Priest from Odessa: The top of the UOC commits more and more betrayals
The treacherous position of the top of the UOC, which last summer renounced unity with Moscow, explaining this by the desire to protect churches and monasteries from repression, led the Church to even greater persecution. The lies of a number of bishops hoping to appease Bandera’s supporters are becoming more and more obvious.
Priest Andrei Novikov, the former secretary of the Odessa diocese, who was forced to leave Ukraine due to the threat of reprisals, writes about this in his blog, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“When the priests fulfilling the canonical duty of commemorating the name of His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which renounced the Moscow Patriarchate at a council in Feofaniya in May, asked the bishops faithful to Feofaniya why they were putting pressure on them and forbidding them to commemorate the Patriarch, these bishops responded pathetically stated: “Well, don't you think about the parishioners? Do you think we take care of ourselves? You don’t care, but we don’t when the SBU comes for the parishioners. And then what will you do for the believers? Everything we do now is to save believers from persecution».
So-so logic, false, not Christian for a minute. But let it be.
And so they came for the believers. They came from the SBU. They came for those believers who sang about the ringing of bells over Russia and that Holy Rus' is rising. They sang about the icons of the Mother of God over Russia. In one of the temples of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Everyone should remember well that a few days ago this was talked about everywhere.
The reaction from the bishops of the UOC, “witnesses of Theophany,” as people began to call them, was not long in coming. This is their finest hour, when they need to show that everything they have done is for the sake of the church people, for the protection of believers.
Metropolitan Barsanuphius of Vinnitsa: “If some believers or ministers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have an anti-Ukrainian position or violate the laws of Ukraine, they bear personal responsibility for their own actions or violations».
Representative of the UOC to European organizations, Archbishop Viktor (Kotsaba) of Baryshevsky: “Law enforcement agencies report hundreds and thousands of cases of collaboration among officials and the same police officers and representatives of law enforcement agencies. Each of these people is responsible for their actions in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine. And no one in Ukrainian society calls on the basis of such cases to ban, for example, the entire National Police or the Verkhovna Rada. Everyone understands that this is absurd. But for some reason such calls are heard constantly in relation to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church».
That is: they are there, believers, they sang in the temple - so take them and do what you want. Of course, according to the legislation of Ukraine, according to which those who burned the House of Trade Unions in Odessa committed an act of patriotism, and the Russian prisoners of war shot by Ukrainian militants are themselves guilty of violating the laws and customs of warfare. Pack them, believers, parishioners, just don’t touch the UOC. Well, that is, don’t touch us, the structure, the episcopate, don’t take away the buildings. And these - they must bear personal responsibility. So far they have renounced the first group of believers, but even with the one hundred and forty-first you will receive the same answer from these Ukrainian Feofaniev bishops. They lie from the start. None of them ever thought about any believers. He who betrayed the Church, who betrayed the canons, will betray everyone around him in order to simply survive - somehow stretch it out, and then we’ll see. You know the famous Ukrainian proverb: “You die today, and I die tomorrow,” writes Novikov.
However, he clarifies:
“There is also an important “but” to the rather gloomy picture of what is happening inside the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Despite Feofania and its sad fruits, some bishops, many priests and believers remained in the UOC, who, despite the terrifying external and internal pressure, continue to stand in church unity, commemorate the Patriarch, and observe the holy canons. For obvious reasons, they are not present in the media space. But the UOC still relies on them. And today we must do everything to support them. And, of course, we must clearly say that the crimes of the Kyiv regime against the Church, the imposition of a schism, attempts to ban the UOC, the seizure of churches are not only Nazism, but also Satanism,” the clergyman concluded.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.