Kiev, February 5, 2024
Photo: uncutmountainsupply.com In their ongoing effort to spiritually divide the historically united Ukrainian and Russian people, as of this month, the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” of the Patriarchate of Constantinople will no longer celebrate the memory of the Right-Believing Prince Alexander Nevsky, one of the most beloved saints of ancient Rus’.
It is not surprising that the Ukrainian government-sanctioned "Church" would be allergic to St. Alexander Nevsky. The great military commander defeated the Western forces who waged war against Rus' with the blessing of the Roman Pope, with the aim of bringing Rus' into the Western and Roman Catholic sphere of influence and domination. The defeat was decisive and kept Russia on its own civilizational course.
Meeting on Friday, February 2, the Holy Synod of the OCU resolved to remove St. Alexander, who had Kievan blood and served as Grand Prince of Kiev from 1246 to 1263, from its liturgical calendar on November 23, reports the OCU press service.
Instead, the Synod established another feast of St. Alexander, the 4th–5th-century founder of the Monastery of the Unsleeping Ones.
While the Synodal report does not explain why St. Alexander was removed, the OCU’s primate, “Metropolitan” Epiphany Dumenko, addressed the topic in an interview last January
Speaking with the Ukrainian outlet lb.ua, he explained that after the OCU first came into existence in December 2018, it initially published a calendar without major saints such as St. Alexander Nevsky and St. Ksenia of St. Petersburg and other Russian saints. However, the OCU was compelled to include them in the calendar again after many of its own parishioners complained that their patron saints were no longer in the calendar.
Therefore, at the time, St. Alexander Nevsky was still in the OCU’s calendar, which Dumenko characterized as a “temporary phenomenon.” It would take about a generation for the people to forget about such Russian saints he said.
However, a year later, the OCU Synod resolved to remove the revered saint from its calendar.
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