OCU tells about persecution of this structure in USSR

Sviatoslav Shevchuk and Epiphany Dumenko. Photo: radiosvoboda.org

On March 13, 2021, the OCU religious organization published a statement in which it was said about the persecution of this structure by the Soviet government.

According to representatives of this organization, “The Orthodox Church in Ukraine in Soviet times was also repeatedly subjected to similar methods of pressure from the authorities. In the late 1920s - early 1930s, as a result of the Bolshevik terror and repression, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (formations of 1921) was almost completely destroyed," and "due to the threats from the Soviet regime, most of the hierarchs and a significant part of the clergy of the UAOC (formations of 1942) were forced to emigrate to the West.”

“The rest were either repressed or were forced to come under the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate,” the OCU claims, and even the “Ukrainian Exarchate of the ROC” was exposed to persecution and pressure from the authorities.

Therefore, “the Orthodox Church of Ukraine not only shares the grief of Ukrainian Greek Catholics for the trials and losses they had to endure as a result of Soviet repressions,” but “having our own historical experience of enduring persecution from a hostile political power, including the involvement of certain church leaders in these persecutions, we understand well the pain of our brothers,” the OCU stressed.

The OCU believes that one of the main reasons for these persecutions can be called the lack of an independent state among Ukrainians, as a result of which “remote capitals and thrones at the expense of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian Church did their business here and fought to expand their influence”, while “the Ukrainian nation was stirred up by the conflicts and heated up by fratricidal confrontations.”

“We see that such attempts are being made in our time. Therefore, all of us, Ukrainian Orthodox and Greek Catholics, should be sensible and composed, draw conclusions from the events of the past, not succumb to provocations and attempts to incite enmity amid us,” assures the OCU.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that supporters of the OCU severely beat an elderly parishioner of the UOC church in Zadubrivka.

Read also