Zaporozhie, June 15, 2022
Photo: spzh.news
Last week, Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhie and Melitopol, UOC, expressed his view on his Telegram channel that the media continually works to distract our attention from the global war against Orthodoxy, reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists. The Ukrainian hierarch said that a pseudo-Orthodox lobby has formed internationally, which has as its aim to destroy the unity of the Orthodox Churches.
“Currently the press is actively discussing whether [the Ukrainian Orthodox Church] should commemorate the Patriarch or not, whether we should have an autocephalous Church, or not. The media is distracting the attention of faithful Orthodox people from a more important and truly global problem. And it sounds like this: In the new world order there is no place for Orthodoxy. The world wants to totally destroy Christ’s Church,” wrote Met. Luke.
“Now this matter is being handled by super-professionals, who, unlike previous persecutors, have worked out precise and systematic logistics that have been thought through in great detail… To this aim they give out “tomoses” to stillborn religious structures on the one hand, and on the other they inculcate norms of life into the world community that are not compatible with Christian ethics and morals. The canonical lawlessness together with spiritual degradation are called to turn the Christian faith into compost, depriving the faithful not only of God’s grace, but of all hope for salvation. This compost will call the antichrist their spiritual leader,” noted Met. Luke.
He considers that in Ukraine today, forces are trying to make this compost from a mixture into one whole of various religious structures that consider themselves connected in one way or another to Christianity.
“This is precisely why they are trying to divide us on secondary issues that have nothing to do with dogmas of the faith. And it is not at all a matter of whether we commemorate Patriarch Kirill or not, whether UOC will be part of the ROC or not. This is not the question. It’s something else: Will we be with Christ, or will we go with the rest to meet the antichrist?”
Met. Luke called upon the faithful and clergy of the UOC to unity, saying that “This is our standing in the faith”.
In another publication cited on the Union of Orthodox Journalists concerning the recent Council of the UOC in which the decision was made to reaffirm the Ukrainian Church’s autonomy, Met. Luke wrote, “I would especially like to draw you attention to the fact that the devil, who as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet. 5:8), wants to bring confusion into people’s souls in order to bring about yet another schism in the Church. Here and there publications have appeared on the events of the Council. They contain accusations against the hierarchs of supposedly starting a schism, and other things. Will full responsibility I want to say that this is not so. When fateful questions are being decided, we mustn’t immediately hang a tag on someone or make him an enemy of the people.”
