UOC priest: Ridiculous when parliament decides which Church is grace-filled

Fr Dimitry Sydor among the cathedral's parishioners

The rector of the UOC cathedral in Uzhhorod Fr Dimitry Sydor in his sermon on the occasion of the Holy Trinity Day, said that the secular authorities have no right to determine the legality and grace of a denomination. A video of the sermon was published on the cathedral's YouTube channel.

"The Orthodox faith that we possess is a great treasure. And when they want to replace it with something else, we cannot accept it," said Archpriest Dimitry. “And that is why the whole world cannot understand why we are so committed to the canonical Orthodoxy. Not only that, but this world is using all its forces to deceitfully lure people."

Fr. Dimitry stressed that the Ukrainian authorities "allowed people who do not belong to our Ukrainian Orthodox Church to register them as the UOC. They write in brackets - OCU, or vice versa".

The priest called it a "game" in which "the Church which lacks grace is forced to stick to the grace-filled Churches to look alike".

"It is ridiculous when all over the world a parliament or a court decides to assess which church is grace-filled and which is not. And this is not laughter, but a huge crime. Parliament does not dare to decide which religion is true," the priest said.

According to Fr Dimitry, this is done by people who have nothing to do with Christianity.

Fr Dimitry said that there are non-believers who admit their unbelief and "honestly sit at home", and there are non-believers who are engaged in inciting religious hatred.

"Whatever happens in the world, we must remain faithful to the Church of Christ, canonical, single, grace-filled, whose Primate is His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry,” stressed the cleric.

According to Fr Dimitry Sydor's lawyer, the case against the bishop is pulled out of thin air.

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