Bishop Gedeon: I had no idea I’d happen to be in US Congress

Vicar of the Kiev Metropolis, Bishop Gedeon (Kharon) of Makarov

In the USA, I was on a private trip with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy of Kiev and All Ukraine, Bishop Gedeon (Kharon) of Makarov, vicar of the Kiev Metropolis of the UOC, who had been earlier deported from Ukraine, told in the interview with the First Cossack channel.

“He blessed me to visit Washington from a spiritual point of view – I spoke there with religious leaders,” said His Grace Gideon.

When he was in the US Congress, he shared with the congressmen information about events in the church life of Ukraine.

According to Bishop Gedeon, the congressmen asked a lot of questions, including about why Ukraine needs a second Tomos and what is the difference between them: the Letter (Tomos) on autonomy granted in 1990 to the UOC and the Tomos granted to the OCU.

Members of the US Congress asked the hierarch of the canonical Church to write an official document about what is happening around the UOC, after which the abbot of the Tithe Monastery called His Beatitude Onufriy to take his blessing to write such a paper.

“Hardly had I returned to my homeland as everything that I’d written in the USA, almost before their eyes, was evidenced. My deportation from Ukraine actually proved all those words written in this letter. “Now we can see,” they say now, “that all this is true,” concluded Bishop Gedeon.

On February 18, 2019, Vasily Gritsak, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, announced that the vicar of the Kiev Metropolis was banned from entering Ukraine, as he allegedly has 3 passports. “It was found that Yuri Kharon owns the passports of three countries: Russia, Ukraine and the United States. We have informed the State Migration Service about the data we possessed. He is denied entry into the territory of the state,” said Gritsak.

After the deportation, Bishop Gedeon was invited to speak at the UN and the US Congress. “When all this happened, I began to receive calls from the US Congress, from various politicians and journalists from CNN, Fox News, and other world famous media,” Vladyka said. “This occurrence was an evident testimony to my words, to those of my speeches that I made in the United States concerning political and religious persecutions in Ukraine. Everything said by me was proven by the actions of the authorities of Ukraine."

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