Usyk: I continue to be faithful to the UOC and Metropolitan Onuphry

Oleksandr Usyk. Photo: Usyk's Instagram screenshot

The unified boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs) expressed support for the UOC and its Primate, Metropolitan Onuphry. He announced this during a live broadcast on his Instagram.

“There are many issues like I am a traitor to my Church, my faith and the Lord God. I want to say that I remain and continue to be faithful to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Primate of our Church, Metropolitan Onuphry. I want our UOC to be cleansed of villains. These are not priests. These are the people who came to work at the instruction of the enemy – the Russian Federation. Russia is the enemy of Ukraine. Yes, yes, you hear me correctly. This is an enemy that wants to kill everyone in the world. They intimidate the people in every possible way and say that they will go to heaven. The 6th commandment is ‘Thou shalt not kill’,” said Usyk.

He also added that the UOC has nothing to do with Russia.

“The UOC was founded by Prince Vladimir in 988. It has nothing to do with Moscow or the Russian Orthodox Church. It’s just that once, many years ago, our Church was enslaved by another aggressive country, which took the Church insolently and decided that they would save everyone, and we are all the devil or someone else,” said the boxer.

Earlier, Alexander Usyk repeatedly emphasized that he was a parishioner of the canonical Church and told how the Church helps him in his spiritual life.

“While experiencing all the commotion, seeing how the Cain sin is being reincarnated today, I understand that my mind, heart and soul are getting overwhelmed with anger and hatred. Therefore, I focus on the Primate of our Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, who absolutely clearly assessed everything that is happening, calling a spade a spade. And I also take as a basis his spiritual instruction, in which he specifically noted that now, at this tragic time, we need to pray more,” he wrote.

As reported by the UOJ, former world boxing champion Vasyl Lomachenko is included in the register of state traitors, which is administered by the Chesno movement. The reason for this is the boxer's post on Instagram with Metropolitan Longin’s sermon.

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