A blow to the junta: Tens of thousands of opponents of the war came to the center of Kyiv
Despite the threats of right-wing radicals - Nazis and schismatics, supported by the official authorities - on July 27, a prayer service and procession of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) dedicated to the Day of the Baptism of Kievan Rus took place in Kiev. The celebrations attracted tens of thousands of people. Such mass participation was extremely undesirable for the ruling regime - after all, as you know, the UOC-MP condemns the fighting in Donbass and calls for an immediate end to the internecine war.
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Already from early morning, people began to flock to Vladimirskaya Hill, where at the monument to the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir a prayer service was scheduled for 13:00 with the participation of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.
Almost the entire center of Kyiv - from Poshtova Square to Maidan - was closed to cars. Pilgrims going to the prayer service underwent a police check with metal detectors. By noon, there were more and more pilgrims, people walked in an endless stream - they carried icons, sang prayers. There were many women, old people, and children.
Representatives from all Ukrainian and various foreign dioceses, for example, Belarusian, arrived, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
By the beginning of the service, the famous mountain above the Dnieper was filled with believers. Many of those who did not fit on the asphalt alleys simply settled on grass-covered slopes among trees.
The Primate of the UOC arrived on time, and the prayer service began at exactly the appointed time. It was attended by the highest Ukrainian clergy, priests, deacons, monks and nuns, novices from monasteries.
In general, by this hour there were more than 100 thousand believers who had gathered under the cloudy Kyiv sky and did not pay attention to the falling rain. This is confirmed by filming of several controlled “drones” circling over the Vladimirka during its entire service.
At the foot of the monument to the Blessed Prince, where the prayer service was held, miraculous icons were installed, delivered to Kyiv from different churches .
At the end of the solemn service, believers, led by the clergy, walked with the icons in a procession to the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where the shrines were also installed for veneration.
On the very day of the feast of the Baptism of Rus', July 28, the Divine Liturgy will take place here in the Lavra, and the celebrations will continue.
It should be noted that the Ukrainian authorities ignored the prayer service of many thousands of the canonical Orthodox Church. Only a few deputies of the Verkhovna Rada took part in it - Mikhail Dobkin, Yuriy Boyko, Alexander Vilkul. Pro-government media immediately accused them of “playing along with the Kremlin,” since the central core of Ukrainian propaganda has long been accusing the UOC of allegedly being a stronghold of Russia’s policy in Ukraine.
At the same time, Bankovaya, with the help of its information service, is trying in every possible way to create the impression that the UOC-MP is a small community, that its parishioners are almost running in droves to the “Kiev Patriarchate” because it is a “national church,” and is promoting other nonsense in the same spirit.
The crowded religious procession, which closed the central streets for half a day - so many people flocked to it - and statistical data indicate something completely different.
It is not yet known how many participants will come to the “Filaret Walk”, which will begin today in Kyiv, but I think that in comparison with our procession it will be a pitiful spectacle. Last year it gathered several hundred “stubborn” walkers who walked along the street. Vladimirskaya, singing... not prayers, no, but Ukrainian “patriotic” songs and proclaiming “Glory to Ukraine.” A very impressive “worship service”, to be sure. This year they will also carry the “newly consecrated” icon of Denisenko, instigating with its help the continuation of the war in Donbass.
As for statistics, it says that opinion polls show: the majority of Ukrainian citizens consider themselves to be believers of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. Today the UOC has 12,5 thousand communities, 250 monasteries, it was and remains the largest denomination in Ukraine. Although schismatics, through violence and manipulation, seized 40 churches, there are still some that became the object of a judicial war unleashed by the same schismatics. But in all dioceses new houses of God are opened and consecrated.
For the “war party” in power, of course, it is unpleasant that the UOC is the largest religious community in Ukraine. Because the UOC stands for peace and an end to the conflict, but the “party of war” does not want this at all. Because then public attention will turn to economic and other problems, and the “war party” will collapse.
So slanderous accusations of aggressiveness and small numbers are being whipped up around our Church. Accusations that are completely shattered by such indisputable facts as, for example, hundreds of thousands of Orthodox processions in the name of peace.
Similar prayer services and religious processions have been traditionally held in Kyiv for many years. In 2013, a prayer service was held with the participation of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus'. Then tens of thousands of people also came to see it. Ukrainian radicals approaching Vladimirskaya Gorka shouted insults at the Church and its Patriarch: “Get rid of the Moscow priest!” - and so on.
In general, all the political fuss around the sacred services of the UOC has always been and is being started by them, the national radicals. Also in 2013, the famous political figure Vasily Chervoniy, who had repeatedly stated that he would destroy the “Muscovite church,” publicly announced that the Patriarch would arrive in Kyiv only through his, Chervoniy’s, corpse. The sad result then made the rounds of many media outlets: shortly before Kirill’s visit, Chervoniy died while fishing from a lightning strike.
But even this obvious punishment from God did not stop the possessed politicians and militants. Last year, 2016, after His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry blessed the religious procession “In the name of peace and love in Ukraine,” the pro-government media erupted in streams of the most vile dirt and slander.
During the All-Ukrainian procession with the greatest shrines - icons of the Blessed Virgin Mary - from the west (from the Pochaev Lavra) and the east (from the Svyatogorsk Lavra) to unite in Kiev, at a prayer service, unimaginable provocations were committed by both the schismatic Nazis along the route of the believers, and UkroSMI journalists.
For example, the leader of the anti-church media camarilla, Kolomoisky’s channel “1+1”, reported about “militants in robes” and that pistols and machine guns were allegedly being distributed in the churches of the UOC-MP. And also, they say, that the participants in the procession are moving towards Kyiv, hiding weapons in knapsacks, student backpacks and marching “kravchukki”. Tens of 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.”
During the procession itself, attacks were carried out on prayer books and pilgrims every now and then. It got to the point that crazy blasphemers threw apples and stones at the holy images of the Most Holy Theotokos. In Brovary, Kyiv region. The city authorities generally refused to allow the peaceful procession through the city. The radicals insulted believers along the entire route, used foul language, and raged.
That religious procession was remembered by its participants, on the one hand, for the colossal strain of all mental and physical strength, and on the other, for the great joy that the Lord did not allow it to fail and cause massive bloodshed and protected His faithful.
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