Met. Jonathan assesses Phanar head’s words about trials against UOC bishops

Metropolitan Jonathan. Photo: tulchin-eparchia.org.ua

Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchyn and Bratslav commented on the words of the Ecumenical Patriarch that the criminal cases against the hierarchs of the UOC are "justified".

Vladyka believes that the words of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, "condemning the confessional feat of Ukrainian hierarchs defending Orthodoxy and their canonical Church, are deliberately slanderous, sinful and even sacrilegious".

In his opinion, "the strange and unreasonable words of Patriarch Bartholomew in Madrid are like a blunt and rusty sword, which ruthlessly and cruelly wounded the souls of persecuted hierarchs of the UOC, Her clerics and laity both in Ukraine and in distant countries."

Metropolitan Jonathan believes that the head of the Phanar "spiritually and symbolically tore the mantle of the Primate of Constantinople in two, and now it has been deprived of the gracious power of the Mantle of the Holy Prophet Elijah, the defender of Faith and Truth, in an inappropriate way, and being defamed by lies, cries to Heaven for the fall of its proud former master to the sinful earth."

"Many hierarchs and clerics of the UOC, and the people of God have finally lost confidence in the objectivity of the Constantinople Patriarchal Court after the horrifying words of the head of the Phanar to his clerics in Madrid against the background of pogroms and seizures of churches and monasteries, the expulsion of the Theological Seminary and the Theological Academy from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, against the background of searches, arrests and trials of the hierarchs of the canonical UOC, against the background of weeping and sorrow of the UOC faithful," wrote Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchyn and Bratslav.

Addressing the head of the Phanar, the Bishop said: "You are mistaken! Come to your senses and turn away from the path of sinners, cleanse your eyes with the water of repentance and the peace of God! Then you will be purified from the sin of false witness against prisoners of conscience and from disgrace in the ages!"

Earlier, the Tulchyn bishop gave clerics instructions on how to minister under persecution.

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