Raiding of OCU compared in UOC KP with looting Constantinople by crusaders

The Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders, Delacroix. Photo: Wikipedia

The new church structure is more concerned about innovations and a wealth increase by seizing the property of the UOC KP while repeating the events of the crusade of 1201, the Kiev Patriarchate cites their “bishop” Andrei Marutsak on the FB page.

Marutsak stresses that love has weakened in the newly created religious organization.

“The OCU is more concerned about “innovations”: the dress code for women, so that people have something to sit on in churches, increased activity on Facebook, but they forget about the main thing: ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another’ (John 13:35). This is the main feature of the real Orthodox Church,” Marutsak stressed. “What kind of love can we talk about when our brothers are more concerned about the augmentation of church property by seizing it from the Kiev Patriarchate: ‘Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold’ (Matthew 24:12).”

According to the "hierarch" of the UOC KP, the actions of the OCU leadership are very similar to the logic of the crusaders during the capture of Constantinople.

“You repeat in the form of a farce the disgraceful historical event of 1201 – the crusade of the Knights Templar to the Holy Land. But due to lack of money they decided to turn to rich Constantinople. After robbing their Orthodox brothers, they took so much gold that they barely drove home, and it was decided to release the Holy Land from the Mohammedans another time,” he said.

In his opinion, the struggle of the OCU members not with passions but with their father, the "Patriarch of Kiev and all Rus-Ukraine" Filaret, can return to them as a "boomerang." At the same time, Marutsak compared Filaret with Patriarch Pavle of Serbia and Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia.

“It is worth remembering that the Patriarch in the Orthodox Church is elected for life. The 95-year-old Serbian Patriarch Pavle, who died in 2009, was ill for a long time, for the last two years he was seriously ill and was in a military hospital in Belgrade,” the “hierarch” of the Kiev Patriarchate gave an example. “During this time, he repeatedly petitioned for rest, but not a single Council of Bishops or Synod accepted his resignation. Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia, who is 86 years old, has long suffered from heart disease, in 2008 he was operated on in Germany, but no one retires him. There are many examples ... And our Patriarch, His Holiness Filaret, is 91 years old, but he works tirelessly like a 40-year-old man.”

Marutsak recalled that quite not long ago the persecutors of Filaret “shouted a respectful ‘Hosanna’ to him”, and now they are slandering him and mocking him.

Marutsak also complained that he was illegally banned from priesthood for 3 months and “thrown out” from the Theodosius Monastery with the help of “more than a dozen ‘titushki’ (thugs for hire)”. He noticed that activists of the new church structure seized not only the monastery but even the Peugeot bought by the UOC KP.

"The interests of the Theodosius Monastery, along with the property that belongs to the Kiev Patriarchate (including the Peugeot auto, which Archimandrite Makary bought this spring with the Kiev Patriarchate funds), the seizure of other temples, and the pressure from the OCU to destroy the Kiev Patriarchate testify to secularization, which is the main enemy of the Church,” he concluded.

Earlier, Filaret dismissed the abbot of the Theodosius Monastery for his transfer to the OCU. Andrei Marutsak then became the only one who did not vote to appeal to the head of the OCU Epiphany Dumenko with a request to take the monastery into his submission. In turn, the "abbot" of the monastery "Archimandrite" Makary Papish said that "we do not break away and remain in the OCU". In addition, he argues that the UOC KP no longer exists, and therefore all of the decrees of Filaret are invalid.

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