Hierarch of UOC: We do everything to establish peace in Ukraine

Chancellor of the UOC, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich). Photo:hram-obolon.com

On January 7, 2020, during the briefing held in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the UOC Chancellor, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich), said that “Ukraine is different, but we all want peace and we are doing everything to make peace arrive,” the Information Centre of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reports.

According to Met. Anthony, “the Feast of Christmas calls on each of us to do everything so that peace can come in our homeland. Thank God that the process has already begun and we hope that the Lord will send the long-awaited peace to our land.”

Metropolitan Anthony told that with the blessing of the UOC Primate, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, schoolchildren from Donbas arrived in Kiev and Pochaev these Christmas days: “Children were brought to Kiev and Pochaev from the hostility zone. These are the children who experienced grief not in theory but in practice and know the clanking and buzz of grenades, bombs ... This is something that should not be associated with children's life."

The Hierarch emphasized that “we want these children in our monasteries to feel the love of God for everyone, to calm their hearts, and make them feel that Ukraine is different, but we all want peace and do everything to establish it.”

At the same time, Metropolitan Anthony noted that "in fact, peace only comes when we have it in our soul."

The Hierarch also recalled that “there is nothing greater and stronger in the earthly dimension than the love of God. This is an example for each of us to overcome the differences that exist in our earthly life. This must be done through love, through patience, through humility. When we take pains not to be envious, not to be aggressive, to do good, mercy, then our society will be better.”

From January 6 to 9, the UOC is receiving in Kiev and Pochaev more than 100 children from the “red zone” of the contact line in the Donbas.

The action “Christmas. People instead of war. Children of the Donbas” was initiated by believers, with the blessing of the Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry. Children attend Kiev-Pechersk and Pochaev Lavras, Christmas festivities, communicate with peers from Kiev and Western Ukraine.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that, according to Metropolitan Anthony, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church supports all peace-related initiatives of the President.

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