Neither the large Post nor the Passover reduced the scale of repression against Ukraine's largest Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UPC), which had around 12,000 parishes, 12,551 clergy, 262 monasteries, 4620 monks and nuns, and millions of believers before the war.
On the contrary, since April the taking of the church, especially in the west of Ukraine, has intensified. And Kiev itself is besides very restless. The authorities unilaterally broke the agreement of the arena of Kiev-Pieczerska Lavra buildings and although the Ukrainian Orthodox Church protested this decision, and the court will examine this protest on 1 May, the destiny of the ancient church body with caves with the relics of Kiev-pieczerska saints, a monastery with 200 monks, which authorities ordered to leave the monastery until 29 March, the office of the Kiev metropolis, a seminary and academy with 300 seminarians and students, the writing studios of icons, despite the continuing defence of thousands of believers, is uncertain. The scale of repression, their pace scares.
On 1 April, politician Lavry, Metropolitan Paul, is sentenced by the Szewczenkowski Court in Kiev for allegedly inciting spiritual hostility and allegedly justifying Russia's armed aggression for 60 days of home arrest in the village of Voronkiw close Kiev with the work to wear an electronic bracelet and without the right to address the faithful.
– Conquer fear all day, do not break off, do not sell, defend the Church – says the metropolitan to the brothers. – Epiphanius will leave, Filaret will leave, and the Church will stay. (...) Yesterday there were radicals, read what they had written on their shirts “sacrifice your time of conversation with Satan.” It's a war against Orthodoxy.
In Sunday’s sermon on April 2, Metropolitan Onufry addresses the faithful.
– present we experience a large trial – danger hangs over the Jury. They want the monks to get out of the jury, leave the holy obitiei, their home. This is simply a large test that requires us to show off. If we repent, we pray to God, God will transform the thoughts of those upon whom it depends, who want us out of this place. We should endure this patiently, pray and forgive.
Bishops and governors of the monastery throughout Ukraine are swamped with concrete proposals.
Mother, don't you want to meet Epiphany? Go to PCU? Or to Constantinople? – reveals their content of the parent of Seraphim from the monastery of St.
This PCU was created in 2018 from a combination of non-canonical structures and the Orthodox Orthodox Church of Ukraine supported by the state, whose patriarch of Constantinopolitan gave tomos of autokephalia, recognized only by 4 of the sixteen local Orthodox churches.
From the Kiev-Peacher's Jury to the PCU, 1 monk, archimandrite Awramij passed. Now on a image that seems to have swept the full Orthodox world. At the crossing in front of the walls, the jury kneels down a tiny girl, Kutia Jerszov, praying and erecting a cross to heaven. Suddenly, the music around it starts to sound very loud and a crowd moves into the devil's tany. How can she disturb her prayer?
Those who picket the defenders of the jury came under her walls immediately. 1 of them shouts “The Glory of the Prophet Muhammad”, another 1 on the hoodie says “Will you find a minute to talk about the Lord our Satan”, Another 1 has a tattoo on his shaved head with an SS Galicia on it, individual screaming to get the politician out into the woods, tell him to kneel down and shoot him in the head.
The metropolitan Onufry is coming to the jury. I came to support the brothers and thank the believers for coming to defend the wounded. I came here to pray where our ascetic saints lived.
And to the disrupters, prayer says, "To him who dances, sings in a place that is sprinkled with blood, and then our lovers, I want to say: there is no request to blaspheme and desecrate the temple with his unworthy conduct. May the Lord aid them, let them all remainder and save themselves.
The cases of taking over the church grow avalanchely. Not only with the usage of saws for metallic or crowbars, but besides with paralyzing gas, as was the case in the reception of the Cathedral Council of the Birth of Christ in Ivano-Frankivsk. 2 100 radicals were attacked on 28 March. On the video available on the web, you can see how the stormers first spray the gas inside the council, then, after breaking the side doors they enter, push from the temple, and then behind the gate the Ivano-Frankivian ruler Nikita with the clergy and parishioners. The rulers teardrop off the headgear, the secretary of the diocese, the protoijery Vasily Romaniuk, spray the gas in the eyes, he loses consciousness and goes to the hospital.
Immediately after the seizure of the temple, the “spiritual church” of PCU and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church pray in her altar. “This is simply a historical moment,” stressed Mr Ivano-Frankowska Ruslan Marcinkiwwhich the movie evidence of prayer posted online.
April only intensifys the reception of the church. Authorities gather groups of people, organize assaults. The most frightening thing is that children are involved.
In Lipowiec village, while trying to take the church by PCU supporters, 1 of the attackers snatched the cross from the hands of the clergyman and threw it to the ground. A minute later, he slipped and died. Women defending the church sing all the time “Isus Christ, boy of Boyj, skip us greek.”
Temples are not just taken over. besides stormed. On 6 April, with the usage of excavator, the Lviv authorities with the aid of the PCU and the inaction of police demolished a temple owned by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
More specifically, due to the fact that the parish priest of this church of St. Vladimir, Fr Włodzimierz Kuzjo, Native Galicjan, graduated from applied mathematics, seminary and the Theological Academy, for his heroic persistence in faith, was awarded the Prince Ostrogski Prize in 2002. This belief began much earlier. Batiuszko graduated in 1986, for the next year, inactive without the saints, worked alongside the ruler Nicodemus besides at the restoration of the diocesan building, then at the renovation of the domes at St. Jur's church. After his ordination, the bishop directed Fr Włodzimierz to St Michael's Church on Zielona Street.
“Oh, Moskal, calm down” shouted at him at the union, who 1 day came to Green. There was holy water in the mediate of the church. – Tut Moskali served, give, the building of the dishonoured herea satan from the church – the unic clergymen, who shortly joined their faithful, added fuel to the fire. They grabbed the dropper and consecrated Mikhailsky church with water consecrated by Orthodox people.
- Vladimir moved with any of the faithful to the parish house, prayed there for a year, and on Sunday he went under the Council of St. This 1 was already closed. In the lower cave in front of the icon of St. Onufrego, Orthodox people gathered, Molebnas, Liturgies, acafist. There were unis upstairs.
– erstwhile they let down a line with an iron hook at the end, caught behind the omophore of the ruler of Irenaeus, pulled up, kidnapped, that's what happened – he mentioned years ago, Vladimir Kuzjo.
The council shortly took over the Unity, the parish home at St. Michael's Church had to be left too. But many black people came to Lviv, and the authorities listened to their needs, which helped the Orthodox to get a site for the construction of the church in the Sychów district, at the Prospekt of Red Kalina.
Before her walls grew, the steel structure stood. – My father welded it for 3 months – mentioned Father Włodzimierz. – He spent his vacation on it, then free, last 30 days in a different way. He built it for himself, for his son, for the Orthodox. It's different. A fresh state was born and national slogans besides snuck into Orthodox temples. In addition, unfulfilled ambitions and rascals among Orthodox became a fact. He did not miss the church in Sychów.
The elder clergyman, who served together with Father Kuzjo, went to the ra-collars, first the camp of Mścisław, then Filareta (Denysenko). He brought with him most of the faithful, part of the parish council with the cashier and the money, occupied the jointly placed church. Fr.Włodzimierz prayed in the same square first in the small-penny chapel, and after it was destroyed at the cross itself.
Then with a half-foot field, of which the veneer was torn off, along with the parishioners who did not go into the rascole, they began folding their St. Vladimir church.
– Get out of here, we request no Moscals – it did not appeal to the neighbours of raskolniki. The stones and the sticks went into motion. They did.
On Mykola the prestole was already under the roof. The liturgy has come to an end. – Batiuszko, krest of the confidant – 1 of the parishioners spoke. Indeed, the cross, the 1 they put together in the square, turned about 30, 40 degrees, as if it was covering their chapel.
And they already knew that the jointly built church could not even dream, and that the authorities remained deaf at requests to separate the square.
In 2023, the authorities treated their temple as a building will, and the full square was very needed. Fr Włodzimierz Kuzjo admits that the city council proposed that he undress the church with his hands, in return promising “a place in the council”. “But the church is simply a mother,” says the batiushka. So I'm expected to take an axe and go chop it? We didn't agree to that.
On 6 April, the authorities, with the support of PCU-brass, directed the excavator there. The day before PCU received the Orthodox cathedral in Lviv, and the Holy Trinity church was sealed. – Within 2 days we completed the past of Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the city – proudly announced the mayor Andrej SadowyjUnita. He's done it. Alexi Danilov, president of the National safety and Defence Council of Ukraine: – I am grateful to those who solved this problem in Lviv.
On 4 April, erstwhile U.S. Secretary of State Mika Pompeo visited Ukraine. He met with the head of PCU Epifanius (Dubenko). At the hands of Epiphany, he accepted the highest prize of the PCU – the Cross of Orthodox Church of Ukraine, awarded to him "for the effort for the good of Ukraine and defence of spiritual freedom".
8 April Nikita Poturaev, president of the Committee on Humanitarian Affairs and Information Policy of the ultimate Council, stated: "The strategical goal of the Ukrainian state in the spiritual sphere is to combine the pro-Ukrainian diocese of UPC with the PCU. After this, the authorities with Ukrainian activists will ask Fanar's superior to ask for a second tomoswho will grant the unified Ukrainian Church the position of patriarchate.
On 10 April in Chernivtsi, a well-built man punches the face of the passing ruler Nikita and the accompanying young ipodiacon whose father fights on the front.
On 12 April, the pine regional court in Cherkasy sentences the metropolitan of Cherkasy and Canevian Theodosius to two-month home arrest with electronic supervision.
It's hard to read and watch what's going on around the Kiev-Peaching Jury. It turns out that the head of the Greek Catholic Church, Światosław Shevczuk, is besides painful, but due to the fact that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church does not abandon the Lavry, as he said in an interview. – I do not want to justice anyone, but it strikes everyone, it does moral harm to the authority of the Church as such. (...) People lose moral spiritual landmarks erstwhile a church becomes dangerous from a state safety point of view. Here the state should punish collaborators, traitors. But we realize that if a church loses trust, it can lead to a powerful wave of secularization. That's why it's so hard.
The head of the Greek Catholic Church frequently stressed that his church was practically ready to connect with the PCU. He said that in Ukraine there are churches that came out of 1 font and that they should be together again.
And the PCU? A fewer days ago the “bishop” of Tarnopolski Nestor Pisik stated that in the event that its structure was taken by the Pochayovska Lavra, he was willing to make it available to the unit.
The Orthodox Greeks made and posted on YouTube a video about the persecutions of Ukrainian Orthodox Orthodox Church "Ukrainian Golgota – the aftermath of the Church's rallies in Ukraine".
15 April Viktor Jelenski, head of the state service on ethnopolitics and freedom of religion, reported that the committee was working in the Lavra to let another confessions there, and assured that Ukraine is the area of the top spiritual freedom in Europe.
On 16 April, a letter opened to the patriarch Bartłomiej was sent by the Rector of the Kiev spiritual Academy and Seminary, Archbishop of Sylwester. "Unfortunately, present we see how openly 1 of the fundamental values of the democratic planet is trampled in Ukraine – the right to freedom of conscience and spiritual beliefs. It is clear that since the end of 2022 the Ukrainian state has taken a course for the gradual liquidation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," wrote Hierarch, and stressed that "in force against thousands of communities and millions of believers of our Church, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is besides active, formed tomosem Your Holiness in January 2019".
Hierarch stated that specified actions of the subjects of the patriarch Bartholomew forfeited the anticipation of establishing common knowing of UPC and PCU for many years. “No good can be built on force and tears. present we see that in many Ukrainian cities and villages, where the Orthodox Church of Ukraine with the aid of local authorities took over our temples, they stand empty. At the same time, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's community continues with humility to hold services in private rooms," the bishop stressed. "In this hard time for UPC, I call on Your Holiness to talk for the fact and good. Of course, you can ignore what happens to Orthodox Christians in Ukraine. But the force that is taking place present against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, unfortunately, in historical memory may stay related to your name" - concluded Archbishop Sylwester, adding that he sent copies of the letter to all local churches.
On April 19, employees of the Ministry of Culture illegally sealed 1 of the buildings of the Kiev-Pieczerska Lavry. Illegally, due to the fact that from the unilateral break of the perpetual agreement for the arena of mona-ster rooms appealed to the court, and the trial had not yet taken place. Until then, the ministry had no right to seal anything, the more locking people inside. That is why a group of believers with a human rights defender, Victoria Kochanowska, broke these seals.
On the same day unknown perpetrators kidnapped Kochanowska. shortly it turned out that the kidnappers were police officers, and the Peczorski court in Kiev sentenced her to 24-hour home arrest. On April 22, Kochanowska assured that until her last breath she would defend the Church of Christ and the constitutional rights of the faithful Ukrainian Orthodox Church. – If anyone does not like it, you can shoot us, but I will not renounce my faith, due to the fact that standing aside erstwhile they desecrate the home of God is simply a terrible sin before God and my own conscience.
On subst. spzh.news
Alla Matrenian
For: ‘The Orthodox Review’, No 5/2023
