When you "ban" Christmas and go to celebrate it
Putin and Poroshenko. Photo: Kommersant
In other words, the same people who publicly voted to ban the UOC and cancel the public holiday on 7 January, the day of "Moscow" Christmas, went to celebrate it quietly. Or rather, they probably remembered that during church feasts "working is a sin".
And this all feels strangely familiar.
The same Bolsheviks who publicly opposed the Church and even shut down temples, secretly took their children to baptise and receive communions with priests hiding in distant villages.
The same thing was done by the "patriotic" officials and even the "priests" of Filaret during the UOC-KP era: publicly, they fiercely criticized the "Moscow Church" but privately, "just in case," they performed Sacraments in it to make sure everything was "as it should be".
Times change, but not the rulers.
Read also
Does Patriarch Bartholomew consider Ukrainians bearers of the "Russian World"?
The Primate of the Church of Constantinople arrived in Vilnius to introduce the newly appointed Exarch of Lithuania, Bishop Panaretos of Tamasos.
A lesson for the modern Church from the depths of ages
St. Leontius had no desire whatsoever to be “one of their own” for the local authorities or non-believers.
How the UOC Council in Feofania was turned into a “lawless gathering”
All the insults hurled at the Council – claims that it was a “mob gathering,” “filth,” “foam,” and the like – rest not on canons or facts, but solely on the emotions of those making them.
What kind of Ukraine are we moving toward?
Ukrainian authorities are now openly admitting that the country is facing a demographic catastrophe and that there are already not enough people left to fill the workforce.
Holy Rus' is becoming Muslim?
Hundreds of thousands of Muslims flooded the streets of Russia to celebrate Eid al-Adha. And what about Ukraine?
A voice from the grave
A hierarch who calls himself the “head of Orthodoxy” was secretly speaking with a man whom he himself had recognized as anathematized – and was negotiating with him about joining his own Church of Constantinople.