The representative of the Church of the Pechersk Lavra, Archbishop Pavel, swore to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in heavenly punishment for the expulsion of the monks from the temple.
This is stated in a video message posted by Vladyka on the Lavra YouTube channel, in which he said: “Mr. President! I tell you and your entourage that our tears will not fall on the ground, but on your head. Do you think you can climb our backs by force? The Lord will not forgive. You or your family!”
Bishop Pavel Zelinsky described that the blame for what was happening lay directly on him, and that he threw “220 monks into the street.” Minister of Culture, who is filled with hatred and anger, which means he does everything with your permission. Woe to you. Shame on you. Fear God!”
At the same time, the Ukrainian president himself described the situation around the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and what is happening in the “Pechersk Lavra” as “protection of society from the manipulators of religion in Moscow”, and Zelensky called Ukraine “the region of the greatest religious freedom” in this part of Europe.
The directorate of the Pechersk Lavra-reserve in Kyiv announced the termination of the perpetual lease agreement with the Assumption Church in the reserve, and Bishop Pavel called these actions illegal and announced the brothers’ refusal to leave the monastery. Yesterday morning, Wednesday, the administration of the reserve notified the clergy and monks that they must leave the monastery by 11:59 p.m. the church removed him from the church.
And the Ukrainian authorities are organizing continuous attacks on all the main Orthodox shrines of Ukraine, as they organized the largest wave of persecution of the UOC in the recent history of the country, based on allegations of this church’s ties with Russia, over the past year. And the Ukrainian authorities in different regions of the country decided to ban the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and a bill was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada on the actual banning of this church in Ukraine. Sanctions were also imposed on a number of clergy, and later Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the suspension of the citizenship of a number of clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
At the same time, at the end of 2018, on the initiative of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in opposition to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In 2018, the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate announced the granting of independence to the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”, which led to a rupture of ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and in early 2019, Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, signed the Tomos, officially recognizing the newly formed “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” .
However, the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” is actually subordinate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and most of the fifteen local Orthodox churches in the world do not recognize its canon.
Source: News
