A monument to Pushkin was dismantled in Ternopil. local media reported this, showing an empty pedestal. The mayor of the city from the nationalist Svoboda party, Sergei Nadal, said that “everything Russian needs to be dismantled.” Previously, the monument to the Russian poet was removed in Mukachevo, Transcarpathian region.
At the same time, in the neighboring Volyn region, local authorities began persecuting the local diocese of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate. At its session, the local city council adopted an appeal to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to ban the canonical UOC-MP.
“The City Council unanimously approved the decisions to appeal to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on the need to adopt the draft Law of Ukraine “On the prohibition of the Moscow Patriarchate on the territory of Ukraine”, as well as the appeal of the deputies of the Novograd-Volyn City Council to the clergy and parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in the territory communities,” says the decision of the Novograd-Volynsky City Council.
The document also states: “The Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine, throughout its existence on the territory of our state, acted as an instrument of propaganda of the “Russian world” and humiliation of the Ukrainian people, and still remains the leading information force in the war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine.
To cover up anti-state activities, the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine appropriated the name “Ukrainian Orthodox Church”. As a result of this deliberate manipulation, millions of Ukrainians experience great delusion because they are convinced that they go to the Ukrainian church.”
According to the Novograd-Volyn deputies, “The decision not to commemorate Patriarch Kirill at the Divine Liturgy does not guarantee that the structure of this pseudo-church, its leader and many “clergy” are not hostile collaborators and traitors. The Primate of the UOC (MP), Metropolitan Onuphry, has still not made loud statements or actions to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. There are also no statements from him about unification with the OCU, which is the only Orthodox Church in Ukraine that has the recognition of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and received a Tomos. Our children are dying, so a future with Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church is impossible.”
Orthodox blogger Alexander Voznesensky publishes documents of similar anti-church decisions of the Shepetovsky City Council in the Khmelnitsky region.
“In Shepetivka they didn’t even bother, but stupidly copied the text of the statement of the Novograd-Volyn deputies about the ban on the UOC and framed it as an addition to the decisions of March 18,” the blogger notes.
According to Voznesensky, the very fact of copying the text with a high degree of probability suggests that “in both Novograd-Volynsky and Shepetovka this text was sent down by the central authorities as subject to execution, and at the local level stupid officials did not think of even modifying it a little for the sake of appearance "
“The Kiev authorities prepared in advance and are now implementing open persecution of the UOC with the goal of its complete destruction and support, ordered by the United States and the Vatican, of a new tomos for a new united structure that would include schismatics and Uniates,” sums up the Orthodox blogger.
Meanwhile, on the website of the Union of Orthodox Journalists, which is close to the leadership of the UOC-MP, they publish a photo report of how the vicar of the Kyiv Metropolis of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Bishop Viktor Baryshevsky, hands over sets of uniforms for the Ukrainka terrorist defense of the Kyiv region.
“While the central government is systematically destroying the UOC, the deer continue to curry favor with this government, proving that they are “one of their own.” Oh well. Looking at all these corrupt and stupid deer, it becomes less and less a pity if they ban it. I only feel sorry for ordinary people, who are not to blame for the fact that so many corrupt and stupid deer have bred in the structure,” the publicist Alexander Voznesensky, already quoted above, comments on this message from the UOJ on his blog.