UOC Chancellor: Ancestral memory of the nation cannot be exterminated

Metropolitan Anthony at the cross procession in Podgorica on February 29, 2020. Photo: UOC

It is impossible to destroy the memory associated with faith – the main thing dwelling in the human heart. The Chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Anthony of Boryspil and Brovary, said this in a comment to reporters of “First Cossack” during the procession in the capital of Montenegro, Podgorica, on February 29, 2020.

“This land is the core of the Serbian people, therefore it is surprising and unfair that they are trying to take away the temples, the Orthodox shrines of the people of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Montenegrin people,” said the hierarch. “This is unfair from all perspectives, because we seem to live in a time of democratic principles of life, democracy meaning the power of the people, but just look – now the entire nation have taken to the streets to express their position. It’s strange that the authorities don’t hear their own citizens.”

His Eminence emphasized that the Ukrainian delegation did not come to Montenegro to participate in a political rally but to prayerfully support Orthodox people who defend their shrines and the right to go to their churches, "which were created by the blood and sweat of the Serbian Orthodox people."

According to the hierarch, the common thing in relations between the government and the Churches in Montenegro and Ukraine is unfair treatment of their own fellow countrymen, "when people’s opinion is not taken into account, moreover, when the history is being destroyed by the authorities."

“The main point is to realize that one cannot destroy the inherited memory of their nation,” he said. “This memory is rooted very deeply in every person. One can ascribe something or, given the modern means of influencing a person, create some kind of public opinion and live with this opinion for some time but this is not for long, because memory will wake up again. On top of that, it is impossible to destroy the faith-associated memory being the chief artery of the human heart, which creates our personality. Therefore, when the authorities, I mean the past authorities in Ukraine, tried to impose some kind of phony cliches and to create an enemy of their own people who belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, they could not realize that statehood as it is, as well as everything that formed the culture of the Ukrainian nation, emanated from the Church.”

Vladyka Anthony recalled that throughout the twentieth century attempts were made to destroy the shrines in both Ukraine and Montenegro, but nothing came of it.

“Where is this ideology? Almost everyone has forgotten about it. But the Church lived, lives and will live on. We pray that our minds are not seized by the spirit of confrontation, because the Church is strong and an Orthodox person is strong only when he lives in the spirit of Christ, the spirit of peace which creates a human from the inside, and if a person’s spirit is strong, nobody can defeat him,” he stressed.

The hierarch expressed hope that with the new president, the religious situation in Ukraine will improve, because “common sense says that it is impossible to create a conflict in the religious sphere, because it is very dangerous and can come back to haunt us for many, many more decades and even centuries ahead.”

“Here (in Montenegro – Ed.) the situation is more concretized when they simply try to take away the shrines at the legislative level, although there must have been a lot of commercial involved. Unfortunately there is no understanding of the fact that one can hardly succeed in acquiring the church property and getting enriched with the help of this property. Because we can see the might of the people in their internal unity, when both young and old publicly say, "We will not give our shrines!" I think that the inner power of future generations starts from here. And we pray that the Lord will give this fortitude, the resilience of the inner world, which will surely overcome all the hardships and all the oppressions that were, are and will be in our history in relation to the Orthodox Church as long as the world exists,” summed up the UOC Chancellor.

As reported by the UOJ, on February 27-29, 2020, a delegation of the UOC, led by His Beatitude His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, paid a visit to Montenegro to participate in celebrations dedicated to St. Simeon the Myrrh-Exuding and the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Zeta Archdiocese, which is now the Montenegrin-Littoral Metropolis of the SOC.

On February 29, 2020, over 100,000 believers took part in the cross procession in Podgorica, led by His Beatitude Onuphry and Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro and the Littoral.

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