Torment to be buried in the “language of the aggressor,” says OCU “priest”

OCU “priest” Roman Hryshchuk. Photo: screenshot from a video on Hryshchuk’s Facebook page

OCU “priest” Roman Hryshchuk called clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church “Moscow-mouthed” and claimed that they conduct their services in the “language of the aggressor.” Hryshchuk made the statement in a video address published on his Facebook page.

“To hear the singing of ‘Moscow-mouths’ over you, when you are being buried in the language of the aggressor – for him (the fallen soldier) it is tremendous pain and torment,” Hryshchuk said, speaking about the funeral service in the village of Hlyboka for serviceman Mykhailo Kalancha. The “priest” added that the decision of the soldier’s father to have his son buried in a UOC church was “regrettable,” because that church, he claimed, is “temporarily occupied by the Moscow Patriarchate.”

In Hryshchuk’s view, Church Slavonic is a “Russified Moscow language, devised to russify Ukraine’s population.”

Commenting on the burial service for the soldier at the Intercession Church of the UOC, Hryshchuk suggested that those present imagine “that in some Russian backwater town another Moskal has died, and he is being buried in the Ukrainian language.”

As parishioners of the UOC Intercession community in Hlyboka told UOJ, on March 9 a farewell for the fallen soldier took place at the local House of Culture. First, there was a совместная litia served by the OCU, Greek Catholics, and Roman Catholics, and afterward a litia served by UOC clergy. After that, the burial service was held at the Intercession Church.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that Roman Hryshchuk told a joke about Christ.

Read also