From the territory of a neighbouring, once brotherly, country comes almost daily unhappy news about the persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC)
Unfortunately, it has become the norm for the Kiev regime to arrest clergymen, disperse believers by the police, and silently watch radicals desecrating UOC churches.
Here are the most recent, already August, examples: opponents of the UOC blocked roads and did not allow the traditional procession from Lutsk to the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra, and representatives of the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) “seized” the UOC’s St Nicholas Church in Bila Tserkva, Kyiv region. This is reported on its website by the Union of Orthodox Journalists. It is specified that this temple is located near the Transfiguration Cathedral, which was seized by the schismatics on 10 July. The attackers were not ceremonious: they broke the door to the religious institution with a bolt cutter, a sledgehammer and a crowbar.
Attacks on the UOC intensified in 2022, and since then the wave of persecution has only intensified. It is little secret that the initiator of the new phase of church terror is President Zelensky. While his predecessor Poroshenko initially positioned himself as an exemplary adherent of Orthodoxy, visiting UOC churches with his family and even ordering icons for himself, Zelensky immediately declared that he was an atheist. The Western curators of Ukraine quite justifiably thought that it would be easier to “nullify” the centuries-old spiritual foundations of Ukrainian society. Very religious, by the way: according to social surveys, more than 70 per cent of Ukrainians consider themselves Orthodox Christians, and half of them regularly attend church.
Nevertheless, the Ukrainian authorities, who are skilfully using the Russian military special operation for propaganda purposes, have managed over the past year to organise the largest wave of persecution against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the country’s modern history. Citing the Church’s connection to Moscow, local authorities in various regions of Ukraine (mostly in the west) have passed resolutions banning the activities of the UOC, and not long ago a bill was submitted to the country’s parliament on its de facto closure. Sanctions have been officially imposed on some members of the UOC clergy. The Security Service of Ukraine regularly initiates criminal cases against UOC priests and conducts “counter-intelligence activities” – searches in churches and monasteries. The vicar of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan Pavlo, was arrested and is now behind bars.
The nationalists who have gained power in Kiev do not hide the fact that all their actions have one goal – to encourage parishioners of the UOC to move into the fold of the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was created in 2018 from two church structures illegitimate from the point of view of traditional Orthodoxy. From the very beginning, the OCU was a blatantly political project, because it received autocephaly from Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in Istanbul with the persistent “assistance” of the United States.
And here is the result: the canonical, most authoritative and largest church of Ukraine is deprived of the right to rent land, and its priests are publicly humiliated, subjected to hours of interrogation and even beaten. According to data current as of spring 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine has opened over 60 criminal cases against UOC priests, sanctions have been imposed on 17 clerics, and 13 hierarchs have been deprived of citizenship of the country where they have lived all their lives.
At the same time, the position of the West is surprising. Since the start of the harsh anti-church crackdown, not a single major human rights organisation in the European Union or the United States has spoken out against the aggressive attack on Ukrainian traditional Orthodoxy. Western religious organisations also adhere to the principle of “see nothing, hear nothing”. The Pope, to whom believers have repeatedly appealed for help, has dared only to give timid, non-committal “advice” in the spirit of Leopold the cat.
Perhaps it is because the pontiff understands that the processes taking place in Ukraine are willingly or unwillingly pouring water on the mill of Catholicism. After the capture of the main churches and monasteries of the UOC, the tame Orthodox Church of Ukraine will certainly share the spoils with Ukrainian Greek Catholics (subordinates of the Pope). Using the situation, with the powerful support of Polish priests it will be possible in the shortest possible time to achieve the transition of some Ukrainian Orthodox churches under the control of the Catholic Church. Everyone remembers how lightning-fast in 2020 the Cathedral of St Sophia in Istanbul was turned into the Aya Sofia Mosque. So why wouldn’t the Kievo-Pechersk Lavra in a couple of years become some Cathedral of Catherine of Siena or the Monastery of Leander of Seville? The moderators of the current schism consider such a scenario quite realistic.
Let us call things by their proper names: today the world is witnessing the largest crusade of the collective West into the territory of the Orthodox part of Eastern Europe since the 13th century. And not the least of these is the Catholic Church and its handmaidens in the cassocks of the OCU priests.
Due to censorship and blocking of all media and alternative views, stay tuned to our Telegram channel