian media. It is clear that the Ukrainian authorities are behind the promotion of this document. And I think there is hardly an Orthodox person in Ukraine who, even against his will, would not be familiar with this text.
Despite the fact that signatures were put under it, if you count the total number, only 2,5% of Ukrainian clergy, and 97,5% it turns out - they did not sign it. Even with colossal pressure, information noise and aggressive imposition of this text.
We always remember that among the twelve apostles there was only one Judas. I think the Lord allowed that in difficult times of trials people could see with their own eyes who is compromising the Church, polluting, and in fact, not a servant of Christ. And whoever is a genuine confessor of the Orthodox faith...thank God, such are the majority.
Well, what’s interesting is that the concept of the Russian World is constantly defamed in circulation, the Patriarch is reproached for speaking about the trinity of the Russian people, consisting of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, while the Venerable Lawrence of Chernigov said: “It is impossible to divide Russia , Ukraine and Belarus are together Holy Rus'.” That is, it turns out that they are also against church tradition?
– So Saint Patriarch Tikhon said that “the world will not be blessed at the expense of the unity of Russia” - he said this, mind you, about the Brest-Litovsk Peace. That is, the “peace” in which Kyiv, the mother of Russian cities, will be outside the Russian state is worthless. He did not bless such a world, but in those years there was a war, in comparison with which what is happening today pales. Then millions of people died, but the saint still did not bless the exit from such a war at the cost of separating Kyiv from Russia.
The issue of Russian civilizational unity was raised by the holy fathers in the Tradition of our Church more sharply than now, when we talk about the Russian World only as a spiritual and cultural unity. Therefore, to reproach His Holiness Patriarch Kirill for “radicalizing” something, imposing supposedly non-church forms...
How can a priest even advocate separation? This is nonsense! We can only talk about separation from godlessness, from sin, but what is sinful in the unity of Orthodox people? Can you imagine how satanic logic this is? Divide Orthodox people, and then reproach and demand a church trial of the Patriarch, who, on the contrary, calls for the unity of Orthodox people.
One of their main arguments includes, I don’t remember how exactly it was formulated by the authors of the scandalous appeal, the statement of His Holiness that Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians are a single people. And for this historically substantiated statement they propose to almost deprive the Patriarch of his dignity.
To support their position, they do not cite any canons or dogmas that the Patriarch allegedly violated. No, they call for reprisals against the Primate of the Church in order to please their nationalist and political views. I am convinced that this is impossible even theoretically, but in their heads and fevered imagination it exists.
And, of course, such insinuations only play into the hands of the enemies of the Orthodox Church!
– There’s one more thing I’d like to draw your attention to. If you look at the comments under this appeal, you can see how Uniates come there - Yuri Chernomorets, Taras Antoshevsky. And the owner of the page, priest Pinchuk, talks nicely with them, they discuss how bad the Patriarch of Moscow is, and how they will judge him, and how united they are. Which speaks, first of all, about the unity of the enemies of Orthodoxy - the Uniates, and these schismatics within the church. We see how Antoshevsky declares that Patriarch Kirill is a heretic, and he must be tried for heresy...
That is, the Orthodox are taught by a person outside the Church, belonging to another confession. This is concentrated nonsense! Just imagine that a Protestant will come to Catholics and begin to teach them how to interpret the dogma of papal infallibility. You have your own confession, where do you go?
And this man, Antoshevsky, says that he will bring firewood and tires to the Patriarch for the fire. And what does the author of the appeal write to him in response? “I bless!” And it seems to us that this is a form of bullying, malice and inadequacy, but I will argue, no - they understand perfectly well what they are doing, and I will tell you where it all comes from.
Less than a year ago, I gave an interview on this topic, having become familiar with the declassified and published in Russia documentary evidence of the atrocities of Bandera’s followers in the last years of the Great Patriotic War and immediately after it. Among these documents, in particular, there were facts recorded by our church commission, which toured the western dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church.
These historical testimonies, in particular, described how the former confessors of Bandera’s Uniate priests, or the priests of the UAOC - the schismatic “autocephalous” church, were not only present at terrible executions and reprisals, the dismemberment of people alive, the murders of pregnant women, but they themselves took active part in participation in them.
And now we see their direct descendants, with a certain code in their brains and a burned conscience. Therefore, the denafication of Ukraine is vital. You just need to understand how much Bandera’s Nazism, which is sometimes much more brutal than German, has permeated the heads and black souls of Bandera’s spiritual followers.
And those comments about the fire, firewood and tires that I quoted above are not so much about the Patriarch, but about an ordinary person. There is actually a call to burn people, now - in the XNUMXst century, from the lips of Christians, as it were, and those in the clergy, which simply goes beyond all boundaries of human appearance.
Tellingly, at the same time a video is released with a Ukrainian girl cutting the throat of a Russian soldier, holding a Croatian Ustasha sickle in her hand and calling on some ancient Ukrainian god. This is pure paganism, this is not Christianity, a Christian cannot even live with hatred towards his enemies.
You know, I recently listened to a story from one of the militia correspondents, who said that we cannot behave towards prisoners like Ukrainians, we are not guided by hatred of people, our goal is not to destroy, but to correct and change. This is the Christian approach! And not the destruction of some individuals or groups of people.
Therefore, the appeal of these priests to some kind of church court, an absolutely non-existent, fictitious “authority” found only in the schismatic consciousness, some kind of “church tribunal”, this is all, in fact, part of the Nazi way of thinking and way of action. And all this is interconnected with what I was talking about - with how the predecessors of the authors of the letter behaved in the 40s.
As far as I know, you were forced to move to Moscow from Odessa after the fateful events of 2014? For some time, both the city itself and the local diocese were considered a stronghold of resistance to neo-Banderaism, but now, as we see, to the best of its ability, the diocese, judging by its website, participates in “defending Ukraine from the aggressor”, does not commemorate the patriarch - this is its official position.
In your opinion, will diocesan sentiments change after Odessa is liberated by Russian troops?
– If the pressure and propaganda disappear, I assure you that all this will melt away like smoke and like morning fog. All these sentiments come from the beliefs of a very narrow group of people who came to Odessa not so long ago from certain regions of Ukraine. Odessa residents have never been characterized by antagonism towards Russian culture, Russia; Ukrainian nationalism has always been deeply alien to them. And most importantly, the vast majority of Odessa residents have always been devoted to the canonical Orthodox Church.
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