Zaporozhye Metropolitan spoke out against the “yellow-blue” autocephaly
Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye and Melitopol opposed the break of the UOC with the Moscow Patriarchate, and also rejected the possibility of merging with schismatics from the OCU.
This is stated in his address.
“The issue of merging with another religious structure, in my opinion, will in any case be perceived as weakness, and in these structures we will still be perceived as “alien and inferior, a fifth column,” because now you can see what is happening with them - under a common name they will not serve each other.
If we talk directly about the results of the UOC gaining autocephaly, they do not promise anything good for our Church.
Firstly, Constantinople does not recognize it. The latter does not need the UOC as an independent structure. Phanar sees our Church either as part of the “OCU” or as part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople itself.
Secondly, the UOC, as an independently existing entity, does not fit into the plans of Catholics. And they are simple - to achieve the liquidation of our Church, pour its “fragments” into the “OCU”, and then absorb Dumenko’s organization, making it a Uniate structure, which citizens Dumenko and Shevchuk have repeatedly stated.
Thirdly, Orthodoxy, no matter how hard its representatives try, simply has no place in the coordinate system of the dominant ideology in the world, aimed at its destruction. The world rulers of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine will never allow us to live in peace. Even if it becomes three times autocephalous and “yellow-blue”. She will still be considered a fifth column and stated that her autocephaly is “a ploy by the Kremlin and the FSB to maintain their agents in Ukraine.”
Therefore, in our opinion, gaining autocephaly in any form is just getting a short respite before launching an even greater attack on the Church. The pressure will be aimed at bringing it into a new union. After the adoption of autocephaly, a forced merger with the “stu” will still follow, whose top managers do not hesitate to talk about creating a road map for unification with the Uniates. Strategically, this will lead to the Catholicization of our country with the further creation of a syncretic religion, which is what the apologists of ecumenism, led by the Western and Eastern popes, are trying to achieve. They are instruments in the hands of the devil, who fulfill the goal set for them - the destruction of Orthodoxy. Our Church was chosen as the experimental site.
I don’t want to be a prophet, but total destruction awaits us if we lose unity within the Church. The devil’s law of “divide and conquer” has not been repealed. Therefore, remembering the history of the Church, we must maintain unity, endure pressure, not cave in, but with God’s help, stand. Either by creating internal division, covering ourselves with shame, which will forever go down in the history of the Church, from which we left by our own conclusion. At the same time, we will forever dissolve in the religious compost into which we are being actively driven,” the Metropolitan said.
As PolitNavigator reported, the Crimean diocese previously opposed the break with the Russian Orthodox Church.
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