Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya) of Chernihiv and Nizhyn with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) has commented on his Facebook page on a recent interview with pro-Russian MP Vadym Novynsky.
The latter branded the OCU a political “political organization with a religious title.”
“Well, it’s like hearing instructions from Putin’s godfather about what is true Ukrainian patriotism. Or from the “112-Zik-NewsOne” [TV] conglomerate – reflections on the issue of honest journalism,” wrote the archbishop.
A Russian politician holding a Ukrainian passport who appears in the criminal case of [Viktor] Yanukovych’s regime officials meddling in church life in order to get rid of the now late Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), a devoted follower and promoter of the ‘Russian World’, a lawmaker under the veal of deacon’s sticharion and a billionaire, an ‘evil Christian’ – is it he who may label the Church with a history of over a thousand years, of which hundreds were spent on fighting for own autocephaly for more than 100 years?” said Archbishop Yevstratiy.
“The Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine is an anomaly that arose in violation of the canons and solely due to the political coercion of the tsarist government back in 1686. This is also confirmed by the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarch. Instead, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is a true Ukrainian local Church, whose roots stem from the sermon of Apostle Andrew the First-Called, from the Baptism of Rus-Ukraine b Oskold and Volodymyr. Even these facts are sufficient to see where the Local Church is and where’s the ‘organization with a religious title,'” Yevstratiy added.
The OCU archbishop also commented on Novynsky’s claim that “Patriarch Kirill is praying for peace in Ukraine.”
“What kind of peace, though? With the ‘Russian world’? How can a prayer for peace be sincere if Kirill himself and his subordinates in Ukraine, including this deacon, still fail to recognize the fact of Russian aggression? Can a true prayer be based on Moscow’s lies about the ‘civil war’ and the ‘internal conflict?'” said the OCU hierarch.
“After all, the opinions voiced in the interview actually speak more about the ‘internal cuisine’ of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine. By imposing certain statements onto the OCU, this man reveals his own worldview, where the Church is an instrument of politics, untruth about one’s own people and others is a good thing if it’s “for the benefit of the cause,” while the canons, as a tow bar, can be shifted in any direction. Although, by and large, not suprsisingly, so much for a patriarch saying a ‘prayer for peace’ and so much for his deacon lawkmaker, “a fighter against politics in Church,” Archbishop Yevstratiy concluded.
It should be reminded that MP Vadym Novynsky earlier acknowledged that the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine is indeed part of the Russian Orthodox Church.
