What does a priest who breaks down church doors teach?

OCU cleric breaking the gate at the UOC church in Zastavna. Photo: UOJ

Yet another video of a church seizure in Bukovyna. Yet another OCU cleric using a crowbar to personally break through the gate, and then the door of a UOC church.

He leads an enraged crowd, shouting and jeering as they trample, shove, and humiliate elderly female parishioners of the UOC.

And this is not judgment – it is confusion. How can this man, the next day, preach to his parish about Christ’s commandment to love, to forgive, to be at peace? What meaning can such words possibly have, when his actions say something entirely different?

In another village in Bukovyna – Dubivtsi – an OCU priest did exactly the same: after leading a violent church seizure, the very next day he was gently teaching about “goodness and love.”

There may be endless debates over whether members of the OCU have apostolic succession, or whether Patriarch Bartholomew was justified in calling them clergy. But why argue? Words are not the only way we speak. Would we entrust our child to a teacher who swears, and during lessons teaches kids how to steal, rob, and shoot up? Likely not – even if that teacher somehow received a diploma from Harvard or the Sorbonne.

Such a “teacher” will lead a child not to knowledge, but to the gutter – or even prison. So why do we assume different logic applies in the Church?

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