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23 November 2018, 18:14Ukrainian Orthodox Church likens promoters of 'autocephaly' to Bolsheviks
Kiev, November 23, Interfax - The methods being used to create a "unified local church" in Ukraine recall the Red Terror at the dawn of the Soviet state, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church said.
"We have no right to remain silent when the government, citing the 'Bolshevik boot,' is pursuing a religious policy using the same methods as its 'Red' predecessors, whom they supposedly disowned within the ideological framework of the de-communization policy," the UOC's well-known archbishop, Metropolitan Luka of Zaporozhye and Melitopol, said in a statement seen by Interfax.
"Just as in the 20th century, the Councils of People's Deputies controlled by 'Red terrorists' in our territories demanded that all those who did not support the ruling party's general line be destroyed, attempts are now being made to force you to speak out against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, in which many of you and your near and dear were baptized," the metropolitan said.
He was commenting on reports that as part of the "hybrid pressure" on UOC archbishops, regional council deputies were receiving recommendations from the "unified center," urging them to "influence" archbishops to attend the unification assembly where a church independent of Moscow will be created.
"By seeking to sever the existing, though in prayers only, link between our church and the Russian Orthodox Church, politicians, who are remote from the Orthodox faith, decided they would rather see it heavily dependent on another foreign entity, led by a Turkish citizen, or - according to the ideas of an Istanbul cleric, Pan Getcha - turn it into 'the Turkish Orthodox Church in Ukraine,'" the metropolitan said. |
