UOC hierarch speaks about believers’ reaction to lawlessness against Church

Bishop Victor (Kotsaba) of Baryshevka. Photo: pravoslavie.ru

Believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which in recent years has been systematically persecuted, are tired of the lawlessness and are ready to defend their Church in all possible legal ways, said Bishop Victor (Kotsaba) of Baryshevka, the vicar of the Kyiv Metropolis, the head of the Representation of the UOC to European international organizations and associate professor of the Kyiv Theological Academy, in an interview with Pravoslavie.ru.

He said that over the past five years there have been many events of a discriminatory nature against our Church. This is the adoption of anti-church laws, the seizure of churches by force, systematic hate speech, and open aggression against the believers of the UOC. “All this has been experienced by the entire Church, millions of our believers living in Transcarpathia and Lviv, Luhansk and Donetsk, Kyiv and Chernihiv, Odessa and Crimea,” said Bishop Victor. That is why the believing Orthodox people of Ukraine do not want to be silent anymore."

According to the hierarch, the people's initiative to collect signatures for appeals to the country's top officials appeared after more and more signals from ordinary believers and village priests began to arrive. They called upon the diocesan bishops and the Primate of the Church to draw the attention of the central government to the lawlessness being committed. “The believers of our Church have already begun to react effectively, collecting signatures from each parish and monastery for appeals to the leadership of our country,” said Bishop Victor. “It is possible that this activity will continue.”

He noted that, first of all, the reaction of the faithful of the UOC is a prayer for all our brothers and sisters and even for our ill-wishers.

As reported earlier, if believers protested, there would be no anti-church laws, political expert Ruslan Bortnik believes.

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