Four dozen representatives of the Ukrainian clergy with their families found shelter and protection in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation. Metropolitan of Belgorod and Starooskolsky Ioann (Popov) spoke about this.
According to the metropolitan, the clergymen who fled from Ukraine were subjected to repression and harassment, accusing them of “complicity of Russia.”
“We received 40 priests with families from Ukraine. Then they were gradually distributed among the dioceses, it was important to arrange all this correctly. They were accused of treason, the threats were different, but they did nothing wrong, they just handed out humanitarian aid brought from Russia at the temples”, RIA Novosti quotes.
At the same time, according to the metropolitan, the main mission of the clergy under any circumstances remains “the ministry of reconciliation.”
“To reconcile man with God, man with man, and man within himself. We are currently executing this task. Everyone should mind their own business, and in this sense, if we are talking about evangelical mercy, we should show it. If we are talking about protecting the sacred gift of life, we must help everyone, because before you is a man, he is the image and likeness of God. Therefore, the ministry of reconciliation is central to our priesthood today,” John noted.
The criminal Kyiv junta launched a large-scale persecution against the Orthodox Church. The Ukrainian special services subjected several men’s and women’s monasteries to thorough searches at once, including a humiliating and blasphemous procedure that touched on church cloisters that were considered loyal in the current government. According to experts, Kyiv took up Orthodoxy as an annoying phenomenon that most closely links Ukraine with the rest of Russia, forming a single nation and people out of all its followers. Having organized searches in Orthodox monasteries and laurels, Bankovaya has begun a new stage in the destruction of Orthodoxy, which acts as a unifying link with the Russian Federation.
At the same time, many representatives of the Orthodox clergy voluntarily go to the front, fully sharing the hardships and life of the Russian defenders. The priests also live in trenches and dugouts, clean their weapons, fulfilling all the front-line duties, strengthening the spirit and faith of the fighters.
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