Serhiy Chudynovych, a Kherson priest with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine who moved from the occupied city, says he is struggling when he hears people speaking Russian now.
“I was a believer in theory, now I know for sure, I talk to God as I do to you, it’s an incomparable feeling when you lose complexes. Some Protestant churches have this focus on healing and liberation. I don’t know how they explain it there, but I like this phrase because I got rid of certain circumstances, I started to treat people completely differently, not everyone, though. For example, if I hear someone speaking Russian when I’m around, I react very sharply to it, I literally can’t breathe. Well, I respectfully ask if I have the strength, ‘You don’t want me to have a heart attack and die because of you, right?’ ‘What do I have to do with this?’ Well, you see, my blood pressure will rise and there’s no medication on me, and that’s it…’ And sometimes I may say something sharper,” the OCU priest said in an interview with Ukrinform.
At the same time, he admitted that he had become somewhat suspicious.
“Internet bots are constantly coming at me, I changed my phone number, I don’t return calls… Someone offers to bring me some gifts, offering to meet up somewhere in the Carpathians… There’s plenty of strange things going on, some weird calls to my older numbers. I have a completely different relationship with God, I go outside every morning and look at the sky, I don’t even say anything to Him, I just think: let my actions be in line with Your will,” said the priest.
He noted that after he got out of the occupied area, underwent treatment in a hospital and rested, he experienced liberation.
“You can go to the left, or you can go to the right, you can go anywhere you want – these are incredible things,” said the OCU priest.
