UOC priest: They throw stones at us, we offer bread in return

Secretary of the Rivne Eparchy of the UOC, Fr Viktor Zemlianyi. Photo: a video screenshot from the YouTube channel “Rivne Church”

Secretary of the Rivne Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Viktor Zemlianyi, narrated an incident where a priest from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church offered prosphora to one of the raiders of the OCU during the seizure of a temple in Netishyn, Khmelnytskyi region. He talked about this in an address published on the YouTube channel “Rivne Church”.

According to him, the priest from the UOC in Netishyn not only offered bread to the church raider but also prayed for him during the liturgy, which activists of the OCU attempted to disrupt to seize the shrine.

Archpriest Viktor Zemlianyi stressed that the Church cannot be defeated because its strength lies in its ability to conquer evil with humility and patience.

"No one acts like the Church does. No one acts as church people do. When someone throws a stone at any person, a natural reaction would be to take a handful of sand and throw it back in their eyes. But a faithful person offers bread," he said.

Father Viktor is confident that the priest who went out with the prosphora to the activist will eventually return to the temple, while the one who came with a sword will suffer from the sword.

"When you teach a person to do evil, to break, to throw away, to slander, to ignore the truth, this evil will return a hundredfold. And those people whom they have incited and taught to be evil will turn against their teachers," added the Eparchy's secretary.

As reported, OCU raiders with the support of the police seized St Paraskeva’s Church (UOC) in Netishyn, Khmelnytskyi region.

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