Metropolitan Luke: OCU will be implanted in the same way as LGBT culture
The hierarch believes that the Local Churches that have recognized the OCU are in close contact with the state authorities and will take any other decision requested.
His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry was no less pressured than the primates of the Local Churches that recognized the OCU, so we cannot say that they had no other choice, Metropolitan Luke (Kovalenko) of Zaporozhye and Melitopol wrote in his Telegram channel.
“What is happening now in the Orthodox world is one of those signs of the time that we must learn to distinguish correctly,” said the hierarch of the UOC. “With all that fuss and heated discussion of the recognition of the OCU by several Local Churches, this is not the main significant event in the history of world Orthodoxy. The schismatics served only as a litmus test, which showed the spiritual condition of entire Churches, as well as individual hierarchs and synods. And it is very important for us to study this reaction, analyze it and draw the right conclusions.”
According to the metropolitan, the most obvious conclusion is that "the administrative elite of the Local Churches which recognized the OCU is firmly linked by dollar chains to the government, which is under the direct and immediate influence of the IMF and the US State Department, as well as the forces that stand behind them" .
“People having spiritual authority and administrative powers are ready to make those decisions of a spiritual nature that they will be ordered by secular political supervisors who have nothing to do with the Orthodox faith. Having accepted this fact, we must understand that these hierarchs or those who will be allowed to take their place will likewise take any other decision that their bosses will order,” he stressed.
According to him, the familiar picture of the conciliar mind of Ecumenical Orthodoxy, which is familiar in the past, is changing before our eyes, and already “the processes that we read about in the prophetic books but related to an uncertain future are happening at present. Now this future is becoming our present.”
“On the other hand, we see that some of the clergy of these Local Churches while still receiving salaries from the state, while still receiving salaries from the state, do not agree with the decisions that their hierarchs make,” said Vladyka Luke. “The last example is that today the Greek priests did not let the defector priests A. Drabinko and S. Shostatsky go to worship at the relics of St. Nectarius of Aegina. Many of the clergy of Cyprus now do not want to concelebrate with Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria after his recognition of the OCU. Metropolitan Athanasius of Limassol does not want to even hear about the commemoration of Chokaliuk-Dumenko during the service. But these sound voices are suppressed by the hype of the media and ignored by them.”
The hierarch is convinced that the recognition of the OCU will be imposed in the same way as the LGBT culture: “Hundreds of thousands of people opposed, marched, expressed their disagreement, advocated for traditional family values, but what has changed? Nothing. The decision made by the backstage managers is not subject to cancellation. In the same way, the forcible introduction of non-ordained men in priestly robes into the body of the Church will take place. Everyone who has sided with them during the Eucharist is automatically deprived of God's Grace and is cut off from the Church Body.”
At the same time, he emphasized that it is impossible to justify the decision of the heads of the Greek and Alexandrian Orthodox Churches regarding the OCU with the pressure exerted on them because this will mean "blaspheming the memory of all those martyrs and confessors whom we honour in the Church".
“I witnessed only a small part of pressure put on our Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry. I personally heard the embittered screams of Pyotr the apostate directed at our Primate during their telephone conversation on 13.11.18. It is clear that the pressure on His Beatitude did not stop there. I am sure that he was worked no less than those who betrayed him. But our Beatitude could withstand, which means we always have a choice. And I thank God that He gave our Church and the country such a Man who can live right, without wickedness, in Christ and with Christ. I would very much like the primates of other Local Churches to learn this from our Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry,” resumed Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye and Melitopol.
We recall that on October 12, 2019, at a meeting of the Council of Hierarchs of the Greek Orthodox Church, it was decided to recognize the OCU. On October 29, the OCU reported on receiving a missive from Archbishop Ieronymos, which is part of the recognition procedure. On November 10, Archbishop Ieronymos read out the name of Sergei (Epiphany) Dumenko at the liturgy in Athens, which completed the process of recognizing the religious structure of the OCU as the Church.
On November 8, 2019, the name of Epiphany was also commemorated by the Primate of the Alexandria Church, Patriarch Theodore. On the same day, the spokesperson for the new church structure Eustratiy Zoria published a photocopy of the official communiqué of the Main Secretariat of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa, in which the Patriarchate of Alexandria notified that it recognized the OCU. The spokesperson for the UOC, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, called this fact “weakness and betrayal”, emphasizing that the Patriarch of Alexandria was unable to withstand external pressure from the Phanar, the Greek and US authorities.
