When "Godly People" Stab You in the Back
Meeting between Zelensky and the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations. Photo: Novoe Vremya
Head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), Serhiy Dumenko: "We initially supported and will continue to support legislative changes that will contribute to the protection of Ukraine’s spiritual space from the 'Russian World.'"
Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Sviatoslav Shevchuk: "We undoubtedly support everything that the state is doing to ensure the implementation of Ukrainian citizens' rights to religious freedom. The state's responsibility for preventing the aggressor country from interfering in religious freedom matters is a sacred right and duty of the state."
Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), Vitaly Krivitsky: "We support all the initiatives mentioned earlier. It is known which organization is being referred to. At this time, it has not taken any specific steps to separate itself and condemn. Therefore, we understand the necessity of the corresponding bill."
Chief Rabbi of Ukraine, Yaakov Dov Bleich: "We need God to grant us wisdom so that this legislative act (the law banning the UOC) can be seen as a unifying force for society, which will build a better Ukraine."
Let's ask ourselves a few simple questions.
1. Has the UOC (its leader, episcopate, clergy) ever supported the ideology of the "Russian World"?
Certainly not.
2. Can the Russian Federation influence Ukrainians through the UOC in any way?
Certainly not.
3. Is banning a multi-million member denomination a matter of "religious freedom"?
Certainly not.
4. Can banning a multi-million member denomination "unite society"?
Certainly not.
5. Do all these respected people know the answers to these questions?
Certainly, yes.
They know, but they still lie, still seek to deprive UOC believers of their churches, to deprive them of their faith.
That's when "godly people" vividly demonstrate which side they are on – the side of truth or lies, the side of Christians or their persecutors.
Read also
The decade of the All-Ukrainian Cross Procession
Today, we look at this footage with mixed emotions: the Lavra has been taken away, religious processions are actually banned, and the Church is being persecuted.
Clergy “busification,” or the routine genocide of Orthodox priests
The video of masked men grabbing a priest by his arms and legs and throwing him into a van shocked many people. It was the first time we had seen a clergyman treated this way with our own eyes.
Advocatus diaboli: when falsehood becomes a virtue
Listening to the rhetoric of Shevchuk and his UCCRO colleagues, one cannot help but think of the famous film starring Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves – the one in which Reeves’s character discovers that he has been working as an attorney for the devil.
Authorities “open” the Far Caves – whatever they do, nothing works for them
The authorities and the OCU are straining every nerve to make everything look properly “churchlike” – every bit as respectable as under the “Moscow priests.” Yet all they ever produce is a parody with a distinctly Bolshevik stench.
Athonite monks at Dumenko’s Lavra “service”
OCU benefactors paid for the visit of a magnificent Byzantine choir led by the Archon Protopsaltis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.