By Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America
Globally, it is estimated that more than 365 million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith. That is 1 in 7 of all Christians. In 2023, an estimated 5,621 Christians were killed just for being followers of Christ. An average of 13 Christian martyrs per day. The same year, 14,766 churches and Christian properties were attacked. Nigerian Christians bear the heaviest burden, but over the past couple of years, Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and the Middle East have seen their lives become increasingly difficult and dangerous.
In Ukraine, the Zelensky regime has coordinated the intelligence services, police, militant thugs, and the courts to try and completely eradicate the existence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The Ukrainian authorities are responsible for raiding and seizing churches and monasteries, launching twenty-three baseless criminal cases against UOC clergy, and imposing sanctions on several members of the clergy in Crimea and the Donbas. Clergy and laity alike have been beaten, arrested, shot, and locked out of their own houses of worship. The Ukrainian Government even took control of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Ukraine’s holiest site and the seat of the UOC. In August of 2024, Zelensky went so far as to sign into law Bill 8371 “On Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Field of Activities of Religious Organizations” (better known as the “Law Banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church”) which, supporters and critics alike, acknowledge could be used to completely shut down the Ukrainian Orthodox Church:
This creates legal grounds to prosecute and dissolve parishes and dioceses of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate solely because of their canonical communion with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), even though the Council of the UOC proclaimed the “full autonomy and independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church” on May 27, 2022. The law does not directly mandate the dissolution of the UOC, but only because it does not exist as a single legal entity under Ukrainian law; only its components (dioceses, parishes, monasteries and educational institutions) are legally recognized. Their future will be decided in nine months through court proceedings initiated by state bodies for religious expertise.
President Trump bears a heavy, heavy responsibility for the ongoing persecution in Ukraine. Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was instrumental in creating the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”. This fake church, created with the enthusiastic assistance of U.S. asset Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, was literally adopted by the Zelensky Government as a state church, even though doing so violated Ukraine’s constitution, European law, and modern Western practice. It is the existence of this political abomination that justifies and facilitates the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The birth of the OCU as a result of Trump’s Ukrainian policy, as executed by Mike Pompeo, was explained in The American Conservative article entitled Zelensky vs. the Ukrainian Orthodox Church:
The State Department and politicians of both parties carried out work to promote the new church. Two months before the creation of the OCU in 2018, Filaret and Epifaniy met in the United States with Joe Biden, who declared his gratitude for their work. State Department Ambassador for Religious Freedom Samuel Brownback, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and special representative for Ukraine Ambassador Kurt Volker declared their support for this project.
Immediately after its creation, the OCU received its first official congratulations from the State Department and the U.S. Embassy. At the same time, Ambassador Brownback and the U.S. ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyatt—who was also ambassador to Ukraine from 2013 to 2016—visited church leaders and Mount Athos to urge them to recognize the OCU. Both Ambassador Volker and Secretary Pompeo met with Epifaniy many times. All facts indicate that the promotion of the OCU was part of U.S. policy in Ukraine.
So, has Trump learned his lesson on Ukraine? Is the incoming President going to support freedom for the persecuted Christians in Ukraine, even though their suffering is directly linked to his own former policies?
Maybe.
Unlike Biden or Harris, under whom no hope would exist, Trump has at least staffed his incoming administration with individuals who have expressed sympathy for the plight of the Orthodox Church. Prior to the election, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance spoke out about the persecution of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine. Ukrainian prisoners of conscience wrote to Vance (among other lawmakers). Vance highlighted those letters when speaking against Christian persecution on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Click here to see a video covering the letters and some of Vance’s Senate speech.
As a presidential candidate, Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy decried the atrocities committed against innocent Armenians by Azerbaijan and the banning of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Zelensky Regime.
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to be Director of National Intelligence, took to her Instagram account back in 2023 to denounce Zelensky’s descent into authoritarianism, including his attempt at the time to outlaw the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The closest media persona to Donald Trump is Tucker Carlson. Carlson has brought up the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church multiple times, even challenging former Vice President Mike Pence on the subject during an interview.
Here’s part of the Carlson / Pence exchange below:
“I’m confused on this question. It’s very clear that the Zelenskyy government has arrested priests for having views they disagree with. That’s not consistent with religious liberty, it’s an attack on it and we’re funding it. And I’m just wondering how, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful at all, but I sincerely wonder how a Christian leader could support the arrest of Christian leaders for having different views,” Carlson began.
“The problem is that you don’t accept my answer,” an exasperated Pence responded. “I just told you I asked a religious leader in Kyiv if it was happening. You asked me if I raised the issue and I did. I also raised it with the Ukrainians and I was told that there are religious leaders who are working with the Russian military who is murdering people by the thousands.
“No, you spoke to one person who’s clearly on one side of it and there are many, many news reports that are not disputed by anybody that clergy are being arrested in Ukraine and I’m merely saying I might not agree with it, I’m not Russian Orthodox, but you can’t arrest clergy for having different views. Period,” Carlson said.
Had Mike Pence been elected president, or any of the other “establishment” candidates, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church would have little hope. However, Pence didn’t win. The incoming president is Donald J Trump, and his victory has given the people and hierarchy of the UOC at least some hope for an end to the persecution. Metropolitan Agafangel of Odesa of Izmail, permanent member of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, has published a letter written to President-elect Donald Trump in which His Eminence expresses his prayerful aspirations for a better future:
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which I represent, is the largest religious institution in Ukraine. We have got with great joy the news of your election as one of the most distinguished statesmen of the United States. At all Ukrainian holy sites, we pray for your health and your esteemed wife, Melania.
We believe that with your election as President of the great nation of the United States, peace will come not only to the long-suffering land of Ukraine but to the entire world. We also believe it will improve the treatment of the suffering millions within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which today endures great trials and tribulations while remaining steadfast in its devotion to its people and the Ukrainian State. Our Church clearly understands that peace is a blessing, while war is a grave evil. We hope the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will rise again and, as before, continue its timeless mission alongside other denominations within Ukraine, fostering interfaith and civilians’ peace for the good of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian State. In unity lies our strength!
I sincerely believe and hold good hope that, through dialogue, we can resolve issues related to harmonious interaction and a cooperative model of lawful relations between our State and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which takes its rightful place in the public life of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church comprises millions of Ukrainian citizens, filling our churches today and yearning for victory and a just peace. Thus, the voice of the Church must be heard, and its faithful has the right, guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine, to protect rights and freedoms.
Metropolitan Agafangel. Photo: Odesa Eparchy Facebook page
From His Eminence’s lips to God’s ears! We can only pray that the people around President Trump will keep this issue at the forefront of the policy agenda.
There are some additional pragmatic reasons to think the second Trump Administration will do things differently than Trump I and the outgoing Biden fiasco. President Trump has committed himself to ending the war in Ukraine, though the details of how he will accomplish that remain extremely vague. Regardless of the final details of any peace deal, however, Russia is almost certain to demand an end to what Russian officials have called the “satanic” crackdown on the UOC. As the grinding war of attrition shifts more and more decisively towards Russian victory, freedom for the UOC could easily be a price Kiev is willing to pay to maintain any kind of independence. Even if radicals in Kiev were to insist on continuing to persecute the UOC, given Trump’s desire to pivot away from confronting Russia and towards focusing on the “China threat”, the U.S. is unlikely to tolerate losing a peace deal over it.
In addition, the persecution of the UOC is extremely unpopular on the global stage, and not supported by most Americans who are knowledgeable of the situation. The vast majority of Orthodox Christians around the world still recognize the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, under her saintly ruling primate Metropolitan Onuphry, as the true canonical Orthodox Church on the territory of Ukraine. Multiple international organizations have explicitly condemned the persecution, including the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the World Council of Churches. Orthodox Reflections was able to gather almost 6,000 signatures on a petition condemning the persecution and demanding its immediate cessation. (To see the list of signatures, please click here. To sign the petition, click here. To read the petition verbiage, click here.)
The world knows that Ukraine is wholly dependent on U.S. financial and military support. The persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, therefore, could not be happening without at least tacit U.S. approval. Supporting continued Christian persecution would generate headaches the Trump II team neither wants nor needs.
So for Ukraine, there are valid reasons to hope that a second Trump Administration may significantly improve the lives of Orthodox Christians.
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But what about the Middle East, particularly Syria?
The new “rulers” in Damascus are very concerning, not just for Christians, but for all minorities (religious and otherwise). The militants who toppled the regime of dictator Bashar Assad in Syria are “al-Qaeda and ISIS hiding who they really are” and their rule “will be a disaster for Christians,” predicted Jeff King, the president of International Christian Concern (ICC), in remarks to Breitbart News.
The new man in charge in Damascus, Mohammed al-Jolani, fought against the U.S. in Iraq. He was head of the al-Nusrah Front (an offshoot of al-Qaeda) and merged it with other organizations to create the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Al-Jolani once worked directly under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the now deceased ISIS “caliph.” Recently al-Jolani, with the help of Western media and Intelligence services (same thing really), has been undergoing an extensive public relations makeover. He now wears suits, wants to be referred to by his real name of Ahmed al-Sharaa, and insists in recent interviews he does not intend to persecute any minority groups in Syria.
However, there are more than a few who doubt the sincerity of his pledge to respect minority rights. The U.S. Department of State designated him, as leader of the al-Nusrah Front in 2013, a “global terrorist”. At the time, the U.S. State Department said, “He has stated in videos that his ultimate goal is the overthrow of the Syrian regime and the institution of Islamist shari’a law throughout the country. Under al-Jolani’s leadership, al-Nusrah Front has carried out multiple suicide attacks throughout Syria.”
So a man who has been designated a global terrorist (including having a bounty on his head), leading an organization cobbled together through merging known Islamic terror groups, is now running the show in Damascus. What could go wrong?
But, all that is being swept under the rug as Western nations now queue up to aid HTS. Even though no one has cancelled the $10 million bounty on his head, or rescinded his “global terrorist” designation, Western officials are posing for pictures with him in Damascus as they seek influence in the new Syria. This is hardly surprising. Going back to at least the 70’s, Western governments have been remarkably comfortable working with, funding, and training Islamic terror groups. Cozying up to a murderous, Islamist terrorist seems remarkably on brand.
Put a wanted terrorist in a suit, and suddenly he is a diversity-loving statesmen!
Our Western penchant for funding and training Islamic militants never works out well for the Christians in the Middle East. One just needs examine the absolute destruction of the Assyrian Christian community in Iraq to understand what the Syrian Christians (and other minorities) are likely to face in the coming days. Reports indicate that murder, looting, and desecration have already started.
Assaults and murders of individual Christians have been reported. The Iraqi Christian Foundation, a charity campaigning for Middle Eastern Christians, claimed on 10 December that jihadis had driven through Christian neighborhoods in Damascus “waiving the ISIS flag, shooting bullets, and trying to intimidate the ancient Syrian Christian community.” There is also footage circulating that allegedly shows Islamists firing in the air to celebrate their recent takeover of Krak des Chevaliers, an 11th-century Crusader castle located in the Valley of the Christians (Wadi al-Nasara), an overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian area close to the Lebanese border. Churches have been attacked. According to a video published on 11 December, militants of HTS desecrated the Greek Orthodox Church of Holy Sophia in the town of Suqaylabiyah in Syria’s Hama province. The same church was attacked by militants using drones during its opening just a year ago. One wonders if any more Christian Churches will ever be built in Syria, and whether the historic Churches currently there will even survive?
So all this looks like it could be the beginnings of a very bad time. A bad time that Western powers seem anxious, at least at this initial stage, to white wash and ignore.
Besides the so-called Syrian rebel groups (many of whose militants are not Syrian or even Arab, but recruited mercenaries from as far away as China), there is real concern over Turkey’s role in the region. Turkey appears to have been a primary force behind the fall of the Assad Regime, and is currently occupying parts of Northern Syria.
Since WWII, there has been so much focus on the Jewish “Holocaust”, that Westerners have completely forgotten that modern genocide was actually pioneered by the Turks. They were so good at it, it is said that Hitler himself drew inspiration from their example. At the conclusion of his Obersalzberg Speech on 22 August 1939, Adolf Hitler reportedly said, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
The Turks are not guilty, by the way, of just one genocide of Christians. The Turks are guilty of multiple:
- Between 1915 and 1916, the Turks bathed in the blood of somewhere between 664,000 and possibly as many as 1.2 million Armenians.
- Between 1914 and 1923, Turkish mass slaughters and forced deportations may have killed as many as 900,000 Orthodox Greeks.
- Between 250,000 and 500,000 Assyrian Christians were massacred over the same timeframe.
Those are just the Christian victims. The Kurds have long wanted an independent state, and have fought hard at times to bring one about by carving it out of Turkish territory. The Turks have punished their failure to win independence with extreme brutality. The British consul at Trebizond, during one Kurdish uprising in the 1920’s, spoke of brutal and indiscriminate acts of violence committed by Turkish forces. The diplomat and eyewitness explicitly compared Turkish behavior to the 1915 Armenian genocide. “Thousands of Kurds,” he wrote, “including women and children, were slain; others, mostly children, were thrown into the Euphrates; while thousands of others in less hostile areas, who had first been deprived of their cattle and other belongings, were deported to vilayets (provinces) in Central Anatolia. It is now stated that the Kurdish question no longer exists in Turkey.”
Turkey is an ally of the United States through NATO. An ally that not only occupies parts of Northern Syria, but is also using its air power to back Syrian rebel attacks on Kurdish forces who are actually also U.S. allies.
As Americans, is this really the kind of ally we want? Is this the kind of ally that our government would be willing to stand up to in order to demand protection for Christians and other Syrian minorities? One has to seriously doubt it. Given the obsession our National Security State has with opposing Russia, Iran, and BRICs while backing Israel (with whom Turkish President Erdogan seems quite comfortable, despite periodic tough, but meaningless, rhetoric), it is difficult to see the U.S. doing anything to reign in Turkish excesses in the region.
But Turkey is not the only foreign actor posing a threat in Syria. Israel has seized the opportunity afforded by the fall of Assad to occupy huge swaths of Syrian territory. Pursuant to a well-known expansionist agenda, the Israeli military took control of Mount Hermon, which abuts the Golan Heights and lies within what had been a buffer zone previously separating Israeli and Syrian troops. At the same time Israeli troops were claiming control over Syrian territory estimated to be twice the size of Gaza, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that the Golan Heights (formerly Syrian territory seized in 1967) will be a part of the State of Israel “for eternity.” This was followed shortly by an announcement that the Netanyahu Government plans to double the Israeli population there.
The Israeli Government has said that the occupation of Syrian territory is a “temporary measure”. That is difficult to believe. The current Israeli Government is comprised of the most radically messianic extremists to ever control the Zionist State. Given the commitment of so many religiously conservative Jews to the idea of occupying all the lands of “Greater Israel”, it is not difficult to foresee Israeli troops not only continuing their occupation indefinitely, but also expanding it.
Over the years, prominent Israeli rabbis, now openly affiliated with the Netanyahu Government, have publicly debated whether Jewish power is sufficiently established that all the Christian churches of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and nearby areas can finally be destroyed. After that, the entire Holy Land can be completely cleansed of all traces of its Christian contamination.
Do we really trust the Israelis to rule over more Christians? Do we trust the U.S. Government to protect the Christians in Syria, when it has failed to protect the Christians in East Jerusalem, Gaza, the West Bank, and even within Israel proper?
Israel has also shown, since the fall of Assad, a complete disregard for human life of any kind in Syria. Following the collapse of the Syrian government, Israel conducted about 480 strikes across the country. Most of the Israeli attacks have targeted Syrian military and scientific facilities such as weapons and ammunition depots, aircraft squadrons, radar installations, signal stations, and scientific research centers. However, such wanton attacks, including within major population centers such as Damascus, can’t help but claim civilian casualties.
The U.S. has excused this massive assault on Syria as Israeli self-defense to prevent Assad’s weapons from getting into the hands of “terrorists”. Terrorists that Israeli, Turkish, and Western support put in power. Terrorists who have curiously done nothing to oppose Israeli occupation, or defend against Israeli attacks. Strange behavior for radical jihadists, don’t you think?
A Massive Explosion seen in Northwestern Syria near y the City of Tartus, following an Israeli Strike against a Munitions Depot; with the Explosion reported to have been so large, that it measured as a 3.0 Magnitude Earthquake on nearby Seismic Sensors.
Right now, the situation in Syria is complete chaos. There is every reason to believe that Israel intends to stoke that chaos. Israel is openly musing about breaking up Syria, and additional surrounding Middle Eastern states, into small, mutually antagonistic, easily controlled mini-states:
Now, twenty years later, we have a chance to learn from our mistakes. Instead of thinking big and seeking to preserve Syria in the hope that it will evolve into a multiethnic democracy, we have the opportunity to think small: to support those peoples oppressed by colonial masters who seek self-determination in smaller states and enclaves defined by their community allegiances, reflecting their values, customs, and traditions.
If one of those smaller states was a stable, defensible, and internationally supported homeland for Christians, then this might not be such a bad idea. Such a positive outcome, however, is rather unlikely. More likely is splitting Christians among areas controlled by mutually antagonistic larger ethnicities. Such a “divide and conqueror” policy guarantees perpetual violence, resulting in more persecution, deaths and leading to yet another mass exodus of surviving Christians from the region.
While the Syrian crisis came to a head under Joe Biden, the current mess is at least partially Donald Trump’s fault. The U.S. military has occupied Syrian sovereign territory since 2014, preventing Damascus from accessing its own oil and wheat fields. This was a deliberate strategy to starve the Syrian Government of the revenue necessary to rebuild, grow the economy, and defend itself. In fact, President Donald Trump boasted in 2020: “They say, ‘He left troops in Syria’. You know what I did? I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil. The only troops I have are taking the oil. They’re protecting the oil. I took over the oil”. Trump also expanded sanctions against Syria. In March 2022, statista.com reported Syria was the world’s third most sanctioned country.
Now that our regime change policy has finally succeeded, a policy in which he participated, soon-to-be President Trump has said that Syria “is not our fight”. Not our fight, even though we continue to occupy Syria’s oil fields. Not our fight, even though the new rulers in Damascus are officially considered terrorists by the U.S. Government. Not our fight, even though our support was critical to HTS gaining power.
Not our fight, even though the Christians in the area, not to mention other minorities, are in imminent danger. A fact that Vice President elect J.D. Vance has publicly acknowledged.
Maybe it isn’t our fight, even though we are massively at fault for the current crisis. Maybe we should withdraw our military forces and come home, especially as Israel seems determined to drag us into a war with Iran. But simply because we choose not to fight, does that makes us powerless?
Hardly. The U.S. is about to start funding HTS in Damascus, if we aren’t already. The U.S. contributes billions of dollars to Israel each year. Financial aid without which the Zionist regime could not survive. Turkey is very much reliant on its alliance with the U.S. These facts provide leverage that could be used to demand safety for Syrian minorities in general, and Christians in specific.
Will Trump use any of that leverage to protect Christians in Syria? Doubtful. Trump is creating the most pro-Zionist regime in U.S. history. Not only did Trump win in 2024 with massive Zionist financial support, but his successful coalition depended heavily on Zionist Christian Dispensationalist votes. Trump also has deep personal, business, and family ties to Israel and Zionism. I find it difficult to see Trump, or any member of his administration, making the protection of Christians a centerpiece of Middle Eastern policy.
What eventually happens to the Christian communities in the Middle East, including in Syria, will most likely be decided in Tel Aviv and not Washington. Is there a chance Trump would grow a spine over really blatant slaughter / persecution? Perhaps, but that is largely up to what the U.S. population is willing to tolerate. Past experience indicates our tolerance for the persecution and slaughter of foreign Christians borders on the infinite.
While Trump may deliver a better situation for Christians in Ukraine, there is no real reason to count on him to improve the situation in the Middle East. In fact, the incoming administration may even make things worse. Right now, for those of us who care about our Brethren in Christ in the Middle East, prayer is our best option.
UOC announces number of parishioners at Cathedral assembly in Chernivtsi
A total of 4,506 parishioners participated in the assembly, reaffirming their loyalty to the UOC.
On February 16, 2025, 4,506 parishioners participated in the assembly of the religious community of the Holy Spirit Cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in Chernivtsi, according to the press service of the Chernivtsi-Bukovyna Diocese on Telegram.
“For four hours, registration for the general assembly of the religious community continued inside the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Chernivtsi. After a joint prayer and the chanting of an akathist before the Pochaiv Icon of the Mother of God, a collective vote was held. 4,506 members of the religious community voted to remain within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the leadership of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry,” the press service stated.
It was also emphasized that during the voting, “unknown individuals at Roman Hryshchuk’s rally, posing as a fake community of the cathedral, voted for a transition to the OCU.”
Previously, the UOJ reported that the Holy Spirit Cathedral community in Chernivtsi had reaffirmed its loyalty to the UOC.
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Chernivtsi ‘European Solidarity’ announces exit from ‘Moscow Patriarchate’
Members of Poroshenko’s Party in Chernivtsi announce participation in UOC cathedral religious community assembly.
Members of Poroshenko’s ‘European Solidarity’ party in Chernivtsi announced their departure from two religious communities of the ‘Moscow Patriarchate Church’ and stated that they are no longer parishioners. This was reported in a post on the official Facebook page of European Solidarity – Chernivtsi.
“Today, the religious communities of the two largest churches in Chernivtsi voted to join the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. These are the Holy Spirit Cathedral and St. Nicholas Church. Our European Solidarity team also participated in the voting and the joint prayer service,” the statement said.
When asked in the comments if any ‘European Solidarity’ members attend these Chernivtsi churches every Sunday, the head of the party’s secretariat, Vitalii Yaremchuk, referred to the UOC as the ‘Moscow Church’ and indicated that they do not attend.
The European Solidarity page also published a congratulatory message from Petro Poroshenko, in which he stated that “until now, Bukovyna was a stronghold of the ROC,” and that “the transition of the cathedral itself indicates an important shift in the consciousness of Orthodox Ukrainians.” Poroshenko did not clarify whether he himself had left the ‘ROC,’ following the example of his Chernivtsi party colleagues.
Previously, the UOJ reported that signatures for the ‘transfer’ of churches to the OCU in Chernivtsi were collected deceitfully.
https://spzh.eu/en/news/84995-uoc-announces-number-of-parishioners-at-cathedral-assembly-in-chernivtsi
https://spzh.eu/en/news/84998-chernivtsi-european-solidarity-announces-exit-from-moscow-patriarchate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfYBsjMucuU&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZvpSSee5Vk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehxuGdU7ynU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZA2mwL8hQc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctR4NAFDgJw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGKo9hDMxKw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4dbsUIpQMc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1z4GtJVqvc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z915bTQCRSo
March 8, 2024
A hard post by Alexey Arestovych about abortions: “For me, there can be no compromises on abortions. Limitations of human choice: freedom of choice of a woman and freedom of choice of a child to be born. Abortions are a deep vice of our society.
The thing is that I am a religious person. For me, abortion is the murder of children. I cannot react to it as some kind of sage who is floating somewhere in the clouds and is known for his calmness, irony, and so on. For me, this is the murder of children, nothing more, nothing less”.
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8 марта 2024 года
Жесткий пост Алексея Арестовича про аборты: “Для меня компромиссов по абортам быть не может. Ограниченность человеческого выбора: свобода выбора женщины и свобода выбора ребенка на рождение. Аборты – глубокий порок нашего общества. Дело в том, что я же человек верующий. Для меня аборт – это убийство детей. Я не могу на него реагировать как некий мудрец, который парит где-то там в облаках и известен своим спокойствием, ироничностью и так далее. Для меня это убийство детей, не больше, ни меньше”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88rX5T0IbY4&t=651s
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YaZfxWlvhic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii4vQJ6GFBY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEBBF4-b9vs
Faith Protection
https://spzh.eu/en/zashhita-very/84354-prayers-as-toilet-paper-the-critical-mass-of-sacrilege
Prayers as toilet paper: the critical mass of sacrilege
31 January,2025
The incidence of blatant sacrilege by OCU supporters has multiplied to such an extent that it is time to draw conclusions. Both for Ukraine and the Phanar.
Throughout the years of existence of non-canonical denominations in Ukraine, in all contacts and negotiations about possible reunification, representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) insisted on one condition – the repentance of those outside the Church. After all, without repentance, reunification with the Church is impossible. Opponents of the UOC, in response, claimed that these were just idle “wishes” from the UOC, an attempt to humiliate the opponent and excuses aimed at covering up the unwillingness to unite. In dealings with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, UOC representatives also repeatedly explained: both the Gospel, the teachings of the Church Fathers, and the entire history of the Church testify that without repentance, salvation is impossible, and so is reunification with the Church of Christ: “He who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber…” (John 10:1).
In this context, the gate is repentance. Whoever does not enter by it but tries to sneak in another way is a thief and a robber. Ignoring this has always led to bad consequences. But the Phanariots did not heed this simple truth and wanted to drag representatives of schismatic denominations “in some other way”. If repentance changes a person, cleansing them from sin, then the absence of repentance results in a person remaining as they were, infected by sin. And this sin will inevitably come to the surface.
This is exactly what we see today in the actions of OCU supporters. It has been written many times that true believers, Christ’s followers, cannot seize other people’s churches and property, as the supporters of the OCU do. But there is another phenomenon that clearly demonstrates the true face of the OCU. This is the sacrilegious attitude towards sacred objects, texts and images. Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents; they have accumulated enough for us to draw conclusions.
Wiping with liturgical instructions?
At the end of January 2025, priest Georgiy Izay of the UOC published on his Facebook page a video showing how representatives of the OCU use the UOC’s liturgical instructions, with the order of services in Church Slavonic, as toilet paper.
Texts with prayers, including the name of Christ, the Mother of God and the saints, half-used for corresponding manipulations, are hanging in the toilet near the Trinity Church of the OCU in the village of Krekhaiv, Chernihiv region. Scraps of liturgical texts in Church Slavonic are also lying on the floor near the hole with waste.
Readers will likely ask: how did the OCU get the UOC’s liturgical instructions? The answer is simple – this church used to belong to the UOC community. Father Georgiy Izay, along with the faithful, built this church and decorated it. But one day, the supporters of the OCU took the church for themselves, along with everything inside. And now they have decided “to put it to good use”.
After this news was published on the UOJ website, the press service of the Chernihiv Eparchy of the OCU issued an official statement, denying any involvement in the incident: the toilet is not ours, the Instructions are not ours, and in general, it’s all a provocation aimed at discrediting us. However, these are poor excuses as no matter what toilet the liturgical instructions ended up in, they were taken from the church administered by the OCU. Especially since these texts are in Church Slavonic, which usually causes strong dislike among OCU supporters. This is also evident from the following example.
Is the Bible rubbish?
On 22 April 2023, OCU activists seized the Intercession Church in the village of Trebukhiv, Boryspil Eparchy, cutting off the doors with an angle grinder.
One of the invaders, Yaroslav Bondarenko, started to rummage through the candle box, pulling out Bibles and prayer books and showing them to the camera.
He said the following: “Here’s some rubbish we found. I think we’ll give this book to Bohdana (Drach, a member of the Brovary City Council – Ed.), she’ll utilize it.” He also referred to the prayer books with the Communion liturgy as rubbish. These books featured an image of the Lord Jesus Christ. However, this didn’t bother the OCU supporter – he promised to throw the prayer books in the bin. “Here, the girls found some Katsapian manuals. Complete rubbish, too,” he said. He didn’t even realise how sacrilegious his words and actions were. He posted all of these videos on his Facebook page.
The Bible and the Holy Fathers to the rubbish dump?
On 6 October 2024, a group of raiders from the OCU seized the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos Church of the UOC in the village of Novosilky, Kyiv region. Afterward, for an entire week, they took out icons, the Psalter, the Bible, the Gospel, prayer and spiritual books and threw them all onto a heap of rubbish. When the priest of the UOC community, deprived of its church and robbed, asked if he could at least take something, the OCU representatives cynically called a rubbish truck, loaded the icons and books along with the waste into it and drove them away
The Bible, the Word of God, remains the Word of God, no matter what language it is printed in, no matter what country it is published in. An icon remains an icon, no matter where it is made or in what temple it is located. Any believing person understands this very well, no matter what denomination he/she belongs to. But the OCU supporters do not want to understand this.
An altar with the Holy Gifts thrown onto the street?
Here’s another example. On 1 March 2019, OCU raiders seized the Intercession Church in the village of Kurozvany, Hoshcha district, Rivne region.
After that, the UOC community adapted a private house for worship, where they set up an altar and gathered everything necessary for the Liturgy. But on 12 April 2019, OCU activists raided this house, broke down the doors and threw the altar with the seven-branched candlestick and the Holy Gifts onto the street.
“Such was the fate of crosses, vestments and church vessels. The OCU supporters treated sacred items, intended for Eucharistic service, as if they were just ordinary furniture or dishes. This can only mean one thing: they simply have no understanding of the sacred or the holy, no religious consciousness. These people committed acts after which one should not even go, but simply run to confession. But they clearly didn’t see it that way.
Such examples could be continued, and there are plenty more. There are even more latent cases that didn’t make it into the news feeds. But it’s time to draw conclusions.
Conclusions
On 27th January 2025, at the very moment when OCU supporters were wiping their behinds with sacred texts, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, speaking at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, declared that the Tomos for the OCU “healed divisions and wounds of centuries”. And regarding the OCU, he said: “The development and maturity of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine demonstrate how solidarity and unity work in practice, not just in theory.”
Despite the brutal seizures of churches, violence, the violation of basic human rights and sacrilege against sacred things, the head of the Phanar continues to voice the narrative that his actions in Ukraine to create the OCU have led to untold blessings, unified everyone and healed “divisions and wounds of centuries”. The glaring discrepancy between these words and reality has already become obvious to everyone.
The question is not why Patriarch Bartholomew is so persistent. That’s clear. In his view, the Patriarchate of Constantinople cannot be wrong in principle, and to admit otherwise would be to tarnish the dignity of the “Throne of Constantine”. The question is: how did it come to this? Why are the people he has favoured and accepted into communion doing such things? Why are they committing sacrilegious acts and blatant lawlessness? Where did “His All-Holiness” make a mistake?
If we look at how the communists treated church relics, we’ll notice similarities to our times. Communist Party activists also threw Bibles in the trash, burnt icons, used them to line the floors of pigsties, and threw altars and iconostases into the street. But they didn’t hide their unbelief in God, their hostility towards Christ. At least they were honest about it.
Now, we see similar actions. But here, the people committing such sacrilege and desecration of sacred things call themselves Orthodox Christians. They are convinced that faith in Christ and desecrating Christ go hand in hand. That throwing a Bible printed in Russian into the trash is a good deed. That wiping themselves with liturgical instructions written in “Moscow” Church Slavonic is akin to a victory over the enemy. And Patriarch Bartholomew, instead of pointing out the inadmissibility of such actions (and thereby guiding them onto the path of truth), on the contrary, affirms them in this unworthy state and praises them as good, developed and mature. Ultimately, it turns out as the prophet Isaiah wrote: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).
Therefore, we must start by calling things by their proper names, not deceive ourselves, and not lull our conscience with the tales that everything became wonderful in Ukraine after the Tomos. We must call sacrilege – sacrilege, and blasphemy – blasphemy. And then will come the understanding that, without repenting of all this, one cannot enter the Church and become a true Christian.
https://spzh.eu/en/news/84293-in-an-ocu-church-in-krekhaiv-prayers-are-used-as-toilet-paper-video
https://spzh.eu/en/news/83135-in-novosilky-ocu-activists-dispose-of-icons-from-a-seized-church-as-trash
https://spzh.eu/en/news/83073-unknown-individuals-vandalize-uoc-community-house-in-novosilky-again
https://spzh.eu/en/news/73422-ocu-activist-who-seized-church-in-trebukhiv-calls-bible-rubbish
https://spzh.eu/ua/news/73406-u-trebukhovi-rejderi-ptsu-zakhopili-khram-upts
https://spzh.eu/en/news/84317-four-criminal-cases-opened-against-uoc-believers-over-cherkasy-clashes
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/98_Q2sbJuh8
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J-Pn53drxJU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZU49-1Gyy4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2NvsmiY9rs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYl14PCC-Yk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7cWvrc25Y8
Prayers as toilet paper: a critical mass of blasphemy
January 31, 2025
Cases of outright blasphemy by OCU supporters have multiplied so much that it is time to draw conclusions. Both in Ukraine and in the Phanar.
In all the years of the existence of non-canonical denominations in Ukraine, in all contacts and negotiations on possible unification, representatives of the UOC insisted on one condition – the repentance of those outside the Church. After all, without repentance, reunification with the Church is impossible. Opponents of the UOC responded by claiming that these are all empty “wants” on the part of the UOC, a desire to humiliate the opponent, excuses designed to cover up the unwillingness to unite. In contacts with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, representatives of the UOC have also repeatedly explained: both the Gospel, and the patristic teaching, and the entire history of the Church testify: without repentance, salvation is impossible, and reunification with the Church of Christ is impossible: “Whoever does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber…” (John 10:1).
In this context, the door is repentance. Whoever does not enter by it, but tries to get in some other way, is a thief and a robber. Ignoring this has always led and leads to bad consequences. But the Phanariots did not heed this simple truth and wanted to drag representatives of schismatic denominations “otherwise.” If repentance changes a person, cleanses him of sin, then the absence of repentance leads to the fact that a person remains the same as he was, infected with sin. And this sin still breaks out.
This is exactly what we see today in the actions of the supporters of the OCU. It has been written many times that true believers, followers of Christ, cannot seize other people’s churches and other people’s property, as the OCU supporters do. But there is another phenomenon that clearly demonstrates the true face of the OCU.
This is a blasphemous attitude towards sacred objects, texts and images. Unfortunately, these are not isolated cases; there are already enough of them to draw conclusions.
Wiping our asses with Liturgical Instructions?
At the end of January 2025, the UOC priest Georgy Izay published a video on his Facebook page showing OCU representatives using UOC Liturgical Instructions with the sequence of services in Church Slavonic as toilet paper. Texts with prayers, the name of Christ, the Mother of God and saints, half-used for the corresponding manipulations, hang in the toilet near the Trinity Church of the OCU in the village of Krekhaevo, Chernihiv region. Scraps of liturgical texts in Church Slavonic are also lying on the floor near the sewage hole. Readers are probably wondering: where did the OCU get the UOC Liturgical Instructions from? The answer is simple – this temple used to belong to the UOC community. Father Georgy Izai, together with the believers, built this temple and decorated it. But one “fine” day, OCU supporters appropriated this temple for themselves. With everything that was inside. And now they have decided to use it “for its intended purpose.”
After the publication of this news on the UOPZh website, the press service of the Chernihiv diocese of the OCU made an official statement denying its involvement in the incident: the toilet is not ours, and the Instructions are not ours, and in general this is all a provocation with the aim of discrediting. However, these excuses look pathetic, because no matter what toilet the Liturgical Instructions end up in, they were taken from the temple in which the OCU is in charge. Moreover, these are texts in Church Slavonic, which usually causes strong rejection among OCU supporters. The following example also testifies to this.
The Bible is trash?
On April 22, 2023, OCU activists seized the Pokrovsky Church in the village of Trebukhov in the Boryspil Diocese, cutting off the doors with a grinder.
One of the invaders, Yaroslav Bondarenko, began rummaging through the candle box, taking out and showing the Bible and prayer books on camera.
At the same time, he said the following words: “We found trash here. I think we will give this book to Bohdana (Drach, a deputy of the Brovary City Council. – Ed.), she will dispose of it.” He also called prayer books with the sequence for Communion trash. They have an image of the Lord Jesus Christ on them. But this did not bother the OCU supporter – he promised to throw the prayer books in the trash bin. “The girls found katsap manuals here. “Also complete garbage,” the activist said. At the same time, he did not even understand how blasphemous his words and actions were. He posted all these videos on his Facebook page.
The Bible and the Holy Fathers in the trash?
On October 6, 2024, a group of raiders from the OCU seized the Church of the Nativity of the Holy Mother of God of the UOC in the village of Novosilki in the Kyiv region. After that, for a whole week they took icons, the Psalter, the Bible, the Gospel, prayer books, spiritual books from the church and threw it all on a garbage heap. When the rector of the UOC community deprived of its church and robbed asked to allow him to take at least something, the OCU representatives cynically called a garbage truck, loaded icons and books into it along with real garbage, and took it away.
The Bible, the Word of God, remains the Word of God, no matter what language it is printed in, no matter what country it is published in. An icon remains an icon, no matter where it is made or what church it is in. Any believer understands this perfectly well, no matter what confession he belongs to. But the supporters of the OCU do not want to understand this.
The Throne with the Holy Gifts on the Street?
Here is another slightly earlier example. On March 1, 2019, OCU raiders seized the Holy Protection Church in the village of Kurozvany, Goshchansky district, Rivne region.
After this, the UOC community adapted a private house for worship, where they built an Throne and collected the necessary things for the Liturgy. And already on April 12, 2019, OCU activists raided this house, broke down the doors and threw the Throne with the seven-branched candlestick and the Holy Gifts on the street.
The same fate befell the crosses, vestments and church utensils. The OCU supporters treated the sacred objects intended for the Eucharistic service as simple furniture or dishes. This can only mean one thing: they simply have no concept of the sacred, the holy, they simply have no religious consciousness. These people committed acts after which you should not even go, but simply run to confession. But they clearly did not think so.
We can continue to cite such examples, there are enough of them. There are even more latent cases that did not make it into the news feeds. But it is time to move on to conclusions.
Conclusions
On January 27, 2025, at the very time when the OCU supporters were wiping their aphedron with sacred texts, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, speaking at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, said that the Tomos of the OCU “healed the wounds and disagreements of centuries.” And about the OCU he said: “The development and maturity of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine demonstrate how solidarity and unity work in practice, and not just in theory.”
Despite the brutal seizures of churches, violence, trampling on basic human rights and blasphemy against holy sites, the head of the Phanar continues to broadcast the narrative that his actions in Ukraine to create the OCU have led to untold good, united everyone and healed “the disagreements and wounds of centuries.” The blatant discrepancy between these words and reality has already become obvious to everyone.
And the question is not why Patriarch Bartholomew is so stubborn. This is understandable. In his opinion, the Patriarchate of Constantinople cannot be wrong in principle, to admit the opposite means to lower the dignity of the “throne of Constantine.” The question is, why did this happen? Why do people whom he has blessed and accepted into communion do such things? Why do they commit blasphemous acts, commit obvious lawlessness? Where did “His All-Holiness” make a mistake?
If we look at what the communists did with the church relics, we will notice similarities with our times. Communist Party activists also threw Bibles in the trash, burned icons, covered the floors of pigsties with them, threw altars and iconostases into the street. But they did not hide their disbelief in God, their hostility towards Christ. At least for them it was all honest.
Now we see the same actions. But at the same time, people who commit similar blasphemies and desecrations of relics call themselves Orthodox Christians. They are convinced that faith in Christ and desecration of Christ are perfectly compatible. That throwing the Gospel printed in Russian into the trash is a good deed. That wiping your ass with the Liturgy instructions written in “Moscow” Church Slavonic is akin to victory over the enemy. And Patriarch Bartholomew, instead of pointing out to them the inadmissibility of this (and thereby setting them on the path of truth), on the contrary, affirms them in this unworthy state and tells them how good, developed and mature they are. As a result, it turns out as the prophet Isaiah wrote: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who put darkness for light, and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).
Therefore, to begin with, we need to call everything by its proper name, not deceive ourselves and not lull our conscience with fairy tales about how everything became wonderful in Ukraine after the Tomos. We need to call blasphemy blasphemy, and sacrilege sacrilege. And then comes the understanding that without repentance for all this, it is impossible to enter the Church and become a true Christian.
https://spzh.eu/ru/zashhita-very/84354-kriticheskaja-massa-koshchunstva
https://spzh.eu/en/news/84293-in-an-ocu-church-in-krekhaiv-prayers-are-used-as-toilet-paper-video
https://spzh.eu/en/news/83135-in-novosilky-ocu-activists-dispose-of-icons-from-a-seized-church-as-trash
https://spzh.eu/en/news/83073-unknown-individuals-vandalize-uoc-community-house-in-novosilky-again
https://spzh.eu/en/news/73422-ocu-activist-who-seized-church-in-trebukhiv-calls-bible-rubbish
https://spzh.eu/ua/news/73406-u-trebukhovi-rejderi-ptsu-zakhopili-khram-upts
https://spzh.eu/en/news/84317-four-criminal-cases-opened-against-uoc-believers-over-cherkasy-clashes
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/98_Q2sbJuh8
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J-Pn53drxJU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZU49-1Gyy4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2NvsmiY9rs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYl14PCC-Yk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7cWvrc25Y8
Arestovych: You can’t trample 6.5 million people for loyalty to the Church
10 October 2023 15:31
Oleksiy Arestovych stated that the UOC is 6.5 million parishioners, many of whom defend Ukraine at the front, giving their lives for it.
Oleksiy Arestovych, former advisor to the Office of the President of Ukraine, has stated that it is unacceptable to trample the faith of millions of believers in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), including the soldiers who are parishioners of the UOC and who sacrifice their lives on the frontlines to defend Ukraine. He made these remarks during a broadcast on his YouTube channel.
Arestovych emphasized that it is not permissible to target the 6.5 million people who are part of the UOC, which includes soldiers who are members of the UOC and are giving their lives to defend Ukraine, along with their mothers, relatives, and all who belong to this Church, whether by family tradition or personal choice.
He also reminded that the leadership of the UOC condemned the Russian invasion in its early hours. Arestovych asked whether it is reasonable to consider banning 6 million or even 3 million people. He emphasized that these individuals are not terrorists or involved in subversive activities, as they are sacrificing their lives on the frontlines.
“I remind you that Onufriy condemned the Russian invasion at 7 am, when it was completely unclear whether in 24 hours he would answer to the Russian paratroopers who would come and question him,” Arestovych noted.
Arestovych called for support and assistance to the processes within the Church, rather than attempting to destroy their faith. His statements came in response to concerns and criticisms regarding recent actions targeting the UOC by Ukrainian authorities. He highlighted the need for a more thoughtful and inclusive approach to address these issues.
As reported by the UOJ, Arestovych also mentioned that influential figures in the United States consider attacks on the UOC by Ukrainian authorities as unacceptable.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Arestovych about repressions against UOC: Do we want to be idiots?
15 January 2023 09:22
Arestovych called the repressions against the UOC “primitive political technology of the split.”
Speaking about the repressions against the UOC in an interview with the “There are Rumors” YouTube channel, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the Office of the President, criticized the actions of the authorities against the believers of the UOC.
“Have you seen the headlines on Fox News when the SBU entered the Kyiv-Pechersk and other Lavras: ‘Zelensky declared war on Christianity’? Fox News is the main channel for the Republicans. Are these headlines good for Ukraine? Judging by the processes that are taking place there (in the UOC – Ed.), we need to win over to our side those who are for us and put severe pressure on those who are against Ukraine. Will we instead put pressure on all 6 million believers who go to this Church and who cannot say a word of Russian? They just go there because their grandparents would go there. Are they hence all enemies and agents?!” Arestovich said.
The adviser to the OP added that such political technology unequivocally harms the state.
“Do we seek a normal power or do we want to be idiots for the sake of a primitive splintering technology? This is political technology, not cultural policy. Everything is very simple: either we act like reasonable people or like idiots. So far we are acting like idiots,” he summed up.
https://spzh.eu/en/news/76389-arestovych-you-cant-trample-65-million-people-for-loyalty-to-the-church
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuAeZ1R7Wqo&t=11s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8pabKLcEdY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gvEo6cEGyY
https://spzh.eu/en/news/84000-14-sriminal-sases-initiated-against-cherkasy-cathedral-seizure-perpetrators
12 January, 2025
14 сriminal сases initiated against Cherkasy cathedral seizure perpetrators
The police are delaying the investigation and attempting to reclassify the cases under lesser charges.Fourteen criminal cases have been initiated against the gang that carried out a violent attack during the seizure of the UOC Cathedral in Cherkasy, reported Archpriest Heorhiy Pohranichny, head of the legal department of the Cherkasy Diocese, to First Cossack.
At the same time, according to the legal expert, the police are deliberately delaying the investigation and attempting to reclassify the cases to lesser charges.
“It is unacceptable to classify injuries such as a broken femur of a hieromonk, or the injuries of a deacon who ‘luckily’ lost six teeth, as minor hooliganism. These injuries include fractured ankles and ribs, yet they are currently being classified as minor,” said the priest. He also noted the shooting incident involving OCU activist Davyd Pshenychny, who fired a traumatic weapon at the cathedral cashier Maria Preshchakova, who narrowly avoided losing her eye.
“As for individuals with moderate and severe injuries, such as fractured ankles, broken ribs, and lost teeth, they are undergoing rehabilitation. For the hieromonk, the situation is particularly serious due to his advanced age. A broken femur at such an age is extremely difficult to heal, and he is still undergoing preparatory procedures for a complex surgery,” said Father Heorhiy. Additionally, dozens of people suffered eye burns from tear gas during the incident.
The legal expert emphasized that diocesan lawyers provided police with video evidence of the brawl, clearly showing the involvement of OCU chaplains, including Nazariy Zasadskiy. However, law enforcement officials have neither included them as suspects nor participants in the criminal cases.
Father Heorhiy also noted that the police are trying to reclassify the case under Article 296 of the Criminal Code – minor hooliganism – while diocesan lawyers believe the actions of the perpetrators should be qualified as robbery, if not more serious offenses.
“Despite everything, the police are trying to split these cases into multiple, fragmented parts, rather than consolidating them into a single investigation. They likely hope that the complainants will eventually withdraw their statements, despite already having victim status in the case,” said the legal expert.
Regarding attempts by the authorities and the OCU to legalize the cathedral seizure, Father Heorhiy called the situation absurd.
He stated that the authorities attributed the cathedral to a so-called “Nativity of Christ” community, which they “re-registered.” According to him, this fictitious parish, along with others used by authorities in similar cases, exists only on paper, with no known real activity.
The UOC priest stressed that “the St. Michael’s Cathedral never belonged to a parish; it was under the direct management of the Cherkasy Eparchy. Therefore, re-registering it as such is legally impossible.”
“In order to seize the cathedral, one must first remove its rightful owner. The rightful owner is the administration of the Cherkasy Eparchy. Legally transferring the property to the city’s ownership through a council session or similar means is impossible. It requires proving that the rightful owner no longer exists or has disappeared without responding to public invitations. However, this will not happen because the clergy and faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Cherkasy remain present. They are here, visible, and daily demonstrate their faith,” stated Father Heorhiy.
He added that local authorities are now putting on a show of active management around the cathedral, trying to justify the seizure.
“As for the new ‘owners,’ we see them trying to exploit whatever is available. Some items are already being removed, including construction materials, which is being documented. The city council is also pretending to show concern for the park by cutting down trees and installing benches – something it ignored for years. It is clear this is all a demonstration meant to reduce tensions and distract with other factors,” the priest concluded.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that the UN is awaiting a response from Ukrainian authorities regarding the seizure of the UOC cathedral in Cherkasy.
15 November 2022
Poroshenko Channel Propagandist Calls on Authorities to Ban UOC in Ukraine
Journalist Yanina Sokolova proposes recognizing the UOC as an accomplice of a terrorist state. Yanina Sokolova, an employee of Poroshenko’s “5 Channel”, appealed to the country’s leadership with a proposal to ban the UOC in Ukraine. According to Sokolova, the reason for her appeal was a video from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, in which pilgrims sing the song “Song of the Most Holy Mother of God”, which includes the words “Mother Rus’ is awakening”.
As another justification, Sokolova stated that the UOC allegedly “financially supports the enemy”: “More than once, requests for money for the existence of such churches resulted in the fact that money from these churches was allocated for weapons.” “I still don’t understand why this hasn’t been done yet, what is it: an unwillingness to anger the enemy or to cause some kind of dissonance within society,” said journalist Yanina Sokolova.
She called for the UOC to cease to exist as an “unsafe religious organization that threatens the territorial integrity of the country” and to recognize the Church as an accomplice of a terrorist state. “And I want to tell the Moscow priests only one thing: go to Moscow!” the “5 Channel” employee concluded her speech. Earlier, the Union of Orthodox Journalists reported that a member of parliament from the “EU” demanded that the monks be forcibly expelled from the Lavra and handed over to the OCU.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxqI6TA6DnY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2JRDafG3H8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P22_4Kp-ihY&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-ir9HaQFQ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrRP_dA6-L8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D04TIpf4FYU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTKCPIOuBoI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWoMzcvfqXs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdF9aIAKHC4&t=4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSjdj1oRic8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqvcEkLH2Mc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxHgnoQuI18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRKm2uPUHzQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWAxNmr7GIo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsie7P0nOhM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxX5ZW-OjYk&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWN2iGy1jtE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMrtIWqFCC8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9_bBb54xT4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEj5ZXRcxa0
“The Kremlin hand” in the people’s pockets: who are they, UOC persecutors?
Too often those who attack the UOC the most turn out to be corruptionists or people with guilty consciences. Why?
Persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in recent years has become part of the state’s systemic policy. We have often heard that the necessity of banning the UOC is a “matter of national security”. Deputies and politicians at all levels, followed by many Ukrainians, are convinced that it is impossible to be both a patriot of Ukraine and a member of the UOC at the same time. However, as it turns out, those who most loudly proclaim the defense of national interests are often the ones who are not averse to stealing a substantial sum from the people under the cover of these very cries.
Disguising their actions with rhetoric about national security, officials pursue purely mercenary goals – lining their pockets. The accusations against the Church for numerous violations are simply a diversion from their own crimes.
In this article, we will present several examples of how officials, who have been most outspoken against the Church, later found themselves either in the dock, under suspicion, involved in dubious schemes and machinations, or abroad.
Maxym Kozytsky, head of the Lviv Regional Military AdministrationHe became known for his loud statements against the UOC. It was Kozytsky who was behind the almost complete destruction of the UOC in the Lviv region, including the physical demolition of St Volodymyr’s Church in Lviv. At the end of November, he pathetically declared that there were no longer any UOC communities left in the Lviv region. Today, it is known that Kozytsky is suspected of embezzling millions of hryvnias in humanitarian aid, constructing a “family” road worth 25 million hryvnias leading to a resort owned by his father, as well as having indirect ties with the Russian “Gazprom”.
Anatoliy Bondarenko, Mayor of CherkasyCherkasy became notorious for the most shocking and bloody clashes during the “voluntary transfers” to the OCU. First, the seizure of the Nativity of the Virgin Monastery in 2023, and then the seizure of the Archangel Michael Cathedral. The whole world saw footage of UOC believers and clergy being brutally beaten by OCU activists when their legs, arms, and jaws were broken, when they were gassed and shot at with traumatic weapons.
Naturally, all this would have been impossible without the support of the city leadership. However, Bondarenko not only did not hide this but even boasted of his involvement in the seizures. In particular, after the seizure of the cathedral, the OCU elected him as the head of the parish council. And just before the takeover, the mayor personally announced its “transfer” to the OCU.
Why such activity? The fact is that Bondarenko has long been accused of corruption. Back in 2017, the Prosecutor’s Office issued him a notice of suspicion under Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Abuse of power”) for illegal enrichment worth several million. Publications about this appeared on the all-Ukrainian “Suspilne”. Prior to this, local journalists from “Lakmus” and “1800” relentlessly questioned the mayor about his huge estate on the bank of the Dnieper River, the land for which he had bought at bargain basement prices. The entire city is buzzing about Bondarenko’s schemes. Apparently, through bloody attacks on “Moscow priests”, the mayor decided to prove his patriotism and silence his critics.
Former Mayor of Rivne, Oleksandr TretiakWhile holding office as mayor, Tretiak ran an active campaign against the UOC, strongly supporting the forced “transfers” of communities to the OCU. At the same time, his public service was tainted by corruption scandals. According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Tretiak was accused of “violating the requirements for preventing and resolving conflicts of interest”. In particular, he paid additional bonuses and salaries to the office staff of the city council, for which the court removed him from his position for one year.
It is noteworthy that just one year after taking office as mayor of Rivne, Tretiak bought a house at half the market value, partly financed by a consumer loan from Oschadbank for 30 years. The official told journalists he had bought the house for less than 3 million hryvnias, or about 90,000 dollars. However, it later emerged that the same house had been sold just a month earlier for 220,000 dollars.
Fedir Androshchuk, head of the National Museum of Ukraine’s HistoryIt was Androshchuk who oversaw the demolition of the Tithe (Desiatynnyi) Monastery, calling it “rubbish”. He also organised fundraising for the demolition of the shrine. On his Facebook page, Androshchuk wrote: “It will be very symbolic to finish this clean-up by Easter! Therefore, we ask all concerned citizens to support the fundraising. Let’s protect our history and culture together!”
After some time, he left the country. According to MP Solomiya Bobrovska, Androshchuk went on a business trip and disappeared. “Apparently, he took advantage of his other citizenships (why he has them is another question), went on a trip to Italy and Sweden, and according to the response to my parliamentary inquiry, he went missing at the opening of an exhibition in Lithuania,” Bobrovska wrote. No one has explained how a high-ranking official, in violation of Ukrainian law, holds another citizenship.
Meanwhile, Androshchuk stated that he lives and works in Sweden, whose citizen he is and where he pays taxes. In other words, the official who was involved in the demolition of our sacred sites had no intention of living in Ukraine. He has held the passport of another state (in this case, Sweden) for several years.
Oleksandr Supruniuk, Mayor of NetishynSupruniuk became ill-famed for his harsh attacks on the UOC. He publicly referred to the Church as “biological weapons” and actively supported the seizure of temples. Subsequently, it turned out that his activities were aimed solely at personal enrichment. The situation is aggravated by the fact that Supruniuk profited from the war. For example, drones purchased by the executive committee of the Netishyn City Council at Supruniuk’s behest for over 20 million hryvnias contained components much cheaper than those declared, causing a loss to the budget of more than 6 million hryvnias.
Serhiy Hamaliyi, former Head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional AdministrationHamaliy is another “patriot-foreigner” on our list. According to media reports, he holds a Polish passport, a fact he concealed when appointed to his position. He also kept his long-standing connections with the criminal world under wraps. In 1997, law enforcement detained him for drug possession and racketeering as part of a criminal group. As head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Military Administration, Serhiy Hamaliy actively organized the transfer of UOC communities to the OCU. His methods included forging believers’ signatures and using administrative pressure. Over 30 complaints from UOC believers were submitted to the courts, reporting coercion to “transfers”. On 14 March 2023, Hamaliy was dismissed from his position following a scandal involving drunk driving. A few months later, he made his declaration public, revealing that he earned 17 million hryvnias in 2023 and that his wife had purchased a 180-square-metre house in Poland.
Oleksandr Symchyshyn, Mayor of KhmelnytskyiSymchyshyn is well known for his aggressive attacks on the UOC. In the spring of 2023, Khmelnytskyi became a record-breaker for the number of temples transferred to the OCU, carried oud by Symchyshyn’s administration and, of course, with his knowledge. He also found himself at the centre of a corruption scandal.
But even here, the “refined patriot” turned out to be a corrupt official. He implemented a scheme “straight from the repertoire” of Ostap Bender: the city takes out a loan for a waste processing plant, which is paid off from the city budget, and then waste removal companies raise their prices. This created a situation where the city’s residents paid twice, and the potential amount of embezzlement exceeded one billion hryvnias. Meanwhile, the declared loan amount was 28.5 million euros, while the total cost of the project was 36.5 million euros. This discrepancy attracted the attention of representatives from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Mykhailo Holovko, head of the Ternopil Regional Military AdministrationMykhailo Holovko made highly expressive calls to the central government to transfer the Pochaiv Lavra to the local council. Why? To expel the UOC from there and hand it over to the Uniates. He stated that the regional council would initiate an appeal to Kyiv to transfer the Pochaiv Lavra into the ownership of the regional community. “And we will already find a way to expel the Russian Church from there, we will find a way to break the contract,” Holovko promised.
He made this statement on 21 June 2023, and just five days later, on 26 June, Holovko was arrested for extorting nearly 1.8 million hryvnias from a volunteer in exchange for signing completion acts for construction and repair work on municipal facilities.
Conclusions: Corruption and persecution of the Church as related phenomenaWe have presented only seven examples of the most prominent “patriot-corruptionists”. In reality, there are many more. Their tactics are simple yet highly effective – to pit the people against each other to distract them from their shady dealings. There is a cartoon on the web that very accurately captures the essence of this strategy.
Thus, it becomes clear: the persecution of the UOC often serves as a “security smokescreen” for corrupt schemes. Shout about “Moscow priests”, and suddenly you are a refined patriot beyond any suspicion. Ukrainian officials act like skilled manipulators and con artists – with their talk of “agents in cassocks”, they simply distract public attention from their own crimes. By loudly proclaiming from high podiums that the Church should be banned, they create the illusion of fighting for national interests, while simultaneously increasing their personal wealth.
In other words, if you hear politicians claiming that the Church is the “Kremlin hand”, pay close attention to where their own hands are at that moment. Because in 99 out of 100 cases, those hands are reaching into your pockets.
https://spzh.eu/en/zashhita-very/83490-the-kremlin-hand-in-the-peoples-pockets-who-are-they-uoc-persecutors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rjf3YZSA3c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLQfdxa4YUY&t=11s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P22_4Kp-ihY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdF9aIAKHC4&t=4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P22_4Kp-ihY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsFFCIkDIzw
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LHLdN_2XARU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEy1RD8StNM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG20LfNrH3w&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNfXP9V-Tg0&t=238s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLUo5Cf7iOQ&t=46s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DhNsrvQNHc&t=11s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9TWlAOhPus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPnnza0VA5c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdlElx9-GDs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRuonVwPFTU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGk-H2wGeC4&t=3s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A3cBNSP33w&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_xtjiAu0bg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC1M6U2sibg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmvSXKejas0&t=8s
Zelensky: For the second time in new history, Christmas unites all Ukrainians
The President congratulated Ukrainians on the Nativity of the Lord.President Volodymyr Zelensky has extended Christmas greetings to Ukrainians, emphasizing that all Ukrainians are celebrating Christmas according to the Revised Julian calendar on December 25. The video message was published by the Office of the President.
“For the second time, we celebrate Christmas on the same date as one big family, one country. For the second time in modern history, Christmas unites all Ukrainians. Today we are side by side. And we will not get lost. Whether in person or in our minds, we will greet each other, call our parents, kiss our children, hug our loved ones, and remember those close to us. In person, from afar, or in our hearts – Ukrainians are together today. And as long as we do this, evil has no chance,” the head of state noted.
According to the president, the true spirit of Christmas lies in the unity and warmth that Ukrainians, despite challenges, preserve in their hearts and share with those around them. “This unique atmosphere is something we will keep within ourselves, no matter what, and share with those around us. With everyone we love. With everyone who is so dear to us,” he added.
https://spzh.eu/en/news/83690-zelensky-for-the-second-time-in-new-history-christmas-unites-all-ukrainians
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I8O45lqT4Yk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-pKYjx5PNE&t=4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eotBqHztVS8
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sBwBN-9Edfo
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J-Pn53drxJU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkixpNm8kjM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWZgqUl3Puo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBhjolzI7jw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWy4pdz0oGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGcm8noyWQ0
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WKMJjXbu0UI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY2s55u9ROg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY2s55u9ROg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPw7J7LYUt0&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNfXP9V-Tg0&t=238s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoSmgTsbnPs&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHkeoqysqV4&t=10s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTUTT_X8gL4&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z64iCncg3V0&t=115s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkq9jRCkvNg&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byASX5z5BZ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLPvqY4DCZ8
Another case opened against human rights activist Kokhanovska
A fourth charge has not yet been formally presented to the head of “Women’s Power of Ukraine”; the authorities limited their actions to a search.
On December 21, 2024 law enforcement conducted a search at the apartment of Orthodox human rights activist Viktoria Kokhanovska in connection with a fourth criminal case opened under Article 161, Part 1 (inciting religious enmity and hatred). Kokhanovska shared a video with her comments on the Women’s Power of Ukraine channel.
During the search, phones, flash drives, and laptops were confiscated. Kokhanovska claims that the new case was initiated because previous cases were “falling apart, and they need to create problems.” In the video, she states that the case was opened over a post by a priest’s wife, which Kokhanovska had shared on her social media.
The police came to Kohanovska’s home the day after a missile strike on Kyiv, during which her building was damaged.
Although a fourth charge has not been formally presented to the head of “Women’s Power of Ukraine,” investigators limited their actions to confiscating equipment. Kokhanovska’s status in the fourth criminal case remains undetermined.
As previously reported by the UOJ, on April 19, 2023, the investigative department of the Pechersk Police Department initiated a criminal case under Part 3 of Article 296 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (hooliganism) after Kokhanovska and other believers opened building No. 39 of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, which had been unlawfully sealed by reserve staff and law enforcement.
On the same day, police forcibly detained Kokhanovska near the Lavra. On April 21, she was placed under 24-hour house arrest and informed of charges under Article 161, Part 1 (inciting religious enmity and hatred).
On August 15, Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officers conducted a search at her apartment, and the following day, the SBU presented her with a new charge under Part 2 of Article 436-2 (denial of Russian aggression).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlxbH87kyAY&t=10s
https://spzh.eu/en/news/83661-another-case-opened-against-human-rights-activist-kokhanovska
President Volodymyr Zelensky: the story of one mistakeIn 2019, the Orthodox voted for Zelensky because they saw him as the antipode of Poroshenko. Today we have a completely different person in front of us. Why?
In December 2024, Ukraine was shaken by a scandal – a cooking show was filmed in the Refectory Church of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Many Ukrainians, including high-ranking representatives from various religious denominations, called this event sacrilegious. At the same time, the show’s producer, AKIM HALIMOV, instead of apologizing, suddenly attacked the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was expelled from the Lavra’s Refectory Church nearly two years ago. AKIM HALIMOV referred to the UOC as “filth” and “Muscovites” and urged the authorities to “throw it out of our country”. At first glance, this seemed like the reaction of an emotionally unstable individual. However, this is not entirely the case. Halimov’s statement reflects the state of the ecclesiastical sphere in Ukraine as of the end of 2024.
The level of religious intolerance in Ukraine has reached a “red line”. This intolerance is directed exclusively at one (and the largest) religious denomination in the country – the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which nearly a quarter of modern Ukraine’s population identifies with, amounting to over 6 million people. Its communities are being systematically liquidated (the authorities in Lviv region have declared that they have completely cleansed the area of parishes belonging to this denomination). Its churches are being physically demolished (there are reported cases in Kyiv, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk). Furthermore, the country has been rocked by scandals involving the forcible transfer of churches from the UOC to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which in practice often resemble militarized seizures. During such incidents, believers, priests, and even bishops sustain severe injuries. For instance, during the seizure of the cathedral in Cherkasy, Metropolitan Theodosius suffered a concussion after being struck with a bat, and parishioners were shot at with traumatic weapons by individuals in camouflage right inside the cathedral. Additionally, a special law, 3894–IX, has been drafted and enacted against the UOC, aiming to dismantle this denomination in one sweeping blow. In effect, the authorities have declared war on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and are conducting it by all the rules of military strategy.
Most political scientists and experts agree that behind all this looms the dark shadow of one person – President Volodymyr Zelensky. This is especially strange given that, at the beginning of his presidency, his position on religious matters was the exact opposite.
As a presidential candidate, in April 2019, he stated to RBC Ukraine: “The issue of religion is number one. We never discuss things that divide families and society. I never do that. Never.” After becoming president, he convincingly said that, regardless of religious affiliation, the main idea for Ukrainians should be to live with mutual respect: “Would it really matter to us which Church Kadeniuk or Lobanovsky go to?” And in a meeting with the believers of the Rivne Eparchy of the UOC in May 2019, Zelensky emphasised that “the state should not interfere with the Church”.
This position distinguished Zelensky favorably from his rival in the presidential elections, Petro Poroshenko (the sitting president at the time), who based his campaign on persecuting the believers of the UOC and aggressively promoting another Ukrainian denomination, the OCU. It was under Poroshenko’s presidency that the systematic persecution of UOC communities began, with the aim of forcing them to join the OCU.
Zelensky himself, while heading the popular comedy television project “95 Quarter”, mocked his opponent for this, referring to the Tomos (the document granting legitimacy to the OCU) as a “thermos”.
Thus, Volodymyr Zelensky positioned himself as a politician detached from church matters, which is quite in line with the provisions of the Ukrainian Constitution (it states that the Church is separated from the state).
As a result, it was Zelensky who won the 2019 election. Poroshenko, who had bet on the “Armovir” (Army-Faith-Language) slogans, suffered a resounding defeat. Thus, the new President could not fail to understand that using the religious issue for political purposes was not only illegal but also counterproductive. Nevertheless, by the end of 2024, we see that Zelensky has resumed the persecution of the UOC, doing it much tougher than his “teacher”. But at what point did the current President decide to change his policy towards the Church? And for what reasons?
Power and the UOC: a sudden 180-degree turnaround
Undoubtedly, the turning point was the war that Russia unleashed against Ukraine. However, the UOC showed in the very first hours of the war whose side they were on. On the first day of the invasion, Metropolitan Onuphry condemned Russia’s aggression and called on his flock to defend their Homeland. This position was reaffirmed in all subsequent statements by the UOC Synod. In May 2022, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church held a Council, during which it actually severed all ties with the Russian Orthodox Church and made these changes to its Statute (“Constitution”, the governing document of the Church). In other words, the UOC showed that it was with the people of Ukraine.
Zelensky saw and knew this. On 12 March 2022, he thanked the UOC for its assistance in organizing a humanitarian convoy to besieged Mariupol. The same attitude was shown by all other representatives of the government. The head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, wrote in March 2022 that “useful idiots” were spreading the idea of a religious conflict in society due to the presence of a “Russian Church” in Ukraine. The same sentiment was expressed in April of that year by the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk, who commented on the idea of a legislative ban on the UOC: “During the war, we have no right to adopt any law that divides Ukrainian society.” A similar stance was taken by Yermak’s advisor and the de facto spokesperson for the President’s Office, Mykhailo Podoliak, who, during this period, called for “not speculating” on the issue of banning the UOC, because otherwise, “we may face internal conflict, and today, unity, which Ukraine has demonstrated to the world, is far more essential and much more important.” Furthermore, Podoliak stated at the time that the UOC was a structure different from the ROC, one that rejected Russian aggression. It is important to note that this was said before the UOC Council.
Oleksandr Tkachenko, the then Minister of Culture, in September 2022, sharply reprimanded journalists who referred to the UOC as the “Moscow Patriarchate”: “I do not know any ROC representatives in Ukraine. There is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which, at the last Synod, distanced itself precisely from the ROC.”
But then, not much time passed before government representatives began saying completely opposite things about the UOC.
In January 2023, Podoliak stated that the UOC was a “propaganda institute” that “works for the values of another country”. Other figures of our research made similar claims during this period. Stefanchuk said that the UOC “poses a national security threat to Ukraine”. Tkachenko, completely forgetting his previous statement that he “did not know about the ROC in Ukraine”, calmly referred to the UOC as the “Moscow Patriarchate” and claimed that it allegedly supported the war. In other words, within two to three months (from September 2022 to January 2023), the authorities made the decision to completely change their stance towards the UOC.
What happened? Could it be that representatives of the Church took some hostile actions towards the state? No. The UOC still helps the army more than any other denomination, supports migrants and victims of hostilities. In addition, it is the UOC that has suffered the most from the war. The majority of the hundreds of destroyed churches belong to this denomination, and dozens of its clergy have been killed or wounded during the fighting.
Nevertheless, Volodymyr Zelensky suddenly begins his attack on the UOC. On 1 December 2022, he held a meeting of the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC), during which he instructed to draft a bill to ban the activities of “religious organizations affiliated with the Russian Federation” and gave the go-ahead to expel the UOC from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. The President also ordered the “activation of measures to identify and counteract the subversive activities of Russian intelligence services in Ukraine’s religious sphere”. At the same time, large-scale searches by the SBU have been taking place in monasteries, churches and eparchial offices of the UOC across the country since the end of November.
In fact, the Ukrainian secret police found nothing, and their actions were more of a public intimidation nature. They were meant to show society that “there is no smoke without fire”, and that the UOC is an enemy of Ukraine.
Obviously, the task of black PR against the Church was assigned not only to the Security Service but also to Zelensky’s former media colleagues.
Almost all central and regional media outlets in Ukraine began to talk about the UOC in a derogatory and offensive manner, labelling it as “Kremlin supporters”, “agents of Putin”, “FSB agents”, and so on. But the President’s friends from the “95 Quarter” went the furthest. After Zelensky’s statement on the UOC, they released a blasphemous issue of the program “Bayraktar News”, in which they said that “Ukraine bans on its territory the activities of the Russian father, the Moscow son and the bunker spirit”. (a direct mockery of the dogma of the Trinity). The actors also made crude remarks on air about the UOC, using offensive language and de facto called for the beating and killing of priests. This program sparked mass outrage among Ukrainians. Lawyers for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church filed a lawsuit, but it had no consequences. And everyone understands for what reasons. The head of the SBU, Maliuk, openly stated on “1+1” that all issues related to his organization’s work on the UOC are personally overseen by Zelensky: “Right now, all of this is happening under the leadership of our President of Ukraine.”
The beginning of terror
In fact, after this program and the inaction of law enforcement, a green light was given for the harshest actions against the UOC. Since then, there has been a surge in violence against the clergy and believers of the Church.
On 25 December 2022, in a UOC temple in Chornomorsk, a man with a knife attempted to stab a priest during a service. On 2 January 2023, in a UOC church in Vinnytsia, an offender slit a priest’s throat with a razor. In April 2023, a thug attacked Bishop Nikita of Ivano-Frankivsk on the street and punched him in the face several times. In November 2023, during the seizure of the UOC Monastery of the Nativity of the Holy Theotokos, Priest Serhiy Pashchenko was brutally beaten – his jaw was broken in two places. At the same time, an elderly parishioner, Oleh Slobodianyk, had his leg broken. And these are just a few of the most well-known examples. In reality, there are many more.
In the spring of 2023, a wave of mass and brutal seizures of UOC temples began in Western Ukraine, which, with varying success, has continued across the country to this day. In fact, UOC eparchies in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions have been completely destroyed, with a dire situation in the Ternopil, Volyn and Khmelnytskyi regions. Almost all the UOC churches in the Kyiv region have been seized.
At the same time, the authorities pretend that none of this is happening. Officials and representatives of “court” denominations convince the West that Ukraine is a country of exceptional religious freedom. Those who speak the truth are thrown into prison, as happened to the UOJ journalists. The persecution of the UOC is only openly discussed abroad. Among those speaking out was the new US Vice President JD Vance, and similar statements were made by politicians such as Catherine Whiteford, Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission.
Yet, the question remains: why did Volodymyr Zelensky start this shameful campaign against his own people? After all, the millions of UOC believers are just as Ukrainian as everyone else: atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and so on. Their right to religious freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution. Why is this right so cynically taken away from them?
“Do you want to lose the war? Then start a war against God, ban the Church”
Perhaps, we should go back to that period of 2022, when Zelensky, together with his entourage, so lightning-fast changed his attitude to the church issue. Let us recall that it happened in November-December. It was the time when the lightning counter-offensive of Ukraine, which resulted in the liberation of significant territories of the country, was booted and in fact ended. At the same time, the people on a wave of euphoria expected more and more victories. And they were demonstated to the people. Victories over their own fellow citizens.
Faithful soldiers began to massively record appeals from the front to the authorities, demanding to stop repression against their Church.
“There are millions of us, Orthodox,” said one of the warriors and called on the authorities to stop the persecution of the UOC. Another remarked that he was defending not only the state but also his Church at the front.
Well, one of the priests explained that the war against the UOC would lead Ukraine to defeat.
“Do you want to lose the war? Then start a war against God. Ban the Church. Take away the temples. Beat and abuse the priests. Beat and abuse their parishioners. And you will lose the war. Because not a single person in history has ever won nor will anyone ever win a war against God – this is an obvious thing,” the clergyman said.
These words were said at the beginning of 2023. And now, almost two years later, it is difficult to claim that he was wrong. After Zelensky began the terror against his own Orthodox citizens, the situation on the front line is not encouraging for Ukrainians. One could call it a coincidence, or one could see a pattern.
Petro Poroshenko, who once made the “victory” over the “wrong” Church the main trump card of his policy, has ingloriously lost. Volodymyr Zelensky, who is undoubtedly a talented and intelligent man, decided to follow in Poroshenko’s footsteps. And so, he is making the same mistake.
Those who fight against God have no prospects.
https://spzh.eu/en/zashhita-very/83622-president-the-story-of-one-mistake
https://spzh.eu/en/news/83563-song-and-dance-ensemble-performs-in-lavras-refectory-church
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLPvqY4DCZ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdu_86vUhlk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEQ5GhnTCr4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrS2v-YUs3g&t=17s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65dzE4xCqQY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sETtE9cj8vQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JD2cYnmXKI&t=1696s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBjIr0YBb2o&t=3s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxDlK2Vh5us
The Jews will blow up the Church of the Holy Sepulcher so that they can build a Dunkin Donuts. Then evangelical protestants will use American libertarianism to say that the Jews have property rights and can build whatever they want on their own private property and that Dunkin Donuts deserves to be there because of the free market. They’ll also say that sacred spaces don’t exist and that the church is just Catholic superstition anyway and doesn’t count as Christian. Then they’ll raise money to build the third temple and worship the Antichrist and all go to hell, because protestants worship the same demon god as the Jews.
Regarding the Armenian genocide, the Young Turks Revolution was driven by crypto-Jews from Thessalonica. Hitler’s alleged Holocaust was just karma.
Every Jew has a personal demon assigned to him that whispers blasphemy, greed and sexual perversion into his mind. That’s why we have an exorcism at baptism.
Karma? That’s a dharmic concept, not a Christian one. Your statements are as incoherent as they are hysterical.
I’m using the term colloquially. Let’s not be Talmudic about words.
Could also be phrased that he who lives by the sword will die by it.
Also, if I sound like a “crazy conspiracy theorist” for saying that the Jews did the Armenian genocide, here they are admitting it in their own publications.
https://www.dailysabah.com/feature/2017/10/13/jewish-community-in-ottoman-empire
“As a result of the Jewish lobby’s recommendations, the Young Turks government removed Armenians from Anatolia in 1915. Hence, the economy of the country was left in the hands of Jewish capital.”
Most “antisemitic accusations” they admit to when talking among themselves.
Now that is a new wrinkle on the subject. The Zionist captivity of Erdogan has historical precedent. Puts the Freemasonic history of the Patriarchs of Constantinople potentially in a new light. The assumption was that Freemasonry provided inroads to the English aristocrats and bureaucrats, but could have been about more than that.
Oh, it gets crazy.
https://orthochristian.com/138415.html
At a reception in his honor following a prayer service at a New York synagogue, Abp. Athenagoras “said he had ‘enjoyed the ceremonies very much’ and that he was ‘particularly pleased because most of this congregation of Greek Jews is from my own town of Yanina.’
“’We are of the same town and I am very proud of them,’ he added.” And he confesses: “‘In Corfu, where I once lived, I acted many times as rabbi for my Jewish friends.’”
Eventually the EP will canonize him as a saint. People tell me that it will never happen, but wait and see. They’ll also canonize Bartholomew.
Satan works in secrecy, and the Jews do everything in secrecy. “They say” that if every secret of Hilary Clinton were exposed, the world would erupt into war, and so it’s a good thing that her crimes are covered up. But when you notice the pattern, you see it all through the Orthodox Church as well.
These high-ranking clergy, they all have their secrets. Secret doctrines, secret agendas, secret histories, secret friends. This is as true on the geopolitical level as at the local level. I don’t mean mystery, privacy or insularity — I mean secrecy. I’ve met many monastics who have the aesthetics perfect, and they easily impress gullible priests, but when you dig into their past just a little, you find layers of things they are wanting to keep hidden.
But Jesus spoke openly. He spoke in riddles, but he told the disciples that he made all things known to them because they are his friends. The Orthodox Church has no secret doctrines. Everything is laid out clearly, even if it may take years of self-study to uncover. We have no multiple levels of initiation.
And these secrets, they will all be exposed at the Second Coming. Jesus also promised that everything will be brought to light. The day is coming when there will be no more secrets.
The answer is: I doubt it.
Nicholas,
First, I thank you for this article, which raises a fair question, for all Orthodox Christians, everywhere: Will President Trump be a “champion” of Orthodoxy is some, even limited, way?
My short answer is: No, not directly because his direct and immediate interest aligns more with the Zionists who surround him, including his son-in-law. And, I believe it is beyond argument that one cannot be a Zionist and and proclaim to be an Orthodox Christian concurrently. I see this as same hypocrisy as being a Freemason and proclaiming to be an Orthodox Christian.
My longer answer is “Yes, temporarily and indirectly by delaying the West’s (including Orthodox Christian hierarchs) rapid freefall into the apostasy promoted by various anti-Christs who have embedded themselves in all levels of Western democracies and have laid the foundation that will usher in THE Anti-Christ. Trump is a flawed man … but, our Holy Tradition has revealed several flawed men, including in Christ’s human genealogy (which those Orthodox Christian faithful already know and will be reminded of in the Divine Liturgy on Christmas eve or morning, depending on your parish priest). For this point, just think of what the next four years would have been like if Kamala had been elected. Trump hasn’t even taken office and yet major, powerhouse corporations have begun changing policies that were clearly anti-Christian. And, world leaders are also changing their stance on so-called “wokism” that reached a crescendo in America, and, arguably, globally, during the Biden administration.
Look, we’ll see what Trump does for Orthodoxy in the next four years but, for those who know and take Christ at His Word, we know that a great tribulation is coming for all Christians that will include various forms of suffering that will test our faith before Christ comes to put a stop to it and end this age as we know it. The point of this final comment is this: do not put your faith in any man except the Son of Man!
Now, let me also address the commentators who do what commentators typically do in every social media forum: they make comments intended to detract from the essence of the article in a way that tends to degenerate the dialogue of points and counterpoints.
For example, it is fair to point out that in the Ukrainian conflict, there is plenty of blame to go around to various “actors” and to argue that the article in issue is too sympathetic, in the commentators opinion, to one side , using facts. This is perfectly OK … as long as there are facts to support that opinion. If not, then the author of the article can and should respond to point out the factual errors, as Nicholas did.
For example, I am not a Putin fan or apologist but, I don’t think this FACT is in dispute: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (“UOC”), which was under the Russian Patriarchate, did not engage or sanction persecution of anyone in the Ukraine, regardless of whatever one may think of the leader of the Russian Patriarchate or the secular leader of the country in which that patriarchate resides.
Here’s another FACT: Under Putin’s 24 year (and counting) reign in Russia, approximately 20,000 Orthodox Churches in Russia were restored or founded.
Is the same true of the Orthodox Church of the Ukraine (“OCU”) which was illegitimately “legitimized” by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for a pay-off by Mike Pompeo (who, by the way, was appointed by Trump)? The pictures of battered Orthodox Priests and Monks of the UOC and the jailings and prosecutions of the UOC hierarchs are indisputable FACTS that no one can deny.
Look, here’s the bottom line for me about the Ukrainian conflict: the devil has won a temporary battle in that Orthodox men are killing each other while evil men get rich from this conflict. That is the saddest part for me. And, now that Syria has fallen completely, I think that same will happen there.
For all Orthodox brothers and sisters, let us remain watchful, prayerful and, optionally, “respectfully vocal” about things that don’t seem right to us as we progress on our Orthodox paths.
Agreed. “And, now that Syria has fallen completely, I think that same with happen in Russia, fully supported by Kirill, who proclaimed the Russian invasion “a Holy War”, and by implications that war crimes are ok. And the failure of the Patriarchs to protest and contest this assertion by Kirill speaks loudly about their complicity in this scheme. For …..silence is complicity…..as Jesus noted……”deliver us from evil”, unless any Orthodox Christian edits this verse from the Lord’s Prayer and their spiritual life. What say you Dmitar, and Nichholas, who is devoted to Free Speech for Orthodox, even when they disagree?
Would comment, but have absolutely no idea what you just wrote. Let us be clear on something. Gaza is a mass murder as the Palestinians have no means to resist. We can debate the use of the term genocide, but it is absolutely not a war. What is happening in Ukraine is a war. Not everything done in war is a war crime. If it is, then legitimate combat action of any sort, even self defense, is not allowed. The only justified response to any aggression is pacifism in that case. You can argue for it. We have published people who do. But you must understand what you are endorsing.
The war in Ukraine was not Russia’s fault. “During his Direct Line speech, Putin acknowledged that the past three years were a serious challenge for Russia and himself personally.
A quote that I found to be the most interesting: “If we could look back at the situation in 2022, I believe that the decision we made should have been made earlier. Knowing that, we should have started preparing in advance. The SMO and the events in Crimea were spontaneous decisions. We simply couldn’t tolerate what was happening anymore. The Ukrainian government openly stated that it would not abide by the Minsk agreements and started exerting military control over Donbass, while also destroying everything Russian. We had no choice but to act.”
https://x.com/RWApodcast/status/1869736232453898299
About the Patriarch of Moscow, he has been called out for going to hard after justifying a war he really didn’t need to justify. That is something he has already been taken to task over. None of that has any bearing on the UOC, which you and Mike seem incapable of addressing. The persecution of the UOC is funded by our tax dollars. It has nothing to do with Moscow. The fact that we pushed this war through Kiev as a proxy is not Russia’s fault, or the average Ukrainian, that is ours.
Back in 2019, the Rand Corp was already speculating on how to damage and “extend” Russia, long before the SMO. Antagonism to Russia is a bedrock policy of the U.S. Yet, all of this should be shucked off on the Patriarch?
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html
It seems Michael has a valid point. Jesus did not like hypocrisy, at all. It was a major point of His ministry on earth. May His Truth prevail!
Where is the hypocrisy in the article?
And Patriarch Pavle of Serbia , Bless his memory, noted in regard to war crimes: “The Serbian Church and I are accused of inciting war to preserve Great Serbia. I declare if committing a crime was necessary to preserve Greater Serbia, I would never agree to it. Let Greater Serbia disappear then…….If at such a cost, it were necessary to preserve the last Serb and I myself were that last Serb, I would not give my consent. Let us disappear, only in this disappearance let us remain Christ’s people. ”
And Jesus Christ, Himself said” And lead us not innto temptation; but deliver us from evil.” Was our Blessed Lord wrong? Does it not apply to all? Even the Patriarch of Moscow, and the Patriarch of Antioch?
Those who truly believe in Free Speech don’t attempt to control the narrative. Or do they?
I’m saddened that a Christian blog would forget to include the Parable of the Good Samaritan, regarding the villians Kirill and John X depicted as the Priest and the Levite who looked the other way, as the Good Samaritan, the heretical Jewish sect as the hero. Along the photo of the Synasis of the Holy Council of Antioch, and the War Criminals Putin and Asaad as their heroes. Truth hurts, but it is still the Truth….for: “I am…..” Big challenge for the integrity of this blog……
No challenge to our integrity at all. You have been warned about comments that are unrelated to the article. The article does not discuss Patriarch Kirill, John X, Putin, or the Assad regime. Nor does it need to, as the focus is on U.S. policy and the actions of U.S. allies.
To the contrary, it accurately depicts the hypocrisy of the article, as did Jesus Christ, on many occasions that I can recall. Search the Holy Gospels of Jesus Christ, you may find some as well. Eye’s open, ears open, heart repentant, it’s a good combination. Beware of False Prophets, said Jesus Christ.
What hypocrisy, Mike? Your nonsense is about to get your comments rejected. Again.
To the contrary, it accurately depicts the hypocrisy of the article, as did Jesus Christ, on many occasions that I can recall. Search the Holy Gospels of Jesus Christ, you may find some as well. Eye’s open, ears open, heart repentant, it’s a good combination. Beware of False Prophets, said Jesus Christ.
Those who truly believe in Free Speech don’t attempt to control the narrative. Or do they?
And Patriarch Pavle of Serbia , Bless his memory, noted in regard to war crimes: “The Serbian Church and I are accused of inciting war to preserve Great Serbia. I declare if committing a crime was necessary to preserve Greater Serbia, I would never agree to it. Let Greater Serbia disappear then…….If at such a cost, it were necessary to preserve the last Serb and I myself were that last Serb, I would not give my consent. Let us disappear, only in this disappearance let us remain Christ’s people. ”
And Jesus Christ, Himself said” And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.” Was our Blessed Lord wrong? Does it not apply to all? Even the Patriarch of Moscow, and the Patriarch of Antioch?
saved for posterity….
What crimes are you accusing the Patriarchate of Antioch of having committed? Having a relationship with the government in Damascus? Because regardless of the nature of the new govt, the Patriarchate will seek to have one with it as well. Nor will the Patriarch foster rebellion, as he should not. Your aging boomer penchant for moral judgment of those in impossible situations is so typical of a generation that destroyed this nation. As for Moscow, you skip right over the persecution of the UOC (the point of the article) which Americans have a hand in to focus on a foreign Patriarch you don’t like. Total moral blindness.
Syria war: Ten years on, Syrian Christians say Assad ‘has taken us hostage’ | Middle East Eye
The article is about U.S. policy and the aftermath of the fall of the Assad Regime. The U.S. targeted Syria in the early part of the 2000’s. Not because Assad was anything special among authoritarians, but because it was part of the drive by American Neocons and Likud to remake the Middle East in a more Israeli-friendly way. Only a fraction of what you think you know about Syria is actually true, given the level of propaganda the main stream media has pumped out under CIA and MI6 supervision. The U.S. bombed, sanctioned, occupied, and funded Islamists for 10 years to get rid of Assad. 12 million displaced. 500,000 dead. Major cities destroyed. All to get regime change. No different than the regime change projects in Ukraine, Georgia, Romania, Libya, Iraq, and soon Hungary.
It would have been better for everyone in the region had the U.S. simply chosen to ignore Israel and work with the Assad Regime. No different than 500k Iraqi kids would have survived if the U.S. had not chosen to punishingly sanction the Iraqi Regime after the Kuwait War. Peace under an authoritarian rule is almost always better than economic collapse, mass migration, civil war, and foreign invasion.
What replaced Assad? A government led by a career terrorist who is allied with Turkey, only outdone by the Soviet Union in terms of Christian slaughter. You have Turkey in the North, the Americans still occupying the oil fields in the East, HTS in the center, and Israel occupying the Southwest and bombing the Hell out of anything they want to. With no resistance from Damascus.
So what were the Christian leaders wrong about that backed Assad? The alternatives are abysmal. The war is just now starting in earnest. Turkey will keep attacking the Kurds, Israel wants to break up the Middle East into microstates, and HTS is descended from al-Qeada by way of ISIS, with hefty ties to foreign intelligence services. The Orthodox leadership looks really prescient right now. A secular dictator leading a coalition of minorities seems very preferable to the current mess.
And that is what the Assad Regime was, going back to its founding. A secular Arab nationalist regime. Which is why it had to go, as did Saddam, as did Khaddaffi. Israel doesn’t want successful states surrounding it, and Syria was actually a successful state before the West wrecked it. Was Assad or his dad on par with Thomas Jefferson? No, but given the number of Salafists they ruled over, and the neighborhood they lived in, the authoritarian tactics are understandable. The regime(s) that end up in control of Syrian territory will not be led by Thomas Jefferson, any more than we left behind peaceful, multi-cultural republics in Libya, Iraq, or Afghanistan.
Now, this is not really a response to you or Mike Steele. The brainwashing is way too impenetrable.
Actually, the crime that John X has committed is leading his flock into heresy. Heresy is leading others under your charge into actions contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Substitute JohnX and Kirill for the Priest and the Levite in the Parable of the Good Samaritan for the perfect example. Look the other way? Abandon the injured? Then let a lowly Samaritan help? This was an intentional example by Jesus Christ, just as valid today, as it was 2000 years ago. At least they didn’t pose with the robbers for a promotional photo celebrating war criminals and war crimes, like John X and his Holy Council! Try to rationalize that one away! Silence is Complicity, but hope the Photo Promotion was well rewarded. What would Jesus say? “You’ve defiled my Temple?”
First off, Mike, Merry Christmas. In the interest of the season, this one comment was published. The rest of yours have been sent to the trash bin. You have been asked repeatedly to make substantive comments that are worth posting and worth responding to. You refuse to do so, and were given a final warning.
1) Our article was not about Russia, Kirill, John X, or Serbia. You have never responded to the content of the article, nor have you engaged with any responses you have received in the comments. You are simply a troll at this point, and unless you change up your posting, nothing else will get approved.
2) If you make a charge of heresy against a Patriarch, then you have to back that up with specifics. What heresy did he commit? A heretic is a person who not only teaches erroneous dogma, but persists in teaching erroneous dogma after having been corrected by competent Church authority. Merely running the Church in Damascus in a way you don’t approve of is not heresy. What heresy did John X teach? You reference war crimes, but of course, Orthodox hierarchs all over the world meet with and pose in pictures with secular leaders who are guilty of war crimes. Our own line of presidents going back at least as far as Jackson have mostly been war criminals. Truman dropped nuclear bombs on civilians, but has a very famous photo of him kissing a Greek Patriarch with whom he was a Freemasonic brother. So unless you have specifics to stand on concerning the charge of heresy, then you are nothing more than a Boomer troll at this point.
3) You reference Serbia several times. We can assume the context under which the Patriarch was speaking concerned alleged Serbian war crimes in Kosovo. The situation in Kosovo is completely different than faced by John X in a six sided civil war. In Serbia the Church has massive power and is safe. In Syria, the Church has no power and decidedly not safe. There is no comparison between navigating the situation in Belgrade in the late 90’s and surviving in Damascus during the 21st Century. Serbia was also the victim of a massive war crime – namely the NATO bombing of innocent civilians. That probably does not register much concern with you Mike, but it means a lot to any rationally thinking individual.
4) It isn’t Russian money that spreads chaos and destruction around the world. That would be the U.S.
Of course, James Jeffrey’s account was nothing new. Between 1979 and 1992, the CIA spent billions of dollars funding, arming, and training Afghan Mujahideen militia (like Osama bin Laden) in an attempt to bleed the USSR dry by pulling it into a quagmire. It was from the ranks of the Mujahideen that al-Qa’eda emerged.
“And yet, by the 2010s, even as the U.S. was ostensibly at war with al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan – it was secretly working with it – in Syria on a plan to overthrow Assad. The CIA spent around $1 billion per year training and arming a wide network of rebel groups to this end. As Jake Sullivan, told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a leaked 2012 email, “AQ [al-Qaeda] is on our side in Syria”, as Alan Macleod observes in Consortium News.
Patriarch John X was supposed to do what, Mike? Throw the support of the Church to al-Qaeda? Get real.
Any non-substantive comments will simply be sent straight to the trash.
“Sept. 29, 2016: KERRY’S HUBRIS-TINGED FRUSTRATION: Apparently Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, et al. had told Kerry it would be easy to “align things” in the Middle East.
And so, this is how Kerry started off his remarks at an open forum arranged by The Atlantic magazine and the Aspen Institute on Sept. 29, 2016. (I was there and could hardly believe it; it made me think that some of these stuffed shirts actually believe their own rhetoric about being “indispensable.”) Kerry said:
“Syria is as complicated as anything I have ever done in my public life in the sense that there are probably about six wars going on at the same time: Kurds against Kurds, Kurds against Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sunni, Shia, everybody against ISIS, people against Assad, Al-Nusra… this is a mixed up sectarian and civil war and strategic and proxies, so it is very difficult to be able to align forces.” –
In 2016, John Kerry was honest that Syria was a six-sided war. It never got any clearer. In this complete mess, Mike, which is much our doing and not for any reason of American interests, you have the absolute gall to judge the Antiochian hierarchs who had to navigate this disaster since the second Obama regime? Really, Mike?
The complicity of the Antiochian Orthodox Church hierarchy in the horrible regime of Asaad is apparent now, if it wasn’t before. I have several articles recently that report past support for Assad and Putin in Syria, and confirm that Antioch hierarchs attempted to support Assad, under the guise of “He protects Christians”, but at the expense of all Syrians affected by Asaad and Putin’s war crimes? What would Jesus say? What did Jesus say? Even read one article quoting an Antiochian Church expatriot, leaving in Europe, that acknowledged the link? What else remains hidden?
See above. The Assad Regime was targeted by the West for reasons other than being “horrible”. The Russians actually played peace maker in the area. “Obama had called such a chemical attack a red line but, mirabile dictu, chose to honor the U.S. Constitution by asking Congress first. Worse still for the neocons, during the first days of September, Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire by persuading Syria to destroy its chemical weapons under U.N. supervision.”
https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2024/12/03/neocons-try-again-in-syria/
The Antiochian Patriarchate preferred an authoritarian regime to foreign occupation and an unstable government run by foreign-financed Islamic terrorists. For this you are going to criticize them? Putin has not committed any war crimes in Syria. Unlike the U.S.
Now is Putin a war criminal? Yes, because his government has authorized strikes on civilian targets and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. Not because of the SMO in general, which was legal under international law as it was requested by the Donbas Republics. Under a broad definition as used above, all American presidents since Hoover are war criminals. Which is, of course, true.
We had no right to wreck Syria. No right to wreck Iraq. No right to wreck Libya. No right to try to overthrow the government of Georgia. No right to support the cancelling of the election in Romania. None. And the aftermath of our actions in Syria has been devastation and a future that we cannot foresee. We are not the good guys here, and in fact, the bad guys are on our payroll.
Actually it actually described the hypocrisy of the article, and I’m certain Jesus Christ did not approve of hypocracy, or am I mistaken?
You can’t even define what you think is hypocrisy, can you?
Like a famous definition of pornography, “I’ll know it when I see it!” He who has eyes, let him see!
Actually, Jesus Christ actually also actually frowns upon the overuse of adverbs such as “actually” and the misspelling of “hypocrisy” multiple times, as you’ve done, Mr. Ad absurdum, Mr. Pettifogger.
After seeing the comments around here the past week, I’m coming to the conclusion that I don’t believe in free speech for people who have nothing to say. Perhaps Nicholas should do some ruthless moderation and pruning and see if that attracts a better audience — it’s just a thought.
How does one balance a commitment to free speech with the fact that so many people have nothing of substance to say? That is a great question you ask.
Where has this photograph been hidden from public view for so long? The Patriarch of Antioch and Putin and Asaad? It is quite disheartening. Brother Nicholas, is it true of Photoshop? Are not we all neighbors? For Jesus Christ said, Love one another as I have loved you. And now, the world is seeing the true horror wrought on the innocent Syrians by this horrible regime and it’s supporters. How could this be true? Does not Jesus Christ love us all? Each one of us! What a terrible truth to face at Christmas , when we celebrate His birth!
See above response. We can continue with this below. Assad was not targeted because his regime was somehow the epitome of murderous authoritarianism. Even if he were, what would you have expected the Antiochian Patriarchate to do, exactly? Support a rebellion against the lawful government? In any case, the Assad Regime was not targeted because it was evil, the U.S. and the West often backs evil men doing evil things. the Assad Regime was targeted for the benefit of Israeli ambitions that you now see playing out – expanded territory being just one of them. The Antiochian Church is looking very prophetic at this time.
https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2024/12/03/neocons-try-again-in-syria/
“A day after Israel agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon last week the long dormant war in Syria reignited as jihadist forces seized the city of Aleppo and advanced virtually unhindered in its quest to overthrow the Syrian government until finally meeting resistance from the Syrian Army backed up by Russia. This is the last chance for neocons in the United States to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad before Donald Trump, who tried to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, resumes the presidency in 49 days.
On the neocon list of ways to make the world safer for Israel, Iran originally occupied pride of place. “Real men go to Tehran!” was the muscular brag. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was persuaded to acquiesce in a less ambitious plan – to “do Iraq” and remove the “evil dictator” in Baghdad first.
As the invaders/occupiers got bogged down in Iraq, it seemed more sensible to “do Syria” next. With the help of “friendly services,” the neocons mounted a false-flag chemical attack outside Damascus in late August 2013, blaming it on President Bashar al-Assad, whom U.S. President Barack Obama had earlier said, “had to go.”
Obama had called such a chemical attack a red line but, mirabile dictu, chose to honor the U.S. Constitution by asking Congress first. Worse still for the neocons, during the first days of September, Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire by persuading Syria to destroy its chemical weapons under U.N. supervision.
Obama later admitted that virtually all of his advisers had wanted him to order Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria.
I was lucky enough to observe, up-close and personal, the angry reaction of some of Israel’s top American supporters on Sept. 9, 2013, when the Russian-brokered deal for Syria to destroy its chemical weapons was announced.
After doing an interview in Washington on CNN International, I opened the studio door and almost knocked over a small fellow named Paul Wolfowitz, President George W. Bush’s former under-secretary of defense who in 2002-2003 had helped craft the fraudulent case for invading Iraq.
And there standing next to him was former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut neocon who was a leading advocate for the Iraq War and pretty much every other potential war in the Middle East.
On the tube earlier, Anderson Cooper sought counsel from Ari Fleischer, former spokesman for Bush, and David Gergen, long-time White House PR guru.
Fleischer and Gergen were alternately downright furious over the Russian initiative to give peace a chance and disconsolate at seeing the prospect for U.S. military involvement in Syria disappear when we were oh so close.
The atmosphere on TV and in the large room was funereal. I had happened on a wake with somberly dressed folks (no loud pastel ties this time) grieving for a recently, dearly-departed war.
In his own interview, Lieberman expressed hope-against-hope that Obama would still commit troops to war without congressional authorization. I thought to myself, wow, here’s a fellow who was a senator for 24 years and almost our vice president, and he does not remember that the Founders gave Congress the sole power to declare war in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
The evening of Sept. 9 was a bad one for more war and for pundits who like to joke about “giving war a chance.”
Since you are so keen to believe decades of anti-Syrian propaganda, who do you feel about the current anti-Georgian propaganda? And have you ever paid attention to the paid shills who push the propaganda over Romania, Georgia, etc?
Red Herring diversion…..
Same thing as Syria and Ukraine. Western backed regime change operation. Do you buy the narrative in Georgia?
What is your definition of propaganda? Goebels, Stalin, Putin (Orthodox Christian)?
A propaganda model focuses on this inequality of wealth and power and its multilevel effects on mass-media interests and choices. It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public. The essential ingredients of our propaganda model, or set of news “filters,” fall under the following headings: (I) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (~) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and “experts” funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power; (4) “flak” as a means of disciplining the media; and (5) “anticommunism” as a national religion and control mechanism. These elements interact with and reinforce one another. The raw material of news must pass through successive filters, leaving only the cleansed residue fit to print. They fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the basis and operations of what amount to propaganda campaigns.
The elite domination of the media and marginalization of dissidents that results from the operation of these filters occurs so naturally that media news people, frequently operating with complete integrity and goodwill, are able to convince themselves that they choose and interpret the news “objectively” and on the basis of professional news values. Within the limits of the filter constraints they often are objective; the constraints are so powerful, and are built into the system in such a fundamental way, that alternative bases of news choices are hardly imaginable. In assessing the newsworthiness of the U.S. government’s urgent claims of a shipment of MIGs to Nicaragua on November 5, I984, the media do not stop to ponder the bias that is inherent in the priority assigned to government-supplied raw material, or the possibility that the government might be manipulating the news, imposing its own agenda, and deliberately diverting attention from other material. It requires a macro, alongside a micro- (story-by-story), view of media operations, to see the pattern of manipulation and systematic bias.
https://chomsky.info/consent01/
Well what do you know? “Pentagon Reveals the US Has More Than Twice the Number of Troops in Syria Than Previously Disclosed
The US has 2,000 troops in #Syria, far more than the 900 number the Pentagon has been sharing publicly
by Dave DeCamp @DecampDave”
https://news.antiwar.com/2024/12/19/pentagon-reveals-the-us-has-more-than-twice-the-number-of-troops-in-syria-than-previously-disclosed/
And what is your definition of hypocracy? Anyone holding a different viewpoint then your own? Fair question to one who is so devoted to Free Speech for Orthodox.
You’re not being censored. You accused this article of being hypocritical and you cannot explain why.