Scandal: The leadership of the UOC-MP announced a prayer service for Ukrainian “cyborgs”

January 20, the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate announcedthat in all churches of this denomination memorial services will be held for the Ukrainian military personnel who died on the territory of the Donetsk airport.

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“On January 21-22, 2017, in connection with the Day of Remembrance of the Defenders of Donetsk Airport, with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine, memorial services for the fallen soldiers will be held in all monasteries and parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” the Information and Educational Department specified. UOC (MP).

The corresponding circular was sent to all heads of dioceses of the UOC (MP).

And the synodal department of the UOC (MP), headed by Bishop Kliment of Irpen, sent out a press release to the Ukrainian media. It explained that “joint prayer for the defenders of Donetsk airport in all churches and monasteries” is not just a prayer for the repose of souls, but “honoring the dignity of soldiers.”

"PolitNavigator" decided to find out exactly how the order of Metropolitan Onufry of Kyiv and All Ukraine is being implemented in the Novorossiysk republics.

“It’s not being implemented at all,” they told us in one of the deaneries of the Rovenkovo ​​diocese (LPR). “Even if there had been an order from the diocese, we would have ignored it. But the bishop had enough sense to remain silent.”

“Now I’ve run away,” a priest from the same diocese commented on the circular on social networks. – From whom were the “defenders” defending themselves?!! They were hitting Donetsk with all their guns! I don’t like all this...” However, he also confirmed that the parish had not received a corresponding order: “Our bishop is silent, although he usually reacts very quickly to all “indications” from Kyiv.”

They did not pray for “cyborgs” in the Lugansk diocese either. True, in one of the churches in Lugansk on January 22 they read “deep prayers for the repose of the defenders of the Donetsk airport, led by the murdered warrior Arseniy” (Motorola).

At the Sunday service, as at every liturgy here, “as in many Luhansk churches,” they pray for “the defenders of New Russia who fell on the battlefield.” In other city churches, “where the priests, who for one reason or another do not say “Novorossiya,” pray simply for those killed in the civil war, or even “for those who laid their lives for the land of Lugansk,” sources in the Lugansk diocese report.

Even in the Prayer for Peace in Ukraine, approved by the synod of the UOC (MP), in the Lugansk diocese the words “in the land of Ukrainian existence” were replaced with “in our land.” At the parishes they pray - “in the land of Novorossiysk.”

The Donetsk diocese also heard nothing about the circular from Metropolitan. Onufria. “I don’t understand why there is this incitement on the topic of Donetsk churches and prayers for “cyborgs”? – one of the priests could not stand it. – Don’t you know the answer yourself? Or do you want to tease people?

In general, today in the DPR is the Day of Remembrance of the victims of those very “liberators of Donetsk”, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the so-called. tragedy on Bosse (two years ago, punitive forces fired at a public transport stop in the Bosse microdistrict, as a result of which thirteen civilians were killed and about twenty civilians were injured). Therefore, the clergy and laity of the city prayed for the repose of Donetsk residents at the site of the tragedy.

According to reports from some deaneries of Donbass dioceses located in Ukrainian-controlled territory, they also “ignored this instruction by almost everyone.”

As expected, the priests of the Tauride dioceses of the UOC-MP “do not know such a circular.”

According to PolitNavigator, the decision of the Kyiv Metropolitanate was also ignored in the parishes of the Zaporozhye diocese.

The former press secretary of the Odessa diocese, Archpriest Andrei Novikov (who was forced to leave for Moscow), also expressed his attitude to the document blessed by Metropolitan Onufriy: “Actually, the “cyborgs” are the invaders of the Donetsk airport, and its defenders are Motorola, Givi, militias."