Metropolitan Nicholas of New York: UOC persecutors lost their sobriety

Metropolitan Nicholas of New York. Photo: the ROCOR Press Service

In a letter to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, Metropolitan Nicholas of Eastern America and New York, the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, described the persecutors of the UOC as people who have lost their sobriety.

According to the Metropolitan of New York, bill No. 8371 passed by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in the first reading, which provides for a ban on the ministry of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on the territory of Ukraine, "testifies to the lack of religious freedoms in a country known for its piety and is directed against the majority of its believing citizens".

"Standing before the Kursk Root Icon of the Sign, the relics of St. John (Maximovich) the Wonderworker and other shrines, we pray fervently in these days of sorrow for the strengthening of you, fellow archpastors, shepherds, monastics and faithful members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," the letter reads.

Expressing brotherly love, support and sympathy to His Beatitude, Metropolitan Nicholas of New York assured that he prays for "admonishing the persecutors who have lost their sobriety".

He pointed out that the current situation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church resembles the events of a century ago, when some in the Orthodox world, turning away from the legitimate priesthood of the persecuted Church, along with atheists, supported the so-called "Living Church".

"We pray, hope and believe that the memory of the new martyrs and confessors of the twentieth century will strike each of us, Orthodox, in the soul, helping us in the current hard times to follow the example of faith and faithfulness of the persecuted and not to side with the persecutors," Metropolitan Nicholas of New York wrote.

As earlier reported, Metropolitan Mark of Berlin compared the Ukrainian authorities to Lenin and Stalin.

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