SERBIAN CHURCH STANDS WITH THE PERSECUTED UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
Belgrade ~ August 23, 2024
His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije and the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church sent a fraternal letter of support to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine as the Ukrainian state continues to ramp up its persecution of the Orthodox Church.
On Tuesday, August 20, Ukrainian Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of Bill 8371, which is aimed at the banning of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church across the country. According to the bill, 9 months after it is signed into law by President Zelensky, courts can begin shutting UOC churches and monasteries.
The banning of the Church “repeats the Golgotha scenario and crucifies it on a new cross of suffering, while returning Ukrainian society as a whole to the time of Roman persecutions of the Church of Christ” His Holiness writes.
The Serbian Orthodox Church reports:
In the Synodal letter, His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije emphasizes that he not only has an obligation but also a strong personal need to inform his brother and co-celebrant, His Beatitude Onuphry, that the news of the Ukrainian Parliament adopting a law providing for the prohibition of the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been received with deep bitterness in the Local Church of St. Sava.
Given that in not-so-distant history, during World War II, the Serbian Orthodox Church was banned and persecuted, we experientially feel the truth of the sacred words of the Apostle Paul in your case that if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together (1 Cor 12:26), Patriarch Porfirije reminded and emphasized that the work and mission of our Church was then prevented by an openly totalitarian, criminal regime of a puppet fascist creation, while, to make the tragedy greater, today the sister Church in Ukraine is being persecuted by a declaratively democratic government made up of its own compatriots, which makes the situation difficult and incomparably more absurd.
With anxiety in our hearts, dear brother in Christ, we feel that on the example of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a new totalitarianism is being introduced in which not even the maxim of St. Constantine the Equal-to-the-Apostles applies, which is one of the basic generally accepted social principles by which we live, and which states: Let each one believe as his heart desires, Patriarch Porfirije conveyed and concluded that it is clear that the degradation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to a banned organization further legalizes the already permanent persecution, arrest, and harassment of its sacred hierarchy and faithful people, enables further seizure of its property or, more accurately, repeats the Golgotha scenario and crucifies it on a new cross of suffering, while returning Ukrainian society as a whole to the time of Roman persecutions of the Church of Christ.
Our prayers, our hopes, our thoughts, but also our sincere wishes that those in authority turn away from their folly to the knowledge of justice and truth, as well as for peace, brotherly love, and harmony to reign again in your homeland, are constantly raised before the face of the Lord from every heart of the Serbian people, always loyal to you, in whose unreserved support and help you should never doubt. With hope for the most favorable and just resolution of the difficult situation and with prayer to the greatest Sufferer in all worlds, our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you and the fullness of our beloved Ukrainian Orthodox Church strength, faith, love, and patience to carry your cross until the Paschal dawn, we send you brotherly greetings and the love of our hearts, Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia emphasized at the end of the letter to his brother and co-celebrant in Christ, Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine.
Source: Orthochristian.com
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RUSSIAN SYNOD RESPONDS TO BAN ON UOC: UKRAINE HAS SURPASSED EVEN THE SOVIET UNION
Moscow ~ August 23, 2024
On Tuesday, August 20, Ukrainian Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of Bill 8371, which is aimed at the banning of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church across the country.
Having been approved in both its first and second readings, the bill now awaits the signature of President Zelensky to pass into law, after which courts will eventually be able to close churches and monasteries for belonging to the UOC under His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine.
Yesterday, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church published a response, condemning the “ongoing witch hunt” and “slanderous anti-Church campaign.”
“In its scale and centralized nature, this measure can surpass all former historical repressions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” including that of the Soviet Union, the Russian Synod warns.
The hierarchs also emphasize the culpability of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who created the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” which has physically seized hundreds of church buildings from the UOC and violently attacked clergy and parishioners. His intrusion into the Ukrainian ecclesiastical sphere has only exacerbated the problem, the Synod laments.
Immediately after the Verkhovna Rada adopted the bill on banning the UOC, a delegation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople arrived in Ukraine to hold dialogues on “Church unity.”
The Russian Synodal statement reads in full:
On August 20, 2024, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed in the second reading the bill “On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activity of Religious Organizations” that allows, through judicial proceedings, to ban activities of any religious community in the territory of Ukraine if it is “affiliated” with a religious organization in Russia. For the court to give such a ruling, conclusions of a “religious expertise” will suffice, which amid the ongoing witch hunt may and will be falsified.
Those who initiated and endorsed this bill in Ukraine—highest-ranking public officials, the Verkhovna Rada deputies, radical politicians and public figures, representatives of schismatic organizations and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church—do not conceal that the law directly targets the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, that it is aimed at liquidating it and all its communities or at forcibly transferring them to other religious organizations. Hundreds of monasteries, thousands of communities, and millions of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine will find themselves outside the legal framework and lose their property and places of worship.
During the period of 2014-2023, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church pointed out on many occasions that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church came under pressure which was undoubtedly part of the government anti-religious policy. The adoption of the law today indicates the powerlessness of the regime, which throughout its political existence has been systematically, step by step trying to weaken, split, and destroy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The primate of the Russian Orthodox Church repeatedly appealed to the UN, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe, as well as leaders of world religious communities, bearing witness to the persecutions against believers in Ukraine. While the violations of the rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church members were acknowledged by many experts and human rights organizations in the West, it has not prevented the adoption of the bill which shatters the very idea of the freedom of conscience and fundamental human rights.
For many years, the policy of persecution against the Church has been carried out against a backdrop of the slanderous anti-Church campaign in the Ukrainian mass media aimed at defaming canonical Orthodoxy, as well as instigating and justifying mass seizures of churches called “voluntary transfers.” The seizures are orchestrated by the proponents of the schism and radical nationalists with support from the local authorities, security services ,and law enforcement bodies, and usually entail violence, including mass beatings of the clergy and the faithful. Attempts are being made, and some have succeeded, to seize the largest monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and forcibly evict their inhabitants.
Ukrainian security services continue to put outright pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, its episcopate, and clergy. Apart from threats and blackmail, this pressure has manifested itself in dozens of trumped-up criminal cases and unlawful verdicts on political grounds. Many hierarchs and pastors of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been arrested, taken into custody, or received unjust sentences.
In a number of Ukrainian regions and localities, local authorities have imposed a downright “ban” on the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, forcibly closing its churches, hindering celebration of divine services, and illegally confiscating plots of land on which monasteries and churches are built.
Having failed in its attempts to weaken the canonical Church in Ukraine or undermine its unity, the local government has taken a step towards its outright ban.
In its scale and centralized nature, this measure can surpass all former historical repressions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, including persecutions at the time of the Greek Catholic Union of Brest, and is commensurable to such sorrowful historical precedents as Nero’s and Diocletian’s persecutions in the Roman Empire, the so-called dechristianization of France during the 18th-century French Revolution, atheistic repressions in the Soviet Union, and destruction of the Albanian Orthodox Church under Enver Hoxha’s regime in the 1960s.
The adopted bill is incompatible with the principles of the rule of law; it is a political declaration aimed at legalizing the destruction of the religious community of the majority of the population. The law lays down criteria enabling to determine a group of people connected by their affiliation with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and carry out targeted political repressions against them.
It is with particular bitterness that we must note the negative role of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and the hierarchs who hold the same views. Through their unilateral and hasty actions inconsistent with the spirit of the sacred canons, they have only exacerbated the Church schism in Ukraine, having failed to heal it. The leaders of the schismatics recognized by the Phanar have been particularly furious in demanding the adoption of the law that practically bans the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. And Patriarch Bartholomew, who earlier publicly expressed approval for the criminal prosecution against and arrests of the UOC hierarchs and clergymen, now, like high priests Annas and Caiaphas, has openly supported the government’s actions aimed at crucifying and destroying the canonical Church in Ukraine. Therefore, the Patriarch of Constantinople is personally responsible for orchestrating the persecutions against the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
We firmly believe that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church of Christ (Mt 16:18), just like the most severe persecutions failed to do in the past, and that the Orthodox Christians in Ukraine will confront these new ordeals with fortitude and steadfastness and in all these things will be more than conquerors through Jesus Who loved us (Rom 8:37). We call upon the plenitude of the Orthodox world to pray ever more fervently for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church which is abiding in afflictions on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus (Rev 1:9).
We appeal to international human rights organizations to give an immediate and unbiased response to the flagrant oppression of the faithful in Ukraine.
Source: Orthochristian.com
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UKRAINIAN DIPLOMAT ADMITS U.S. ROLE IN CREATING SCHISMATIC "ORTHODOX CHURCH OF THE UKRAINE"
Kiev, May 10, 2021
Secretary of State Blinken fist bumps the schismatic Epiphany Dumenko. Photo: pomisna.info
The United States considers the creation of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) as its own achievement, acknowledges the former Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S.
Although the U.S.’s central role has been openly acknowledged several times, including by hierarchs of the schismatic OCU and American diplomats, the enemies of Orthodoxy in Ukraine continue to deny it, attempting to color such information as “Russian propaganda,” even when it comes from the mouths of Ukrainians who despise Russia and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Valeriy Chaly was the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. from 2015 to 2019, during the period that Patriarch Bartholomew and the Ukrainian and American governments invaded Ukrainian Church territory and created the OCU. He openly spoke about the U.S.’s role in creating the OCU on Ukrainian television last week.
“For the American side—by the way, this might not be known in the President’s Office—the key foreign policy topic has been freedom of religion recently. And the issue of an autonomous Church was promoted by Ukraine with the support of our partners,” Chaly said on air on Pryamiy, reports the channel’s website.
America’s intervention was not something the diplomat could speak about publicly before.
“The United States did—I can say this now—a great deal to make this issue a reality for Ukraine. This is a huge achievement that they consider their own as well. Maybe it’s exaggerated, but there are such sentiments,” Chaly said.
In January, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also openly acknowledged that the U.S. actively pressures Orthodox Churches to recognize the OCU. “Took action on lots of fronts with Russia,” Pompeo Tweeted, “including religious freedom. I made sure the U.S. supported international recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, helped the Metropolitan escape Russian influence. #FirstFreedoms.”
In June 2019, Makary Maletich, who headed the schismatic “Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church,” one of the two groups that were dissolved into the new OCU, acknowledged that Pat. Bartholomew acted in Ukraine because he knew he had the backing of the U.S. and other Western powers.
“It is not only the merit of Poroshenko,” he said, “but also the Verkhovna Rada, Ukrainians themselves, and the diplomats of the U.S.A., Great Britain, France, and Germany, who were interested in the church… If the Ecumenical Patriarch hadn’t seen the support in the leading states of the world, he wouldn’t have done this.”
However, Pat. Bartholomew has repeatedly denied that politics played any part in his invasion of Ukrainian Church territory, although a number of Orthodox hierarchs have publicly spoken about America’s role.
There is no real hope of the situation improving under President Biden, who is known to have pressured the Jerusalem Patriarch to recognize the schismatics and touts himself as a great ally of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Biden’s own Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, was in Kiev last week, where he met with Epiphany Dumenko, the fake metropolitan who heads the schismatic OCU. He is the only religious leader with whom the Secretary met.
According to the OCU’s press release, the two discussed “the importance of removing artificial obstacles in the free determination of communities’ affiliation on the basis of the principles of freedom of conscience,” meaning they discussed the “transfer” of parishes from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the schismatic OCU, which in reality occurs by the illegal and violent seizure of churches.
Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople has never commented on the violence perpetrated against bishops, clerics, monastics, elderly women, and faithful men by his partners in the OCU.
Source: Orthochristian.com
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SCHISMATICS EVICTING PRIEST WITH FOUR YOUNG CHILDREN
Mytintsy, Khmelnitsky Province, Ukraine, September 9, 2024
Again manifesting their disdain for their fellow Ukrainians, the schismatics of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” created and backed by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, are working to evict a young priest and his wife with their four minor children.
One of the children is also disabled, reports the Khmelnitsky Diocese.
The schismatics captured the Church of St. Nicholas in the village of Mytinstsy, Khmelnitsky Province last year, and now they’re trying to make sure the canonical priest, Archpriest Oleg Tsaruk, and his family suffer as much as possible.
The Tsaruk family has been in the house since 2018 and has all the documents to prove that they own it. Nevertheless, the schismatics managed to convince the electric company to cut off electricity to the Tsaruk house.
An order of eviction was also issued by the chairman of the local village council. Fr. Oleg appealed to representatives of the local authorities but has yet to receive an answer.
The diocese notes that “unfortunately, this situation is no exception, and such things are unacceptablein a state that claims to be called democratic.”
Source: Orthochristian.com
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