Metropolitan Longin comments on his beating

Metropolitan Longin of Bancheny. Photo: a video screenshot of the YouTube channel of the Bancheny Monastery

Metropolitan Longin of Bancheny said in an address published on the YouTube channel of the Bancheny Monastery that on the night of 22 January 2024, an unknown person knocked on his door and hit him in the face.

"To calm everyone down, I'll say a few words so that no one worries. We are doing well; everything is going as it should go according to our Orthodox faith. We must endure, suffer, and pray. I feel ill a little now but I got what I deserved. So the Lord gives. Glory to You, God! But may God forgive and have mercy on everyone. I won't say anything more," the hierarch said.

In the hospital, he was informed that he survived the attack solely because of the peculiarities of the anatomical structure of his head.

"The doctors, when they saw, said: 'Vladyka, you have a different structure of the head. If it were like everyone else's, you wouldn't be alive. You have everything intact; your bone is intact. The Lord simply saved you,'" the archbishop conveyed the conversation with the doctors.

Metropolitan Longin also noted that "for two years in Ukraine, they have been beating priests and old women, taking away churches and dividing the Ukrainian people."

The hierarch also refuted the information published by bloggers and clerics that the fall was caused by taking pills.

"Everyone says that allegedly I am lying in the hospital, that I felt bad from the pills, got dizzy, fell twice, hit. Don't believe it, brothers and sisters. If you don't know anything, it's better to keep silent and pray, brothers and sisters. I embrace you all and love you," he added.

As reported, Metropolitan Longin of Buncheny was attacked.

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