Berlin, October 25, 2023
Photo: foma.ru
The Ukrainian government, which intends to ban the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, is behaving exactly as Trotsky, Lenin, and Stalin did last century, and the Patriarchate of Constantinople is behaving just like the Renovationist “Living Church,” says the eldest hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
His Eminence Metropolitan Mark of Berlin and Germany issued a short statement on the current persecution of the UOC last week, following the Verkhovna Rada’s vote for a bill that aims at banning the Church on a federal level.
The Kiev government and Rada are using the same “loyalty and loyal clergymen” ploy with the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church as Trotsky and Lenin plotted in March, 1922, as did Stalin later employ with the “Declaration of Loyalty” (1927) of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky).
Now Patriarch Bartholomew is accusing the hierarchs of the UOC (as did at one time Metropolitan Sergius), insisting that the victims themselves are indeed violating law and are being properly persecuted. Just as at that time Constantinople actively supported the “Living Church” to benefit Lenin and Stalin, promoting a pro-Soviet policy to help the regime at the time. The scene is now repeated a century later. Regarding freedom of religion and confession, only hatred and the profound trampling of elementary rights reign. This is a repeat of the Soviet Union, but under a different banner.
I appeal to the conscience of everyone who can directly act on these developing events, calling upon them to resist the persecution of the Church in the Ukrainian land, and all others to spiritually support the path of truth through prayer.
Berlin-Munich 7/20 October 2023.
+Mark, Metropolitan of Berlin and Germany
Met. Mark has addressed the situation in Ukraine a number of times in statements, interviews, and homilies.
In a sermon from March 2022, he called on all Christians to overcome hate despite the war, and to maintain Church unity. In an interview that May, he spoke about how the war is unjustified and negatively affecting the Russian Church and must stop immediately. And in an interview this past May, he spoke about the Ukrainian government’s desire to completely shut down the Church, which is a more real threat now than ever before.
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