Candles-Bullets Cycle
NSDC meeting. Photo: NSDC website
At the latest meeting of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), the head of the State Financial Monitoring Service, F. Pronin, claimed that UOC churches across the country are financed from Russia. He said this was uncovered through an SBU investigation. No actual evidence was presented, but as we know, when it comes to church matters, the SBU simply 'cannot be wrong' – so let’s take their word for it.
Yet, let’s recall something else. Not long ago, we were assured that the financial situation in the UOC was exactly the opposite – that Ukrainian priests were sending money earned from Ukrainian parishioners to Moscow. The "metropolitan" of the OCU, Zinkevych, even claimed that candles bought in UOC churches funded the production of bullets in Russia, which were then used to kill Ukrainian soldiers.
So what does this mean now? Are these "Moscow candles" now being turned into Ukrainian bullets for Russian soldiers? Should this be considered a betrayal or a victory?
All jokes aside, the government's methods of fighting the UOC are becoming increasingly pathetic and strained.
Read also
Authorities “open” the Far Caves – whatever they do, nothing works fro 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.
When building a church is banned – is that “freedom of faith”?
In Nychehivka, the authorities unlawfully halted construction of a UOC church on private land.
Mobilizing UOC clergy: Are the authorities simply purging “Moscow priests”?
UOC clerics – unlike those of the OCU, UGCC, Jews, Muslims, and pagans – are granted no exemptions.
Will those who praised the Nazis be included in Ukraine's Pantheon of Heroes?
It may prove difficult to argue that people who sent greetings to Hitler and praised the Nazi army do not fall under Ukraine’s laws condemning Nazism.