UOC Chancellor: Today’s church raids are a carbon copy of 90s raider schemes
Metropolitan Anthony noted that such seizures are often accompanied by violence, beatings of clergy and parishioners, and bloodshed.
The Chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich), stated that the seizures of UOC churches that have taken place in recent years are, in essence, a direct repetition of the raider schemes that were widely used in Ukraine in the 1990s. The hierarch spoke about this in an address on his YouTube channel.
According to Metropolitan Anthony, about ten years ago the Ukrainian Orthodox Church began to be deliberately portrayed as an “enemy of Ukraine.” To this end, he said, fake stories were created and disseminated alleging that weapons were being stored in churches and monasteries, that priests were refusing to bury fallen soldiers, and other defamatory claims.
“All of this was done so that people who are not deeply churched and who know about church life mainly from the media would come to hate both our priests and our parishioners,” the UOC Chancellor emphasized.
At the same time, he said, meetings began to be held on the “transfer” of churches to the Kyiv Patriarchate, with the concepts of a parish assembly and a territorial community meeting being deliberately conflated. At such gatherings, Metropolitan Antony noted, people who had no connection to the given parish – and even those belonging to other faiths – often took part.
The hierarch stressed that, under the cover of armed men in balaclavas, and sometimes with the participation of law enforcement agencies, actions began that in the business world of the 1990s were called raider takeovers. “Only now it was not factories and collective farms that were being seized, but – it is frightening even to say – churches,” he said.
Metropolitan Anthony noted that such seizures were often accompanied by violence, beatings of priests and parishioners, and bloodshed. As a result, he said, schisms arose in villages – neighbors and close people stopped communicating, and in some cases families were torn apart.
The UOC Chancellor posed a rhetorical question about who is the author of this “experiment” and who will bear responsibility for the “criminal adventure” that has brought so much pain, evil, and tears.
At the same time, Metropolitan Anthony recalled that centuries of historical experience testify that external bans, injustice, and repression only strengthen genuine religious spirit. According to him, events in Ukraine have confirmed this – believers have not abandoned their Church, and clergy, in the overwhelming majority, have remained faithful to their vows.
“Even when churches were taken away, services were first held in homes, apartments, garages, tents, and at the first opportunity new churches were built,” the hierarch concluded.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that, according to Metropolitan Anthony, everything the Church is experiencing today is not a defeat, but a purification.
