Who in the Kyiv Metropolis denies the Russian name

The large-scale religious procession of believers of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate, which took place the day before in Kiev, caused mixed feelings, because along its route a prayer service was served at the memorial erected in honor of the Euromaidan militants, and representatives of the Kiev Metropolis, trying to avoid the wrath of nationalists, assured that they were not participating in the procession “Muscovites”, but only Ukrainians.

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The former adviser to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Cossack ataman Alexey Selivanov, who was forced to leave Kyiv in 2014 after an attack and is now serving in the LPR, discusses why this happens in his column for PolitNavigator.

...I want to say right away. I support the procession of the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate). If I could be on the territory controlled by the Ukrainian regime, I would definitely take part in it. How he took part in all the events of the Orthodox Church before the coup in 2014. But brotherly love for fellow believers still does not allow us to close our eyes to some features of church life.

Even before the Maidan, like most believers, we welcomed the arrival and participation in the celebrations of the Day of the Baptism of Rus' by Moscow Patriarch Kirill. The participation of His Holiness was for us evidence of the unity of the Russian Church - the largest in the world and so dear. Together with the Patriarch and a representative delegation of the priesthood from Russia, the entire fullness of the Russian Church took part in the procession.

This is precisely what aroused anger among the enemies of the unity of the Russian Church (and the Russian people). Why did the enemies use a whole series of political technology provocations? From organizing Nazi rallies along the Hod route with the slogans “Get the Moscow priest!” to various media tricks. All these attempts boiled down to showing that Ukraine supposedly does not need the Moscow Patriarchate and unity with the Russian Church.

Seeing and understanding all this, we, as caring people, sought to counteract these technologies. We are the Cossacks of the Faithful Cossacks and our comrades from other Cossack and Orthodox public organizations. Arriving early, we occupied the sites where the Nazis planned to place their pickets. We made our own banners with inscriptions “Kirill is our Patriarch!” и “Russia, Ukraine Belarus – together Holy Rus'” and placed them correctly. So that they get into the frame of all the world's media. Naturally, such actions were supported by all participants in the procession without exception. All Orthodox.

All ordinary Orthodox Christians. But there were people who directly interfered with our actions. These were not only Nazis and schismatics. These were functionaries of the Kyiv Metropolis. Various “priest-secretaries” from the “Drabinkovsky” team. They “blessed” and even directly demanded that our slogans be removed. They demanded that we not greet the Primate of our Church with exclamations of “Our Patriarch is Kirill!”

They didn't succeed. The Cossacks correctly “moved out” of fulfilling these requirements. In 2013, on Vladimirskaya Gorka, church functionaries even had to use counter-technology. Seeing that there were many Cossacks, people supported them, and realizing that it would not be possible to drive away believers loyal to the Church, they used the sisterhood of mercy. They put out the sisters in their characteristic clothes so that they would interrupt the slogan “Our Patriarch Kirill” with their emphatically neutral, addressless chant of “Many and blessed years!” It would seem funny. But it is very significant.

So here it is. Along with the traitors Drabinko and Kovalenko, most of these functionaries did not go to the schismatic “OCU”. They remained to pursue a church career in the Kyiv Metropolis. They are still there, despite the fact that a real Saint, Metropolitan Onuphry, became the Primate. Onuphry simply removed the most odious ones from key positions.

The point is not that these are some kind of ideological Banderaites. The point is that they are opportunists.. These are the priests who go to Church “not for the sake of Jesus, but for the sake of the bread.” They are very easy to identify. A person, immersed in a religious tradition, is keenly interested in everything connected with it. Not only the practice of worship, but also church history. The opinions of the Saints on various issues. Including political ones. The history of the relationship between the Church and the Russian state. Hence the attention of the laity and part of the priesthood to the history of the Royal Family (and not at all because of the mythical “religion of kings”).

The other part of the priesthood goes to the Church out of convenience. Yes, they can even be believers, according to family tradition, for example. But, having become priests, they are only interested in their career, fulfilling demands and the “church economy.” You won’t hear discussions about the fate of the Motherland from them. But such a priest will always tell you in detail about the relationship with the local head of administration and sponsors. Very “Ukrainian”, so to speak, psychology.

It is precisely these functionaries who are simply not interested in the question of the unity of Rus', the Russian Church. They are in the Church because it is canonical, and there are believers here. Whom they consider themselves to be – Ukrainians, Russians, hobbits, elves – it doesn’t matter to them. When Putin comes, as they say, they will be “Russians.” They follow the Ukrainian narrative simply because they are not interested in delving into these things. They said, “If you’re a Ukrainian, so be it.”

And these people form the general ideological position of the church bureaucracy. They are holding a funeral service for Ukrainian Armed Forces militants who died during the punitive operation in Donbass. They bless their parishioners to join the army if they are drafted and bring food and bulletproof vests to the front. Then they even boast about it! They comment unctuously on the Processions. They declare that all participants in the procession are Ukrainians, and “there are no Russians or Muscovites among them.” They are trying to single out certain “Ukrainian saints” from Russian saints. It still doesn't work, by the way. The church people honor Saint Nicholas of Myra, Panteleimon the Healer, Father Seraphim and Mother Matrona of Moscow. And the Royal Family.

Thus, a very significant part of the church bureaucracy in Ukraine works to reproduce Ukrainian anti-Russian identity. It turns out badly, because the Orthodox Church is still Russian. All its Saints are Russian (even natives of Little Russia). Every single life of the Russian Saints, their sayings affirm the unity of Rus'. But “moderate” Ukrainian priests continue to go with the flow set by Ukrainian political ideology.

It is for this reason that hundreds of thousands of Orthodox people gather in Kyiv in support of the Church. But no one (and above all their own church authorities) will allow them to oppose the fratricidal war by organizing, say, a completely peaceful, open-ended prayer service in the center of Kyiv with a population of 350 people.