Bratislava, Slovakia, May 24, 2024
Photo: First Cossack
A protest rally in support of the persecuted Ukrainian Orthodox Church was held outside the Ukrainian Embassy in the Slovakian capital earlier this month.
The demonstration was organized by Ukrainian refugees and immigrants who are parishioners of the Cathedrals of Sts. Rastislav and Nicholas, reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists with reference to the First Cossack channel.
The event was also supported by priests and laity of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, which recognizes only the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church under His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine.
The defenders of the UOC emphasized:
We call on the leadership of foreign countries to oblige Vladimir Zelensky and all opponents of Orthodoxy in the Ukrainian leadership to stop the persecution of the UOC and stop inciting inter-confessional hostility, and to return to the UOC the Kiev Caves Lavra and all the holy sites seized by nationalists and schismatics.
They recalled the election promises of President Zelensky not to interfere in religious matters and called for the release of His Eminence Metropolitan Arseny of Svyatogorsk and journalists who are being unjustly detained.
In the video on the Union of Orthodox Journalists, the faithful sing Christ is Risen and make various speeches in support of the UOC. One man also holds a poster with a picture of His Eminence Metropolitan Longin of Bancheny after he was physically assaulted in his own home.
His Eminence Metropolitan Joanikije of Montenegro also came out in support of the unjustly detained Met. Arseny this week. Another Serbian hierarch, His Grace Bishop Gerasim of the Gornji Karlovac Diocese in Croatia, published an open letter last week in defense of all the persecuted hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and faithful of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
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