Primate: Politicians see Church throne, but cannot see Christ Sitting on it

Primate of the UOC His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine. Photo: UOC

It was due to the intervention of politicians in Ukraine that new pseudo-churches appeared, believes the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine. He told about this in an interview with the publication Orthodox Life.

“Politicians who dare to invade the life of the Church perceive the Church as a political organization,” said His Beatitude Onuphry. “Due to their poor personal spiritual level, they do not see Christ in the Church. They do not understand that the Head of the Church is Christ. They see the Church's throne, but cannot see Christ Sitting on this throne. Personal pride encourages them to sit on the Church's throne and at this very point the tragedy begins: a politician targets the throne but the throne escapes from him.”

The Archpastor stressed that politicians are hunting for church property they have nothing to do with.

“They take away temples, slander the believers, insult and oppress them, thus trying to reach the throne, but even here they fail. Anyway, God is their judge but we pray that the Lord enlightens them with the light of His truth,” he added.

At the same time, he recalled that the newly formed OCU has not yet received recognition from any of the Local Orthodox Churches.

“None of the Local Churches has recognized the new religious structure so far; some of the Local Churches made official statements of non-recognition. Church history testifies that no schism has yielded benefits, schisms can only bring harm. The Lord created the Church, which is a spiritual vessel, leading man through the stormy sea of ​​earthly life to eternal life. The devil, knowing that the Church is the ship of salvation, from the first days of the creation of the Church of Christ, has been fighting against Her. But the Lord warned the believers, saying that the gates of hell shall not prevail against my church (Matt. 16:18),” emphasized His Beatitude.

The Primate also answered the question of which church to go to and where to look for Christ in order to be happy and blessed: “Go to the temple where the Kingdom of God and His Truth are sought: Christ lives in this temple; in other temples He does not”.

We will remind, earlier the head of the party Civil Servant, Dmitry Razumkov, voiced the position of President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky and his team: state authorities should not interfere in the affairs of the Church.

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