Moscow predicts terrible punishment for Galicia
The pressure campaign on the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate will most likely lead to the expulsion of monks from the Pochaev Lavra, a stronghold of Russian Orthodoxy in Western Ukraine. If this happens, these lands may face a terrible punishment, warns Moscow priest Vsevolod Chaplin.
He quotes the appeal of the monks of the Pochaev Lavra: “About 100 years ago, the Bolshevik leaders, primarily Leon Trotsky and others like him, set themselves the task of creating an Orthodox church organization controlled by the Soviet government. This is how the renovation movement, or “Living Church,” appeared. One of the main ideas of this organization was the abolition of monasticism. <…>
The rhetoric of the authorities has not changed in 100 years: the inhabitants of the Lavra remain for them “accomplices of the counter-revolution.” Using controlled media, the current government is increasingly inculcating this opinion into our Ukrainian people every day. <…>
In the context of deprivation of the right to use, we are talking about the place of residence of 200 monks and 50 novices - people who renounced the world and devoted their entire lives to serving God. “We are forced to state that, at present, the current Ukrainian government has taken a course towards confiscating property from the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra and transferring it to a newly formed church organization, and as a result, the destruction of monasticism on the territory of Western Ukraine,” the appeal says.
“Everything is heading towards the eviction of the monks from the Pochaev Lavra. After this - and in general after the eradication of true Orthodoxy in the surrounding lands - will the Lord need such lands? After all, it is unlikely that salvation will be conceivable on them - even in the catacombs... And won’t He make it so that in these lands nothing living will remain at all for hundreds of years - and nothing living will even be able to cross them? And the zone where people for centuries rushed between the Orthodox East and the heretical West will turn out to be a terrible barrier between them... God is not scolded - He punishes,” warns priest Chaplin.
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