Cherkasy, Cherkasy Province, Ukraine, September 4, 2024
pravlife.org
The Ukrainian state, with its recently passed law, intends to destroy the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. But if the Church follows the canons and listens to God alone, it will come through all trials and emerge victorious, a top Ukrainian hierarch said in his homily on the feast of the Dormition, August 28.
His Eminence Metropolitan Theodosy of Cherkasy is one of the hierarchs who is being personally targeted by the state, with several cases opened against him. He has been under some form of house arrest for more than a year and a half now. The measure of restraint against him was recently alleviated again (to nighttime house arrest), allowing him to reunite with his flock in time to celebrate the great feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos.
In his homily at the Holy Archangel Michael Cathedral in Cherkasy, the hierarch noted that the state is continuing the Bolshevik program:
This law provides for implementation within 9 months. That is, in 9 months, somewhere around Pascha, we, the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, based on this law, may have our churches taken away, including those built with our own hands. Parishioners can be “legally” expelled from churches, monks and nuns can be “legally” evicted from monasteries. Everything, as under the Bolsheviks.
“What is expected of us, what is demanded?” His Eminence asked rhetorically.
“To violate canonical rules, to violate Church law, to proclaim arbitrary, self-willed autocephaly, to break prayerful communion with the Church and drift into schismatic territory, that is, to become schismatics. This is what is proposed in plain text.”
The hierarch reminded that the current trials were foretold by a number of 20th-century saints: Kuksha of Odessa, Lawrence of Chernigov, and the yet-to-be canonized Schema-Archimandrite Jonah (Ignatenko) and Mother Alypia.
The Metropolitan continued:
So that we, the believers of 21st-century Ukraine, don’t become confused, disheartened, or lost in how we should act, the Lord has guided us through His saints. And you know, the saints advised us to act in exactly the opposite way of what is being demanded of us today by the Commissioner for Religious Affairs to “save” ourselves in a worldly sense. The saints instructed us not to violate canonical rules, not to declare autocephaly, and to faithfully preserve the prayerful unity of the Church, which has stood for more than 1,000 years. Yes, the saints said that this time will be difficult, perhaps even very difficult... But they also said: Those who endure to the end, who don’t abandon the Cross, who don’t betray – they will receive great Divine grace and witness the glorious triumph of our Church.
According to Met. Theodosy, the UOC is ascending its Golgotha:
With this law, they’re raising the Church to the Cross and nailing it there, intending to destroy it completely, as the persecutors think. The Church is the Body of Christ. This Body is once again being crucified on the Cross of suffering and redemptive trials. But as the Church ascends this Golgotha, it simultaneously rises to the pedestal of the Victor. This Golgotha is not only our final trial but also a place of glory. We have already triumphed! The fact that they’re now trying, in their powerless rage, to utterly destroy our Church only proves that we are already victors, that they can do nothing to us. They haven’t defeated, divided, or diminished our Church. Our churches are full, even fuller than before, because people sense that the truth and witness for Christ is here.
In conclusion, the UOC hierarch called on the faithful to maintain unity and fidelity to God.
His Eminence Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye also recently voiced the same conclusion: That the state wants the UOC to declare its own autocephaly so it will fall into schism.
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