Vasyl Lomachenko expresses support for Metropolitan Longin

Vasyl Lomachenko and Metropolitan Longin. Photo: Lomachenko’s Facebook

Renowned and most highly decorated Ukrainian boxer Vasyl Lomachenko shared a photo on social media with Metropolitan Longin of Bancheny, accompanied by words of Christ from the Savior’s Sermon on the Mount.

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you,” Lomachenko quoted, adding a wish for peace to all.

As a reminder, at the end of May, a number of Ukrainian media outlets published false reports against Metropolitan Longin of Bancheny, basing their claims on a “video investigation” by photographer Edgar Kalancha. These outlets alleged that drugs were being sold, a brothel operated, children beaten and their bones broken, and that nuns drank alcohol with residents at the orphanage affiliated with the Bancheny Monastery.

Following these publications, police opened a criminal case.

Meanwhile, the author of the video stated that “all references to individuals, events, or organizations are fictional or interpreted from open sources in the form of satire, hypothesis, or artistic assumption.” “All events described in the material should be regarded as artistic fiction, hyperbole, or critical analysis within the bounds of freedom of speech and expression,” he wrote.

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