Primate: We must protect our temples and interests by legal means

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry. Photo: UOC

Believers of the UOC should protect their temples and their interests by legal means, without violence and malice, stressed the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine in an interview with the journal for the clergy “Pastyr & Pastva” ("Shepherd & Flock").
“Those of our faithful, whose temples are taken by the OCU activists, should pray and endure everything with gratitude,” the Archpastor said. “You shouldn’t be angry, because anger is a sin that eats its carrier. Rely on the Lord, and the Lord will surely help.”

The Primate explained that believers deprived of a church can gather for prayer in a house or other room, at least a little adapted for worship, "the main thing is to keep the purity of the holy Orthodox faith, and the Lord will be with us and help us".

According to His Beatitude, many believers are offended that their fate is often decided by outsiders who have no relation to the Orthodox Church, but we should "endure it with gratitude to God".

“The powers that be caused mayhem, God be their judge. We must endure it with gratitude to God. When the leaders of the Jews judged the Saviour, they also acted in a lawless way, as a result of which they condemned the Innocent. The Lord endured and told us to do so. We are not riders and must protect our temples and our interests by legal means, without violence and malice. The main thing here is not to stop praying and the Lord will certainly help us,” stressed the Primate of the UOC.

As reported earlier, the Primate of the UOC believes that the spiritual chaos that was provoked by the actions of Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew in Ukraine is our chance to become better and more spiritually perfect.

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