Cross processions to be held in every Ukrainian diocese on Sunday of Orthodoxy

Kiev, March 12, 2021

Photo: news.church.ua Photo: news.church.ua     

Cross processions and special prayer services will be held in all the diocesan centers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on the first Sunday of Great Lent, the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

Great Lent is a time for spiritual renewal through prayer, fasting, and repentance. It is also a time to testify to our loyalty to our holy Orthodox faith and to our love for our fellow countrymen and our land, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine writes to the hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and faithful of the Ukrainian Church in his Lenten epistle.

Despite the people’s numerous requests and appeals, the biased laws adopted by the Poroshenko government that severely limit the rights of the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are still in place, His Beatitude writes.

But, “I would like the voice of our faithful to be heard,” he continues.

Therefore, on the Triumph of Orthodoxy, “With prayer on our lips and sacred treasures in our hands, we should pass through the streets of our hometowns to bear witness to our fidelity to Holy Orthodoxy and to our love for our native Ukrainian land—our earthly homeland.”

“We are citizens of Ukraine, and we have the right, won by the blood of our ancestors, to profess the Orthodox faith as bequeathed to us by the Apostles of Christ and the Holy Fathers,” His Beatitude emphasizes.

The Pravblog analysts suggest several conclusions from His Beatitude’s decision:

  1. The Church has demonstrated a real willingness to protects the rights of the faithful as fully and on as large a scale as possible.

  2. Such a step shows that the UOC no longer intends to hold a neutral position in the face of increasing pressure. The benefit of the doubt given the new authorities to act within the confines of the law and not allow any religious discrimination has practically been depleted.

  3. The relevant decision is not limited simply to countering unconstitutional legislation, but it also signals, Pravblog believes, something on a bigger scale—most likely the rejection of the authorities’ whole course of drawing nearer to the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the schismatic OCU, which will result in even more state interference in Church affairs and attempts to destroy the canonical UOC.

  4. Met. Onuphry expresses hope that the voice of the people will be heard, and if it is not heard, the UOC will take even more ambitious and powerful steps, the analysts believe.

In conclusion, they write: “It’s no big secret for anyone that no political or public force in Ukraine is capable, like the [canonical] UOC, of immediately bringing at least several hundred thousand people out onto the streets, who, by the way, will come out according to the call of their hearts, not for money.”

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3/12/2021

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