Metropolitan Theodosy: SBU urges to sign an appeal to His Beatitude

One of the SBU raids on the temples of the UOC. Photo: SBU press service

The SBU is putting pressure on priests to sign an appeal to His Beatitude Onuphry demanding to convene a Council,” said Metropolitan Theodosy in a video message posted on the YouTube channel of the Cherkasy diocese.

“A few days before the celebration of St. Prince Vladimir and until today, people who introduce themselves as SBU employees visit our priests both in Cherkasy and in the region, have conversations with them, some are summoned to the department,” says the bishop. “They ask: ‘Why don’t you sign the appeal of the initiative group to His Beatitude about the urgent holding of the UOC Council?’”

According to him, if the priests refuse to sign, they start to put pressure on them. During these conversations, SBU employees express regret that out of 200 priests of the eparchy, only a few agreed to sign the appeal.

“They are also very upset that the representatives of the initiative group could not get to the Primate of the Church. Doesn’t it seem strange to you, the hierarch asks, that the clergy were unable get to the meeting, but this fact upset and annoyed the SBU in the first run?

Metropolitan Theodosy also said that the SBU asked the diocese for the contacts of those who signed the appeal.

“Of course, we did not give these contacts,” the bishop says. But, in his opinion, it will not be difficult for the security forces to find them elsewhere. He believes that contacts of this kind are “the first step towards cooperation."

The metropolitan says that the people who are promoting the conversion are the same people who fabricate criminal cases against the clergy, plant dirt on them, and so on.

“These are the same people who are engaged in persecutions not only in the Cherkasy diocese, but throughout the UOC,” says the metropolitan.

At the same time, he does not believe that all the signatories bring grist “to the mill of the enemies of the Church." According to him, he knows many of them and considers worthy shepherds. However, they do not think “two steps ahead”.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that according to the UOC Chancellor, the UOC does not have the right to push people entrusted by God into schism.

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