Power, Church, and mobilization: Smite the shepherd, and the sheep will scatter
The authorities are drafting UOC priests as ordinary soldiers, not chaplains.
The UOJ has learned that the government has set up a centralized system to send draft notices specifically to UOC clergy. An entire department in the Ministry of Defense, headed by Colonel Larisa Polyanska, has been tasked with this. They are compiling a database of all UOC clergy – and now these priests are receiving personal draft orders sent directly from Kyiv, bypassing local enlistment offices. Any local agreements clergy might have made with recruitment officers are now worthless.
And all this despite the fact that the authorities know perfectly well that priests are forbidden to take up arms – and will not do so. They are of no military use on the front. They will simply become targets. They can only be killed. Perhaps that is exactly the plan.
After all, can a parish survive without its priest? No, it cannot.
It seems the state’s war on the Church has entered an entirely new and darker phase. Few in power may know the Gospel – but there is one line they clearly remembered: “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered” (Matthew 26:31).
