The importance of comedian Volodymyr Zelensky’s victory in the second round of Ukraine’s presidential election is not that he won but that incumbent Petro Poroshenko lost – badly. The nervousness of Poroshenko’s western patrons (and his client, in the case of US Special Representative Kurt Volker) at losing their faithful factotum is evident.
The pressure in Ukraine kept ratcheting up over the last few days, with a big revelation today that Patriarch Bartholomew now considers Metropolitan Onuphy “uncanonical.” This news was published on 6 December by a hierarch of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (running under the Moscow Patriarchate).
This assessment marks a complete 180-degree turn by the leader of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, and it further embitters the split that has developed to quite a major row between this church’s leadership and the Moscow Patriarchate.
TASS News Agency reported on December 3rd that the Ukrainian SBU (the SBU, analogous to the FSB in Russia) is presently questioning about twenty priests from two eparchies of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).
This report comes from the leader of the opposition party in Ukraine’s own Verkhovna Rada (Parliament), a man by the name of Vadim Novinsky. (emphasis added):
This piece is reprinted almost entirely from its original posting on orthochristian.com. We hope it offers a clear perspective that shared across the Orthodox Christian world regarding the recent moves by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, in regards to the legitimization of two canonically schismatic church communities in Ukraine.
The attack on the Eastern Orthodox Church, brought about by the US State Department and its proxies in Constantinople and Ukraine, is continuing. On October 20, 2018, the illegitimate “Kyiv (Kiev) Patriarchate”, led by Filaret Denisenko who is calling himself “Patriarch Filaret”, had a synodal meeting in which it changed the commemoration title of the leader of the church to include the Kyiv Caves and Pochaev Lavras.
A high-level delegation of Metropolitans/Bishops from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has met in Constantinople, at the Phanar, to discuss the Ukrainian crisis, specifically, the major issues of the Church in Ukraine, with the Patriarch of Constantinople.
In a tit for tat move, the Ukrainian government has added the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church to its doxing website “Mirotvorets” (“Peacemaker”), labeling him an “enemy of Ukraine.”
It seems Ukrainian nationalistic politicians and religious schismatics didn’t appreciate that he referred to them as enemies of all Slavic peoples, as The Duran previously reported.
The Ukrainian Parliament (Rada) is considering legislation which would pave the way for a ban on Orthodox Christian Churches under the Moscow Patriarchy.
If the new laws are adopted, it would allow the Ukrainian regime to ban churches, police the worship and other practices of churches, ban missionaries from entering the country and seize the assets of churches.
