Cherkasy, Cherkasy Province, Ukraine, October 23, 2024
Met. Theodosy, who was beaten and spayed with tear gas by the godless schismatics of the OCU. Photo: Telegram
Those who desecrated the Archangel Michael Cathedral in Cherkasy and violently assaulted dozens of Orthodox faithful, including His Eminence Metropolitan Theodosy, are servants of hell, say fellow Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs.
The cathedral was seized in two attacks on October 17. The schismatics of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” shot gas pistols, sprayed tear gas, and physically beat Christians who were attempting to protect their church from the impiety of the attackers.
This same scene has played out hundreds of times since Patriarch Bartholomew created the OCU in 2018, though he has yet to speak out in defense of those who are persecuted and assaulted.
His Eminence Metropolitan Longin of Bancheny, a staunch defender of Orthodoxy in Ukraine, addressed the attack in his homily on Sunday, October 20, saying: “We came to this earth to suffer for God, to save our souls,” and that “today, more than ever, we see persecution against our true Orthodox Church,” reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists with reference to video of the hierarch’s sermon.
“We’ve seen our metropolitans and priests being beaten, we’ve seen the lawlessness that’s happening in the land where we were born and grew up,” the hierarch, who is among the personal targets of the state’s campaign of persecution.
According to him, “we’ve never seen such mockery of clergy and the faithful as is happening now,” because “now you can enter a church with weapons, to threaten clergy, peaceful believers, the infirm and the elderly.”
He emphasized that the seizure of churches and holy sites is a great sin. “We’re all created in God’s image, so we have no right to call anyone a devil, but the events taking place—they’re from hell, and those who struck Metropolitan [Theodosy] are servants of hell,” Met. Longin concluded.
Likewise, His Eminence Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye, another target for the state, wrote in a Telegram statement yesterday that the attackers follow “the philosophy of hell.”
The hierarch stated:
Evil isn’t a property of human nature; it enters us from the outside, from that source which became the carrier of evil after falling away from God. It only persistently knocks at the door of the soul, but whether to open it or not depends on our will and our efforts. Not people, but demons are our true enemies. People are merely tools through which the devil fights against us.
But who are these people? They are those who have accepted the philosophy of hell, who have agreed to live by the laws of evil, who have decided that power, authority, money, and glory are the true meaning of life. This didn’t happen overnight, but gradually, when satan made it so that these people gave him their souls, first through thoughts and desires, and then through inclination to specific actions.
We saw such people quite recently when they seized the cathedral in Cherkasy.
Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!
