Community back to UOC in Morozovka: Our repentance is obedience to God

Archpriest Nikolai Brega and parishioners of the Holy Assumption community in the village of Morozovka repented and returned to the UOC. Photo: 24tv.ua

Archpriest Nikolai Brega, the rector of the Holy Assumption Church of the UOC in the village of Morozovka of the Kiev region, and his parishioners spoke about the reasons for their return to the fold of the canonical Church.

“I said then and keep saying now that the normal practice of a believer when he/she sins is to repent. Only a madman can tell himself that he is always right and everything else is sin, and I am one and the only righteous. <...> Our repentance was obedience to God in the first place," Archpriest Nikolai said on the “1Kozak” TV channel.

According to him, after returning to the UOC, they began to carry out various provocations against believers. This situation continues to this day, the clergyman added.

“There have been calls, SMS threats saved on my phone,” said the rector of the Holy Assumption Church.

All this time, the parishioners of the temple continued to remain patiently silent so as not to stir up a conflict. They raised their voices only when the village head with the police attempted to take away the church from the believers without any legal rights to do so.

Catherine, a parishioner of the Holy Assumption Church, noted that activists of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine defame the faithful of the canonical Church. In particular, one of the parishioners of the new church structure thinks that the UOC is to blame for the death of her son. When a film about the heroes of the ATO was shown in the village next to Morozovka, she aggressively reacted to Catherine’s attempt to support her.

“Now they watch our fellows being killed, and tomorrow they will go to kiss the Russian priest’s hands,” the woman quoted the mother of the deceased and said that hearing that was very painful.

Catherine considers the OCU (previously the UOC-KP) to be a dead end.

“Even when there was the Kiev Patriarchate, one person told me that the Kiev Patriarchate is like a train that is going down the blind alley. It is going to the dead end. But I don’t want the dead end, because I’m already thinking about the eternal. And I don’t want my grandchildren to go to the dead end,” she told the reporters.

The rector of the Holy Assumption Church urged believers to find faults in themselves rather than in someone and do good for others.

“The thorny path of a believer is extremely difficult and extremely narrow. Having passed this trial, I hope and believe that by the grace of God we will reach something else, quite different, bright and kind,” he said.

Archpriest Nikolai explained that the parishioners of his religious community consider their act quite natural.

“We are not that of an example. We, like lost souls, with the entire parish, with the entire religious community, simply show repentance. <...> We hope that our life trial will lead to something good,” said the clergyman of the UOC.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote there were documents published on the network according to which ex-Metropolitan Alexander (Drabinko) “blessed” into the OCU the community of Morozovka supposedly at the request of a local priest.

We recall that on July 8, 2019, Archpriest Nikolai Brega and parishioners of the Holy Assumption community in the village of Morozovka of the Baryshevka district, Kiev region, repented and expressed their desire to return to the fold of the canonical Church at a meeting with the UOC Chancellor, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich) of Borispol and Brovary.

After the believers returned to the UOC, “bishop” Alexander (Drabinko) of the OCU began to systematically provoke conflicts among believers in Morozovka.

In November 2019, the head of the UOC Mission to European international organizations, Bishop Victor (Kotsaba) of Baryshevka performed a liturgy at the Holy Assumption Church of Morozovka.

Read also