Aegina, Greece, October 18, 2019
Archpriest Nicholas Savvopoulos witnessed righteous strugglers throughout Ukraine, who are bravely standing firm in their faith in order to remain in the canonical Church, during his recent pilgrimage there with two other Greek priests.
Fr. Nicholas, a former representative of the Greek Church to the EU, spoke about his impressions of his trip to Ukraine in a recent interview with Romfea, emphasizing that, “it was a great experience.”
“We made a pilgrimage to the monasteries of Ukraine and saw with our own eyes, how our Ukrainian brothers are fighting to remain in the canonical Church,” he said. Fr. Nicholas traveled with Archimandrite Theologos from Grigoriou Monastery on Mt. Athos, now the abbot of the Monastery of St. Elijah on the island of Hydra, and Hieromonk Hierotheos Savvopoulos.
The hierarchs, clergy, and faithful of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church have reported numerous cases of churches being violently seized from them, although the hierarchs of the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” have not been afraid to lie about these incidents in the media. However, as Fr. Nicholas notes, and he and his fellow priests “saw churches that were forcibly seized after the ‘pseudo-autocephaly.’”
A Cypriot priest who visited Ukraine in July had the same impression. Archimandrite Nektarios (Babopoulous), the Secretary of the Tamassos Diocese, reflected: “I was struck as a priest, struck by that faith, that reverence of your faithful whom I have seen. It is evident that the difficulties the devil is creating within the Church give the faithful the opportunity to develop and ascend spiritually, to experience their relationship with God more strongly… My personal contact with the parishioners and with the residents of these parishes has convinced me that these people have a deep faith, that they are loyal to the Church, that they trust the Church, that they believe in their Church.”
Moreover, while certain forces both within and without the Orthodox Church are attempting to drive a wedge between the Greek and Slavic peoples, Fr. Nicholas notes that he saw “icons with newly-recognized Greek saints everywhere.”
“They love the Greeks, but feel betrayed by Hellenism,” he commented.
One monastery in the Kiev Province even established its own celebration of the great 20th-century Athonite elder Joseph the Hesychast, who has not been officially canonized yet.
This sentiment is echoed in yesterday’s statement from the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, which states that the geopolitical games being played in the Church “will not interrupt the unity of our ascetic tradition, which was created by the exploits of many venerable fathers and ascetics. They will not destroy the centuries-old friendship of the Greek and Slavic peoples.”
In particular, Fr. Nicholas recalled a monastery that the fathers visited on the outskirts of Kiev, where 160 nuns live, where the abbess told them there is a daily war for the property, as it was second on the state list of monasteries that was supposed to be handed over to Constantinople. “If this monastery is subordinated to Epiphany, it will become a stavropegion of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the nuns will leave it.”
Note that the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” has only about 250 monastics altogether, while just one convent of the canonical Church has 160, with more than 4,500 altogether.
Frs. Theologos, Nicholas, and Hierotheos concelebrated with His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine during their time in Kiev and read out a message of support for the suffering faithful, encouraging them to remain true to Christ in His canonical Church under Met. Onuphry. Their message was later published, evoking negative reactions from some in the Greek world, including Metropolitan Ephraim of Hydra, Spetses, and Aegina who had blessed them to go on pilgrimage to Ukraine.
While the hierarch made the bizarre accusation of loyalty to the Moscow Patriarchate against the clerics, Fr. Nicholas affirms that their words of support for the Ukrainian people were guided by “personal views, not identification with the Moscow Patriarchate.”
The fathers spoke about Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, and made an appeal to the Greek hierarchs based on what they had seen. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
As he explains, “As pastors and theologians, we cannot accept tragic mistakes that will forever divide Orthodoxy and isolate and destroy the institution of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.”
Fr. Nicholas also explains that upon their return to Greece, the situation was, thankfully, cleared up with Met. Ephraim.
He concludes by wishing that all would rise above our present circumstances and stand for holy Orthodoxy.
