Stuttgart Bishop explains why the murder in Sviatohirsk is being silenced

Bishop Job of Stuttgart. Photo: UOJ in Germany

Bishop Job of Stuttgart, vicar of the German Diocese of ROCOR, in a comment to the German branch of the UOJ drew attention to the fact that the murder of monk Barsanuphius at the Sviatohirsk Lavra is barely covered in the media — neither in Ukraine nor in Germany — and explained what is behind this silence.

"We are witnessing... the relative silence of Ukrainian media and the complete silence of German media on this matter. I would be less than honest if I called this silence surprising. We live in an age of an unprecedented level of information propaganda and warfare. A monk of the 'wrong' Church — from the perspective of Ukrainian nationalism — has been killed," the hierarch wrote.

The hierarch drew a parallel between the current situation and the persecution of early Christians: "The merciless and, I dare suggest, unpunished reprisal against a representative of a Church that has for many years in Ukraine stood on the brink of a state ban takes us back in our minds to the times of early Christianity, when representatives of the religio illicita — the forbidden religion — could and were meant to be destroyed for the good of society."

Bishop Job emphasized that the Church has long given its answer to such phenomena: the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians. "If the testimony cited above from one of the victims corresponds to reality, then monk Barsanuphius is a martyr in the true sense of the word: he is a witness (martys) to the truth of Christ," the archpastor noted, adding that the gates of hell shall never prevail against the Church (Mt. 16:18).

As a reminder: on August 23, 2026, at the Holy Dormition Sviatohirsk Lavra of the UOC, an attack on the monastery's residents took place — monk Barsanuphius (Vasyl Turyansky in the world) was killed, and monk Gregory and novice Andrei were seriously wounded. According to the testimony of the victims, the attackers were in military uniform. The circumstances of the incident are being investigated by the military prosecutor's office.

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