Chancellor: Mobilizing UOC clergy is a deliberate desecration of holy orders
Metropolitan Anthony stressed that, according to Church canons, priests are not permitted to take up arms.
The Chancellor of the UOC, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanych), delivered a sharp critique of the authorities, denouncing systematic persecution of the UOC and calling the forced mobilization of priests “a deliberate desecration of holy orders.”
“In recent times, the Church and Her faithful children have faced so many challenges and trials that it seems nothing could surprise anyone anymore. Our churches are being seized under fabricated pretexts, slander is spread against hierarchs, they are imprisoned and beaten, and believers are driven out of holy places with threats and violence,” the hierarch said in his address.
His strongest criticism was directed at the forced mobilization of clergy. “A priest remains a priest, no matter what those in worldly authority may think, regardless of their high status. To send a priest to the front, when Church canons forbid him to shed blood, is outright sacrilege, a deliberate desecration of holy orders,” the hierarch stressed.
According to Metropolitan Anthony, the authorities consider mobilization “legal” because the exemption from military service does not apply to priests whom they refuse to recognize as clergy.
He also sharply criticized the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, which falsely claims there are “high standards of religious freedom” in Ukraine.
“And what about the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church?! How can this not be seen? One of the largest confessions of the country, a significant part of Ukrainian society and people, is being persecuted. There is no explanation for this – only associations with dystopias of well-known writers come to mind,” Metropolitan Anthony declared indignantly.
The Chancellor drew a historical parallel with the persecution of Christians: “In the Roman Empire, martyrs were once subjected to cruel tortures and executions not for professing Christianity, but for violating laws that required mandatory sacrifice before the statue of the emperor.”
Metropolitan Anthony warned the UCCRO members about the consequences of silence and deliberate lies about “freedom of religion” in Ukraine: “Sooner or later the atheistic, godless agenda will reach them as well. It is naïve to think that by sacrificing your neighbor to the soulless machine, you yourself will remain untouched.”
“By failing to defend the truth and the innocently persecuted, you first become complicit in lawlessness, and then the next inevitable victim. Because unlike earthly laws, which fail, spiritual laws always work,” the UOC Chancellor concluded.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that Yelensky advised UOC clergy to change confessions in order to avoid mobilization to the front.
