“In the fifth week of Great Lent this year, when the culmination of spiritual repentance of Orthodox Christians takes place, the culmination of the unjust and unforgivable oppression of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the authorities of the Ukrainian state also takes place,” the statement read. statement metropolitan.
According to him, this persecution, which has been going on for several decades and aims to replace the canonical Church with schismatic structures, has intensified considerably after the start of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and in recent days has taken on the character of an attempted liquidation.
“The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine, has always declared and proven its apolitical and national character with statements. Despite this, it has remained the object of countless attacks and attempts to discredit. The campaign of hatred against the representatives and believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church ended these days with the order to leave the monastery of the monastic brothers of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra”, said underlined the head of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia.
Are intimidation and persecution, violation of civil rights and restriction of freedom of religion acceptable in a free and democratic society, asks the hierarch. “The current Golgotha ​​of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – the persecution of its clergy and the humiliation of believers – will not be forgotten by God or by history,” Metropolitan Rostislav is convinced.
