Primate: Church was created by Christ, and no politicians can "improve" it

Primate of the UOC in the Ostrog Monastery, Montenegro. Photo: Bishop Viktor (Kotsaba)

We remind the politicians who oppose the Church and want to rebuild it: what is created by God cannot be better. The Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, said this in an exclusive interview with the Montenegrin radio “Svetigora” on February 28, 2020, reports the UOC Information and Education Department.

“We do not have resentment against those politicians who oppose the Church, who say that the Church must be rebuilt, that the Church should come to a person, and that She goes the other way, that this is supposedly an archaic Church, a conservative Church,” said His Beatitude. “We are not offended by these politicians, but we tell them that the Church was created by Christ, and the Church is ruled by Christ. Christ is God, He is perfect, and what God created does not require correction.”

According to the Primate, only what is done by man can be improved.

“If I do something, then after me a person may come and say: I will do this thing better. And he can do better. Another will come and say that he will do even better – and he will really do so. But what God created cannot be perfected,” he explained.

If we intervene, His Beatitude emphasized, we will only make it worse.

“Therefore, we believe that the Church should not yield to human weaknesses and adapt to a sinful person. A sinful man must adapt to the Church. This is right. Then the Church will benefit. If the Church serves my passions, it will not be the Church, it will be some kind of institution which is only called the “church” but does not serve to save the human soul,” concluded the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry also said that he wants to see such Ukraine in which there is Christ, where love for Him is in the first place.

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