Belgrade, August 23, 2024
Photo: spc.rs
His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije and the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church sent a fraternal letter of support to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine as the Ukrainian state continues to ramp up its persecution of the Orthodox Church.
On Tuesday, August 20, Ukrainian Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of Bill 8371, which is aimed at the banning of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church across the country. According to the bill, 9 months after it is signed into law by President Zelensky, courts can begin shutting UOC churches and monasteries.
The banning of the Church “repeats the Golgotha scenario and crucifies it on a new cross of suffering, while returning Ukrainian society as a whole to the time of Roman persecutions of the Church of Christ” His Holiness writes.
The Serbian Orthodox Church reports:
In the Synodal letter, His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije emphasizes that he not only has an obligation but also a strong personal need to inform his brother and co-celebrant, His Beatitude Onuphry, that the news of the Ukrainian Parliament adopting a law providing for the prohibition of the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been received with deep bitterness in the Local Church of St. Sava.
Given that in not-so-distant history, during World War II, the Serbian Orthodox Church was banned and persecuted, we experientially feel the truth of the sacred words of the Apostle Paul in your case that if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together (1 Cor 12:26), Patriarch Porfirije reminded and emphasized that the work and mission of our Church was then prevented by an openly totalitarian, criminal regime of a puppet fascist creation, while, to make the tragedy greater, today the sister Church in Ukraine is being persecuted by a declaratively democratic government made up of its own compatriots, which makes the situation difficult and incomparably more absurd.
With anxiety in our hearts, dear brother in Christ, we feel that on the example of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a new totalitarianism is being introduced in which not even the maxim of St. Constantine the Equal-to-the-Apostles applies, which is one of the basic generally accepted social principles by which we live, and which states: Let each one believe as his heart desires, Patriarch Porfirije conveyed and concluded that it is clear that the degradation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to a banned organization further legalizes the already permanent persecution, arrest, and harassment of its sacred hierarchy and faithful people, enables further seizure of its property or, more accurately, repeats the Golgotha scenario and crucifies it on a new cross of suffering, while returning Ukrainian society as a whole to the time of Roman persecutions of the Church of Christ.
Our prayers, our hopes, our thoughts, but also our sincere wishes that those in authority turn away from their folly to the knowledge of justice and truth, as well as for peace, brotherly love, and harmony to reign again in your homeland, are constantly raised before the face of the Lord from every heart of the Serbian people, always loyal to you, in whose unreserved support and help you should never doubt. With hope for the most favorable and just resolution of the difficult situation and with prayer to the greatest Sufferer in all worlds, our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you and the fullness of our beloved Ukrainian Orthodox Church strength, faith, love, and patience to carry your cross until the Paschal dawn, we send you brotherly greetings and the love of our hearts, Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia emphasized at the end of the letter to his brother and co-celebrant in Christ, Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine.
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