In Russia, the influence of the church on the population is minimal. Only 0.9% of the citizens are members of the church. This, in particular, is the result of Patriarch Kirill’s rule since 2009.
Yuri Chornomorets, PhD, a religious scholar and theologian, told about this on the air of Channel 12, the OCU’s Volyn diocese’s press service reports.
Patriarch Kirill “proposed a revanchist ideology, seasoned with Orthodoxy, that supposedly Prince Volodymyr once made a choice that was different from the civilized choice of the West, and predetermined the fate of Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. Patriarch Kirill even began to preach that Belarusians and Ukrainians are ‘a variant of Russians,’ that they are not different from Russians, are not a separate nation, do not have their own culture, history, or church traditions. In his words, ‘we are one Russia.’ It is very unpleasant that the church participates in justifying the barbarism that is being committed in Ukraine. This is treachery. And it is not by chance that Metropolitan Epifaniy and the Bishops’ Council of the OCU filed a lawsuit against Patriarch Kirill with the Ecumenical Patriarch and the entire Pentarchy to condemn him as someone who violates canonical borders in Ukraine and Africa, preaches the heresy of the ‘Russian world,’ as someone who justifies war crimes. Even 430 priests with the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine and the Patriarchate of Alexandria filed similar lawsuits,” the scholar says.
He emphasized that “relations in the church should be of higher quality than in society.”
In his opinion, the main vocation of a theologian is to remind people of their absolute dignity and to warn about the threat to this dignity. With the onset of the era of totalitarianism and revanchism observed in Russia, there is a threat not only to the individual, but also to the existence of entire nations, he believes.
“I warned a long time ago and, unfortunately, it happened that the aggressor state terrorizes its own people and went to war against Ukrainians. The information war was replaced by hot developments today at the front. And, clearly, if we are dealing with such blatant anti-human evil, then it is necessary to respond to this challenge, and to respond up in arms,” the religious scholar is confident.
Yuriy Chornomorets personally knows how difficult it is to defend the independence of Ukraine today. Wielding a sniper rifle, along with a group of comrades-in-arms, in the first days of the full-scale invasion, he was part of a sabotage group operating behind enemy lines – in Chornobyl. His health suffered there and he is now undergoing treatment. And also he actively volunteers to deliver as many modern, professional weapons as possible to the soldiers on the battlefield. “Now the fight for the freedom and dignity of the nation continues. Ukrainians are repelling totalitarianism and the world understands that it is morally obliged to support us in this struggle,” the serviceman explains.
