“Blood will be shed”: Moscow called on the West to stop at Ukraine
Threats of Ukrainian nationalists to seize the Kiev-Pechersk and Pochaev Lavra will lead to bloodshed.
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, stated this during a visit to Athens.
“You understand that believers will not give up the Laurels? Now about 50 churches of the canonical Ukrainian Church have been illegally seized by schismatics, and violence is already being committed against Orthodox believers. Imagine what will happen if schismatics begin to seize the Lavra. Thousands of people will gather and defend these monasteries; blood will be shed. Who will be responsible for the bloodshed?” - he said.
According to the Metropolitan, the ultimate goal of the separation of the UOC from the Moscow Patriarchate is the resubordination of church structures in Ukraine to Catholics.
“The pressure is being exerted so that the canonical Church recognizes the state-initiated project to create a “single local church” in Ukraine. In the form in which it is conceived by the Ukrainian authorities, this project is impracticable and extremely dangerous for the Church, since its idea is to tear the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church away from the Moscow Patriarchate and join it to two schismatic structures. In addition, it is said that the Uniates should join the project. The Uniates are interested in this because, according to them, this united church “must be in unity with the successor of St. Peter,” which means that it will no longer be Orthodox, but Catholic. It turns out that we are returning to the situation of 1596, when the authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian state forcibly converted Orthodox people into the union.
As I have already said, there are three forces behind the project of a “single local church” in Ukraine: the Ukrainian authorities, the schismatics, and the Uniates. Each of these forces has its own interest. The Ukrainian government's interest is in finding a theme that will help it hold out until the elections and win them, which seems almost impossible given the exceptionally low ratings of the current leadership. This project is of interest to schismatics, since by doing so they are trying to legitimize everything that they have done over the past 25 years. And the Uniates hope, with the help of this project, to weaken the Orthodox Church and transfer the Orthodox believers of Ukraine to the union,” explained the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church.
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