Participants in the war with Orthodoxy in Ukraine. Brief information
Various pseudo-Christian “confessions” and organizations are involved in the religious war with the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). In the struggle against true Orthodoxy - and in general everything Russian - they united under the slogans of the movement “For the United Local Church,” which quickly became popularly known as “ZaEpots.”
Of course, the instigator of this war – for the sake of implementing the directives of the overseas “General Staff” – is the post-Maidan government. It coordinates the activities of government agencies and institutions (Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Information, National Television and Radio, law enforcement agencies, etc.), schismatic and sectarian structures, as well as the media, led by the “1+1” channel. This whole repressive ideological machine manipulates the consciousness of ordinary supporters of “ZaEpots”, which results in attacks by Nazi radicals, murders and beatings of priests and flocks, seizures and desecration of churches and shrines, and other outrages and crimes.
We will briefly look at the main “players” of this campaign, because “ZaEpots” is just a political game launched with the goal of capturing the minds and church property, so that the reader can get a picture of those who are fighting against Orthodoxy in its historical cradle.
1. "Filaret" - Denisenko and others like him
The key figure in “ZaEpots” is, of course, the head of the “Kyiv Patriarchate” (popularly nicknamed “Commercial”) Mikhail Denisenko (“Filaret”). However, if you follow the old church rules, he should be called not even Mikhail, but Mishka. Like Emelka Pugacheva or Stenka Razin. Previously, villains who were anathematized or excommunicated from the Church were deprived of their Christian names, so as not to offend the heavenly patron saints (in this case, St. Michael the Archangel).
Mikhail Antonovich Denisenko (b. 1929) was in Soviet times the exarch of Ukraine and the main contender for the patriarchal throne. Later information became known (which he himself confirmed in an interview with the publication Weekly.ua) about his collaboration with the KGB under the nickname "Antonov".
Denisenko always faithfully served not Christ, but the authorities. For example, when he was the administrator of the Church in the early 1960s, in pursuance of Khrushchev’s policies, through his efforts the Kiev Pechersk Lavra was closed and the monks were expelled. Lavra schema-abbot Valentin predicted death for the persecutor of Judas. And the famous Kiev mother Alipia also cursed the hypocrite.
After the death of Patriarch Pimen in May 1990, Metropolitan Philaret of Kyiv was elected locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne. He decided that his finest hour had come and even transferred the affairs of the metropolis to his successor. However, according to the results of a secret vote in June 1990 at the Local Council in the Danilov Monastery, only 66 votes were given for Philaret, and 107 for Metropolitan Vladimir (Sabodan). And Metropolitan Alexy, who received 139 votes, became Patriarch.
After the collapse of the USSR, Mikhail Antonovich decided to seek complete independence of the UOC and appoint his beloved self to the position of its primate. However, at the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in March-April 1992, many church hierarchs, including Ukrainian ones, opposed it. The election of a Ukrainian primate was made a matter for a separate council of the UOC.
Denisenko swore before the Holy Cross and the Gospel that he would not contradict the decisions of the upcoming council of the UOC, whatever they may be.
But upon returning to Kyiv, he instantly “forgot” his oath and, using the support of his old friend, President Leonid Kravchuk, zealously began preparing for a split. He participated in the activities of the Ukrainian autocephalous states, then became the deputy of “patriarch” Romanyuk in the “Kiev Patriarchate”. For this, the Council of the UOC deprived him of all degrees of the priesthood, and in 1997, on the proposal of the UOC episcopate, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church anathematized Denisenko for schismatic activities.
Having thrown off his pious mask, after the death of Romanyuk, he declared himself “the patriarch of Kyiv and All Rus'.” And he continued the war against the UOC (MP), encroaching on its property and flock. His old friend Kravchuk provided him with serious support - they even, they say, gave him the notorious “money of the Communist Party” - and the nationalist leaders, whom the exarch had previously slandered, sensed promise in him and made him their religious leader.
Nazi extremists became the fighting detachment of the “kapeshniks” - first from the UNA-UNSO, and later from the “Right Sector”, etc. They encroached on the churches of the UOC, persecuted believers and priests. They seized the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv and many local churches in the regions for “Filaret.”
Denisenko had and still has “sworn friends” from other schismatic Ukrainian “confessions.” In particular, autocephalians from the UAOC, Uniates (Greek Catholics) from the UGCC. He sometimes gets along with him, sometimes breaks pots, but never quarrels so much as not to cooperate in the war against the UOC (MP). In recent years, after the proclamation of the “local” idea fix, schismatics have united as never before.
The situation became very aggravated after the victory of Maidan 2014, when the authorities outlined a clear course towards the creation of “Epots” and the ban on the only canonical Orthodox Church under the leadership of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.
Aggression against the UOC has increased significantly. Attacks on churches, murders and beatings of priests and parishioners, and rabid slander in the media have reached unprecedented proportions.
As a result of the actions of “Filaret’s” schismatics in 2014-2016, the UOC-MP lost 40 churches.
2. Uniates and “classical” autocephalies
The Uniates (representatives of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church) are long-time enemies of canonical Orthodoxy. Being a product of the Vatican, the Brest (Berestey) Church Union signed in 1596 had the goal of completely subordinating Western Rus' to the Roman Pontiff and the conclave “with fire and sword” to burn out the Orthodox faith in the peoples inhabiting them. The signing of the Union of Brest led to a long and at times bloody struggle between Catholics and Orthodox Christians in Western Russian lands.
If we turn to more recent times, to the period of the Great Patriotic War, the Uniates supported the Nazis and their accomplices from the OUN and UPA, who were responsible for many crimes against humanity.
During the "Volyn massacre" 1943-45 Members of the Bandera organization OUN-UPA killed tens of thousands of people - ethnic Poles. Only in July-August 1943, the number of brutally killed, burned and hacked civilians - children, old people and women - reached, according to various estimates, from 60 to 80 thousand people.
And the murderers and rapists were “fostered” by the “Greek Catholic Church,” which was also with Hitler in those years. Here is a congratulatory message sent to the German Reich Chancellor by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky of Galicia:
“Your Excellence! As the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, I convey to your Excellency my heartfelt congratulations on the capture of the capital of Ukraine, the golden-domed city on the Dnieper - Kiev!.. We see in you the invincible commander of the incomparable and glorious German army. The cause of destruction and eradication of Bolshevism, which you, the Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich, have set yourself as a goal in this campaign, ensures your Excellence the gratitude of the entire Christian world. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church knows the true significance of the mighty movement of the German people under your leadership... I will pray to God for the blessing of a victory that will guarantee lasting peace for your Excellence, the German Army and the German People.”
Former Abwehr agent Alfons Paulus testified at the Nuremberg trials:
“Priests of the Ukrainian Uniate Church were also trained in the training camps of the General Government, who took part in carrying out our assignments along with other Ukrainians... Arriving in Lviv with team 202-B (subgroup II), Lieutenant Colonel Aikern established contact with the metropolitan of the Ukrainian Uniate Church. Metropolitan Count Sheptytsky, as Aikern told me, was pro-German, put his house at the disposal of Aikern for Team 202, although this house was not confiscated by the German military authorities. The residence of the Metropolitan was in a monastery in Lvov. The entire team was supplied from the monastery’s reserves.”
Bandera and OUN members killed not only ordinary priests, but also bishops and even metropolitans.
They killed Metropolitan Alexy (Hromadsky) of Kremenets, who refused to join the schism. He foresaw his martyrdom, but did not compromise with his conscience. After all, the sin of schism, as is known according to Orthodox tradition, is not washed away even by blood.
Lvov protopresbyter Gabriel Kostelnik, who wanted reunification with the Russian Church, died at the hands of Bandera’s followers. It is not true that the famous Council in Lviv, which reunited the Greek Catholics with the Russian Orthodox Church, was only the result of pressure from Stalin. On the contrary, many thousands of Uniates dreamed of leaving the union, which was imposed by force, remembering their Russian origin.
After the victory over Germany, in March 1946, at the Lviv Church and People's Council of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Union of Brest was abolished on the territory of the USSR, and the activities of the UGCC were banned here until 1990.
A new wave of Uniate aggression against Orthodoxy arose on the eve of the collapse of the USSR. Here is what the historian Oleg Bibikov wrote about this: “The Greek Catholics, who hated the Orthodox faith, obviously, with a signal from above, began to seize churches and terrorize the Orthodox people. The Uniates in Galicia beat clergymen with impunity, gave them heart attacks, and set fire to the houses of laymen; it even reached the point of murder. Galicians expelled priests and bishops. Their lawlessness was justified by the “restoration of historical justice.”
The liberal media looked at this aggression not only turning a blind eye, but with a clearly encouraging grin. Of course, the matter concerned not only the churches that were leased from the Orthodox after 1946. Everything was taken based on need or simply out of an angry feeling. And, of course, the “restoration of historical justice” did not extend to the return to the Orthodox churches that belonged to them before the conclusion of the Union of Brest in 1596.”
Subsequently, Filaret schismatics also joined in the persecution of Orthodox Christians and the seizure of their churches. In 1992, aggression from Galicia spread to Orthodox Volyn.
The recently deceased ex-head of the UGCC, Lyubomir Huzar, was a supporter of the creation of the Ukrainian “United Local Church,” believing that it would be part of the “Ecumenical Church,” which he considered Catholicism. To create "Epots" Huzar proposed to restore the state in Ukraine, «what it was like before the division into four Churches.” All schismatics, whom he considered to be churches, were to join this very “Epots”, regardless of canonical obstacles and apostolic regulations.
Nowadays the Uniates are accomplices of the “UOC KP” and claim their share in the church property of the UOC MP. On March 25, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI approved Svyatoslav Shevchuk as their primate.
Representatives of the “Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church”, led by “Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine” Makariy (Maletich) (since 2015), also agree with the Uniates in their desire to profit from the property of the canonical Church.
The UAOC dates back to 1917, when, after the February Revolution, schismatic tendencies appeared in the Russian Church. In the struggle for the “national Ukrainian church,” a certain Vasily Lipkivsky, a former archpriest and director of the Kyiv diocesan school, who was fired during the tsarist regime for ardent Ukrainophilism, immediately appeared.
In the spring of 1917, Lipkivsky, together with like-minded people, created the “Brotherhood of the Resurrection of Christ” circle, which, obviously, can be considered the prototype of the future UAOC.
So, in essence, they became involved in a religious war against canonical Orthodoxy, which has long been the main identifier of the Russian people.
Ukrainian nationalists on the territory of Little Russia also joined this war. A group of nationalist-revolutionary-minded clergy and laity formed in Kyiv. The idea of creating an independent church greatly inspired them.
The new government body - the Central Rada (March 1917 - April 1918) began to encourage church separatism. Under the Central Committee, the “Ukrainian Church Rada” was created, designed to prepare a schism.
This period marked the first peak of activity of the self-saints, as the believers of the canonical Church later began to call autocephals.
It was at this time that the villainous murder of the head of the canonical Orthodox Church in Kyiv, Metropolitan Vladimir (Epiphany), was committed, later glorified with the rank of hieromartyr.
On December 9, 1917, a commission from the Central Rada came to Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia Vladimir (Epiphany), who then led our canonical Church in the most difficult conditions, with an ultimatum demand to leave Kiev. The delegation included like-minded people of Vasily Lipkivsky - chairman of the “Ukrainian Church Rada” Marichev, deputy Sharaivsky and others.
The answer of the future martyr was this: “I am not afraid of anyone or anything. At any time I am ready to give my life for the Church of Christ and for the Orthodox Faith, so as not to allow my enemies to laugh at it. I am ready to suffer to the end in order to preserve Orthodoxy in Russia, where it began...”
On January 25, 1918, Metropolitan Vladimir was shot outside the fence of the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
“The opinion that autocephalist instigators, in the turmoil of street battles and the anarchy that reigned at that time, incited the “soldiers of the revolution” to commit this monstrous crime has good grounds. Due to the favorable social and political situation for the Kyiv schismatics, they managed to achieve their goal,” wrote Rostislav Yarema, priest and researcher of schisms .
The UAOC was also useful for a time to the Bolsheviks, who needed to strengthen their power and decided to enter into a temporary alliance with the schismatics in a religious war.
At the end of the Civil War, all actions of schismatics in the USSR took place under the complete control of Soviet intelligence services.
In those years, the Bolsheviks, in order to involve the national republics in the newly created USSR, actively propagated the so-called. “indigenization”, designed, to the detriment of the Great Russian language and Christian culture, to develop narrowly national languages, dialects, pagan traditions... In the same way, at first, the Bolsheviks supported the self-saintly schism. Although none of the Orthodox bishops of the world recognized Lipkivsky’s “autocephaly” and did not agree to his “metropolitanship.”
Then, in violation of all the canons of the Orthodox Church, Lipkivsky was “ordained” by apostates and laity, which is why parishioners faithful to canonical Orthodoxy began to call all the “clergy” of the UAOC “self-saints.”
In October 1921, the First All-Ukrainian Council of the organization took place, calling itself the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. It announced the creation of the UAOC. The Soviet government financed the cathedral at a time when Ukraine was gripped by famine, devastation, and epidemics.
He proclaimed the “Sovietization of the Orthodox Church,” i.e. the transfer of all church power from its legal bearers - the patriarch, bishops, priests - to commissions and councils headed by the All-Russian Orthodox Church, which was proclaimed “the confident and unshakable leader of the Ukrainian revolutionary church people.”
This is confirmation that in fact the UAOC was created by the Bolsheviks to attack canonical Orthodoxy. And the composition of its participants, as they say, fully corresponded to the “revolutionary masses.”
But no previous merits helped the self-saints when the authorities no longer needed their services. The fate of Vasily Lipkivsky, like many other members of the UAOC, is tragic. The “All-Ukrainian Church Council” of 1927 voted to deprive him of the title of “metropolitan”.
For a long time he was under constant surveillance by the GPU-NKVD, was arrested, and in 1937 he shared the fate of many priests repressed through his fault and was sentenced to death.
The liquidation of the UAOC in the USSR was completed in 1935-37, when its last servants were arrested.
After the outbreak of World War II, the autocephalous people operated in the territory occupied by Hitler’s troops, in particular, the Polish General Government, as well as in the territories ceded to the Soviet Union after 1939. During the Great Patriotic War, after the Germans captured Kyiv, emissaries rushed there UAOC.
After the liberation of Ukraine, the “episcopath” went to the West, and from there – overseas.
In 1947, in Canada, the UAOC was headed by Symon Petliura’s nephew, Mstislav Skrypnyk.
In Ukraine, autocephalous people were legalized only at the end of Gorbachev’s “perestroika”, in 1989. It must be said that the then exarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Filaret - later a schismatic - strongly opposed the revival of the UAOC. However, at the “local Council” of 1990 in Kyiv, a new Charter of the UAOC was adopted, and Skrypnyk was declared “Patriarch of Kyiv and All Ukraine.”
It is interesting that in the early 1990s, without ever becoming the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', the same “Filaret” (Denisenko) tried with a group of supporters to join the UAOC, which he opposed several years ago.
An agreement was reached with its representatives to hold a “Unification Council of the Two Churches.” According to the draft decision of the “council,” the UOC and UAOC were liquidated, and all their property and money were transferred to a new structure called the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate.” At first, 94-year-old Mstislav (Skripnik) was announced as its leader, and “Filaret” (Denisenko) as its deputy. However, in fact, the latter began to claim autocracy, which subsequently led to his break with the self-saints.
However, as already mentioned, they are ready to overcome this gap in the ZaEpots project.
3. Neo-Pentecostals and representatives of the “New Age”
These categories include all sectarians and a wide variety of pagans who filled the space of the former USSR (and Ukraine) after its collapse.
“Neo-Pentecostals” (“neo-charismatics”) are those who appeared in the 1950s. in the West and multiplying like mushrooms after rain, we have numerous pseudo-Christian, totalitarian and destructive sects that poured into our country along with Western “values” and the ideology of the “free world” after the fall of the “Iron Curtain”.
This is the definition they gave at the international scientific and practical conference “Totalitarian sects - a threat to the XNUMXst century”:
“Neo-Pentecostal sects often resort to confessional anonymity, not indicating the religious affiliation of their preachers on their advertising posters, which is a gross violation of the law on freedom of conscience and religious associations. Luring people to their meetings, they promise those who come mass healings and all kinds of miracles, thus speculating on the problems and misfortunes of citizens... They use neo-Pentecostals and confessional pseudonymity: often when asked about their religious affiliation, they call themselves “simply Christians.” This position is an outright lie used to mislead recruited citizens. In their official documents and statements, neo-Pentecostals call themselves Protestants and a traditional denomination...
The main components of neo-Pentecostalism are the occult “Positive Thinking” that originated in the second half of the XNUMXth century in the USA (revealed in the “Faith Movement” by the doctrine of “positive confession”), the visualization method widely used in the neo-pagan “New Age” movement, an unhealthy craving for various supernatural experiences and experiences, the primitive pagan doctrine of “small gods”, the crudely magical doctrine of the power of the believer and the frankly materialistic “Prosperity Theology”.
“Neo-Pentecostals” include such sects as the “Word of Life”, lobbied by the initiator of the ATO, the “bloody usurpastor” Alexander Turchinov, the “Embassy of God” of the Nigerian Sunday Adelaja and others.
As for the “New Era,” the famous sectologist Alexander Dvorkin characterizes it this way: “This is the most famous in the West (and now in the East) and the most widely advertised modern religion. Let us immediately note that the “New Era” ... is a wide-ranging, amorphous phenomenon, in which many sects and organizations are involved. In addition, a person can adhere to the general range of NE ideas, but at the same time not be a member of any of the organizations... You can call it a conglomerate of various spiritualist and occultist groups, cults, schools, sects and teachings. Its very name can be misleading, because in the religious essence of NE there is nothing actually new, all these are old mossy ideas and old, moth-eaten theories.”
The question may arise: what do these sects and movements have to do with the creation of the “Epots” planned by the Ukrainian authorities?
The answer is: the most direct.
One of the main Ukrainian Maidan leaders, Alexander Turchynov, who at one time betrayed not only the CPSU, but also Orthodoxy, and today, despite being busy with crimes against humanity in his National Security and Defense Council, continues to lobby his favorite sect in every possible way. It is for this sect - as the fundamental cementing one - that he and his minions are building in Pechersk, right under the holy Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the so-called “Temple of All Religions”.
True, recently a financial scandal arose around this construction, in which Turchinov was also involved. However, many experts consider this scandal to be a manifestation of the election struggle of the “usurpastor” with his main “sworn friend” Poroshenko - on the way to dictatorship, for the electorate and the possibility of manipulating public consciousness.
It is this topic – the desire of competing political clans, using religious levers, to rally around themselves as many electoral reserves as possible – which has become very popular in the discussions of analysts and experts.
Competitors began the path to this a long time ago. In particular, last year Poroshenko announced that he would celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation at the highest level. Although, it would seem, what does the anniversary of Lutheranism and Calvinism have to do with a country where the majority of the population considers themselves Orthodox? However, Poroshenko, planning his “Epots”, apparently decided to drag Protestants and even sectarians into it, knocking religious trump cards out of the hands of his competitor Turchynov.
So, the option is not at all excluded in which, having won the elections with the help of “ZaEpots”, the new great dictator Poroshenko will declare himself the “pope” of all churches and confessions, and why bother with trifles, of all world religions and beliefs present in Ukraine.
Sounds funny? Maybe. But the steps he takes tell a different story. It is for this purpose that he is trying to subjugate or expel the canonical Apostolic Church and people faithful to Her and Christ - in order to create his own “one religion,” as, according to prophecy, the coming Antichrist will try to do.
As they say, we'll wait and see. In the meantime, let's talk about the 4th component of the plan for a religious war against the UOC-MP.
4. Media and media.
The information war is led by the 1+1 TV channel, Kolomoisky’s structure, which all sensible people have long considered an information cesspool. This is fully revealed in the stories of blogger Anatoly Shariy, who never misses an opportunity to expose this cesspool.
The hatred of the “Pluses” for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is so great that they do not disdain any fraud, fakes, dirty insults and slander against it.
Here are just some of the names of their materials.
“Several dozen pilgrims put everyone on edge. Why did the UOC-MP march to Kyiv? (Tens of thousands of people took part in the procession then, in July 2016).
“The religious procession of the Moscow Patriarchate has turned into a VIP event with face control.”
“Alchemy of the horse process of the UOC MP. As religion becomes politics, it threatens Kiev with provocations.”
There were reports of “militants in robes” and that pistols and machine guns were allegedly being distributed in the churches of the UOC-MP. And that the participants in the procession of the Cross are moving towards Kyiv, hiding weapons in knapsacks, student backpacks and camp “kravchukki”. Thousands of believers - including old people, women, children - were, they say, ready at any moment, in the manner of Hollywood cowboys, to snatch their bazookas from their bosoms and carry out “Kremlin terror.”
The “Plus” programs have become a kind of ideological “artillery preparation” that has accompanied the attacks of the enemies of Christ on the UOC for many years. He also manipulates public opinion, inclining it in favor of the “Kyiv Patriarchate” with “ZaEPoTs” and in favor of its Western masters. Cynical anti-church bills No. 4128 and 4511, which the Verkhovna Rada plans to adopt, this channel presents as the greatest achievements in protecting freedom of conscience in Ukraine.
All this is picked up by other similar media - “Espresso TV”, “Icity”, etc. – and clogs the Ukrainian airwaves, zombifying the viewer. State structures called upon to regulate the work of the media - the State Television and Radio of Ukraine, the National Council for TV and Radio, the Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Culture - take an active part in the preparation of this slander and information dirt. They prepare “temniks” and ensure their execution, which is why you often see materials on air from different TV channels that are as similar to each other as two peas in a pod.
But the enemies of the Church do not take into account one factor. The one that is commonly called the God factor. And they have forgotten or do not know the words of the Lord Jesus Christ that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church.
God, as you know, cannot be scolded.
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