Posted on 12/22/2022 6:22:31 PM PST by marshmallow
At its session held at St. Panteleimon’s Monastery in Kiev yesterday, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church adopted an urgent appeal to President Zelensky, calling on him to end the persecution against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and to block any bills that would ban the Church, which is by far the largest religious organization in the country.
The hierarchs, gathered under the chairmanship of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, remind the head of state that the UOC stands by the Ukrainian people and has always supported Ukrainian territorial integrity sovereignty, whereas the enmity against the Church only divides the people.
The Synod also strongly condemns a recently-aired blasphemous television program from Kvartal 95, the studio founded by Zelensky and some school friends in 2003.
“Overcoming the remnants of the communist system is impossible if we allow its methods to be applied, especially in the legal, public, and information space. In no case should we wage war against God, because this is the road to self-destruction,” the Synod states.
(Excerpt) Read more at orthochristian.com ...
I read the entire statement and cannot disagree with any of it. Is there an argument that this church is subverting Ukraine? I think it’s a mistake to ban or sanction the church no matter what.
Also, a reminder that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's disputes with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (formed less than five years ago) run on deeper canonical grounds than the current geopolitical issues raised by the invasion:
Recognising the special responsibility before Almighty God, the Council expresses its deep regret over the lack of unity in Ukrainian Orthodoxy. The Council perceives the existence of the schism as a deep painful wound on the Church body. It is especially unfortunate that the recent actions of the Patriarch of Constantinople in Ukraine, which resulted in the formation of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) , only deepened misunderstandings and led to physical confrontation. But even in such crisis situations, the Council does not lose hope of resuming dialogue. In order for the dialogue to take place, the OCU representatives need to:
*stop the illegal seizure of churches and forced transfers of parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC),
*realise that their canonical status, as enshrined in their “Statute of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine” , is in fact non-autocephalous and significantly inferior to the freedoms and opportunities for the implementation of Church activities as compared to those that are provided for in the Statute of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC),
*resolve the issue of canonicity of the hierarchy of the OCU, because for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as for most Local Orthodox Churches, it is quite obvious that to recognise the canonicity of the hierarchy of the OCU, it is first necessary to restore the apostolic succession of its bishops.
(Because, to be fair, Serhii Petrovych Dumenko — Epiphanius I, the current Metropolitan of the OCU — was ordained by a bishop (Filaret) that had been anathematized and defrocked in the '90s (as recognized by both Moscow and Constantinople), so the current head of the OCU is an invalidly ordained bishop, hence the UOC's dispute about apostolic succession.)
“Patriarch” Philaret: God allows war in Donbass so “Kiev Patriarchate” can grow [From 2018]
Initiators of call to ban Ukrainian Orthodox Church say they want new national religion for Ukraine [Also from 2018]
It’s not surprising. That’s the greedy Uniparty, knowing they will get money from the military-industrial complex. They just saw a man who is successful at doing what they want and continuously try to do. That’s eliminate freedoms and control citizens like second-rate subjects.
Ask yourself, what principles of freedom do you share with Zelenskyy? Ask yourself, beside politicians and defense contractors, are their any American lives made better by supporting Ukraine? Are you more free? Will your children and grandchildren have better lives under the yoke of debt to pay for Ukraine?
The United States has zero national interests in Ukraine, and you can’t name one tangible interest that directly affects the quality of life or safety of Americans. In fact, if you have any awareness you can name multiple things that negatively affects Americans and security of America.
Support for Ukraine is tantamount to treason.
Go tell our troops in Europe they are traitors.
I fully support our troops. That includes my own family members. Quite honestly, I want our military to be put in the shelf until there is a competent CIC and Joint Chiefs. That cluster in Afghanistan two Augusts ago proved the is no credible military leadership. And yes, I had family at the airport in Kabul that had to partake in that fluster cuck. <pAnswer the questions at the end of my prior post and get back to me.
You don’t support the troops, you support their enemy, Russia.
Our troops are doing what they can to safely get weapons and intelligence to Ukraine by planes, by trucks, by ships, our troops are training hard in the winter cold to be ready to defend our military alliance from Russia as Russia launches the biggest European war since WWII and threatens their families and homeland with nuclear annihilation.
Answer my questions. I know you can’t. You are making a fool of yourself if you don’t. I dare you. Prove me wrong. Don’t use a leftist technique of making a false attack against a person whose history and leanings that you don’t know. That’s just a weak diversion because you don’t have the guts to be honest with yourself and do just a little amount of critical thinking. Go ahead and convince me that there is any benefit to Americans. How does it improve America’s safety? I’ll add few more since you seem so concerned about our troops. How does this benefit our troops? I’ll give a hint in answering the second. For every decision there is an opportunity cost. What does our military give up by depleting our weapon stockpiles and funds? What could our military be doing to prepare for real and greater threats? Hint, Russia isn’t one of them.
“”Support for Ukraine is tantamount to treason.”””
Tell that to our troops working so hard to support Ukraine and who are at risk of further Russian aggression.
You have zero idea what you are talking about. You lack all ability to this. You must be a Democrat plant on FR. Answer the questions, coward.
LOL.
Checkmate.
This is a false dichotomy. Not wanting America to be involved in a yet another ethnic conflict between Slavs (that should only realistically be a regional conflict) does not imply "you must be pro-Russian" or "you must be anti-American". It's utterly bogus.
Thanks for your support. You are exactly correct. It’s an tactic of the weak minded and leftists that are not able to critically think. I will remain open minded about this conflict, but I have yet to hear a cogent argument as how it benefits any American or improves our nation’s security.
No, this is real, and our troops are moving the weapons, gathering the intelligence, flying the spy aircraft, and transporting the funds, to the nation Russia is invading, all while they are conducting training exercises to fight off the Russians that are only miles away.
If you support the enemy, then you are like all the other anti-Americans who have been supporting Russia against us for generations.
Is Ukraine part of NATO?
Why are you sending your daughter to Kiev to fire a mortar?
That didn’t even make any sense.
What **specific national interest** does America have in supporting Ukraine? Keeping up the 10% for the big guy, perhaps?
Our political leadership fought to keep so much as $5 billion from going to our southern border, where hundreds of thousands of Third Worlders (a level of immigration that WILL transform our society culture, and not for the better I would say) have been flooding in with the cartels...and yet we've breached $100 billion to Ukraine in less than a year, with **broad bipartisan support**. In a day and age where the overwhelming majority of the D.C. political class hates the guts of traditionalists and conservatives, that sort of bipartisanship should be a SCREAMING red flag.
Wake up and move on from the Cold War; mindsets like yours are one of many reasons why Russia has gravitated towards China instead of towards the West.
(The Woke degeneracy our country keeps exporting, I would argue, is another big factor in why the West is decaying from within; why would any sane country want to be part of that?)
I favor neither side. On the one hand I think Putin did the wrong thing in invading Ukraine.
But on the other side I also understand the backstory. When the USSR was ended, the US (James Baker) gave them assurances that NATO would never encroach on the Russian border and NATO did encroach by admitting border countries into NATO. Then the Minsk agreements were never implemented primarily because of US and Ukraine pressure. I can understand any country wanting to protect it’s borders.
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