Priest of UOC, finalist of "Voice of the Country-7", responds to scandalous accusations of social networks

Winner of the semi-final of the show "Voice of the Country-7", the UOC priest Alexander Klimenko commented on the scandal over his post on Facebook on the eve of the shootings on Maidan and told about his priesthood in the UOC, TSN writes.

Fr. Alexander explained that the scandalous text was written two weeks before the mass shootings on the Maidan and «was a reaction to the statement of one of the politicians who said, in my opinion, a terrible and irresponsible pseudo-heroic phrase,"If a bullet in the forehead – then a bullet in the forehead"».

"This is a pseudo-hero, when a person is not going to put his forehead, but this phrase warms up the blood of those people who believe in this or that idea. And I was very indignant at how you can be so irresponsible as to throw people into self-sacrifice," he said.

The priest added that he helped the Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the Donbass: "I participated in fund-raising concerts in support of ATO soldiers, we consecrated cars for humanitarian purposes and, unfortunately, performed funeral services for three soldiers killed."

Fr. Alexander told how important it is for him to be a servant of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. "As for the church in which I serve, I have been in it since childhood. I went to it at the age of 7 and then became a priest in this church. I felt faith in this church. I do not see in my ministry in the church any propaganda of the things forbidden in our country. To me, Christianity is close precisely because it is free enough. There is no guru here, no obedience to everybody and everything. There is free communion with God," he stressed.

Earlier, Fr. Alexander Klimenko posted on his Facebook page a post about the heroes, which caused buzz in social networks. "Heroes cannot be fearless. Fearless are madmen. Uncompromising are thieves. The inability to find common ground, the inability to negotiate, the refusal to use sensibly the majestic gift of God – a word – leads to argumentation with a less reasoned tool – hands. How ignorate, puritanical and obscurant in times of turmoil calm sober heads look who do not urge a crowd to throw a brick in the head of the near, but try to hear at least a word spoken by the opponent," said the post.

As reported earlier, the finalist of Tina Karol's team, the 33-year-old priest Alexander Klimenko, who performed the prayer "Axion Estin" ("Worthy Is") in the semi-final of the show "Voice of the Country-7", aroused a wide resonance in social networks. 93% of viewers voted in favor of Fr. Alexander.