Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2023 4:26:08 GMT
The persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is intensifying. Police surround monasteries with machine guns....more bishops, most of them elderly, are thrown into prison or put under house arrest. The Ukrainian government voted to ban the UOC and suppress this entire Church of 12,000 parishes, and 50 dioceses, whose members comprise the majority of active Christian believers in Ukraine.
I have to say that the persecution of the UOC completely upended my entire view of the world. Before it started, I absolutely had faith in Western foreign policy. I believed that, despite the many faults of the West, its foreign policy was mostly good. However, the complete and utter silence of the West and the absolute information blockade concerning the abhorrent persecution of the UOC defied everything I had believed about American and Western foreign policy. It shattered all my assumptions. I thought, surely, given the Ukrainian government is persecuting the UOC, the Americans and the Western countries will raise their voice against this, and tell Ukraine it must stop this immediately.
Instead, I heard nothing. The silence was so deafening it served as a catalyst that absolutely changed almost all of my views about foreign policy and Western policy towards other countries.
What is more, in the Western media there is practically no information about this persecution, so when I tell people about it, including other Catholics, they tell me I have fallen for Russian propaganda, which deeply offends me, because it is not true. Indeed, all the information online about "persecution of Christians in Ukraine" focusses on isolated cases of repressions against Greek Catholics and non-canonical Orthodox in the territories of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation, rather than the massive, absolutely evil persecution of a huge Christian denomination in Ukraine itself.
I simply cannot comprehend why so many devout, holy Christians, Catholics, will not condemn this persecution, and even criticise me for speaking about it.
Thanks be to God, I have received support from Ukrainians who suffer due to the persecution, including from a Metropolitan of the UOC, who has thanked me multiple times for my activities in defence of the UOC, as well as from seminarians of the Kyiv Theological Academy of the UOC.
I am thankful, that in my Catholic friend group in real life, all the people who know what is happening in Ukraine condemn the persecution of the UOC, and do not support it in any well. I would find it difficult to understand or get along with a Catholic who supports the persecution.
Of course, some will say, "Who cares, they're Orthodox, not Catholic". I would respond: of course we should care when Christian brothers and sisters are persecuted. Our Catholic Church may be next too, given some in Ukraine have said the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church must also be banned because of its connection to Rome and the Pope, who takes a position on Ukraine which some of them dislike.
We all know that the Orthodox Church actually supported and participated in the liquidation and suppression of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church by Stalin and his successors. We must rise beyond that, and condemn it when the same thing is happening to the Orthodox, otherwise we are acting merely out of spite and revenge, which is not Christian at all.
I have to say that the persecution of the UOC completely upended my entire view of the world. Before it started, I absolutely had faith in Western foreign policy. I believed that, despite the many faults of the West, its foreign policy was mostly good. However, the complete and utter silence of the West and the absolute information blockade concerning the abhorrent persecution of the UOC defied everything I had believed about American and Western foreign policy. It shattered all my assumptions. I thought, surely, given the Ukrainian government is persecuting the UOC, the Americans and the Western countries will raise their voice against this, and tell Ukraine it must stop this immediately.
Instead, I heard nothing. The silence was so deafening it served as a catalyst that absolutely changed almost all of my views about foreign policy and Western policy towards other countries.
What is more, in the Western media there is practically no information about this persecution, so when I tell people about it, including other Catholics, they tell me I have fallen for Russian propaganda, which deeply offends me, because it is not true. Indeed, all the information online about "persecution of Christians in Ukraine" focusses on isolated cases of repressions against Greek Catholics and non-canonical Orthodox in the territories of Ukraine occupied by the Russian Federation, rather than the massive, absolutely evil persecution of a huge Christian denomination in Ukraine itself.
I simply cannot comprehend why so many devout, holy Christians, Catholics, will not condemn this persecution, and even criticise me for speaking about it.
Thanks be to God, I have received support from Ukrainians who suffer due to the persecution, including from a Metropolitan of the UOC, who has thanked me multiple times for my activities in defence of the UOC, as well as from seminarians of the Kyiv Theological Academy of the UOC.
I am thankful, that in my Catholic friend group in real life, all the people who know what is happening in Ukraine condemn the persecution of the UOC, and do not support it in any well. I would find it difficult to understand or get along with a Catholic who supports the persecution.
Of course, some will say, "Who cares, they're Orthodox, not Catholic". I would respond: of course we should care when Christian brothers and sisters are persecuted. Our Catholic Church may be next too, given some in Ukraine have said the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church must also be banned because of its connection to Rome and the Pope, who takes a position on Ukraine which some of them dislike.
We all know that the Orthodox Church actually supported and participated in the liquidation and suppression of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church by Stalin and his successors. We must rise beyond that, and condemn it when the same thing is happening to the Orthodox, otherwise we are acting merely out of spite and revenge, which is not Christian at all.