BARTHOLOMEW GOES TO WAR
Holy Dormition Pochaev lavra prepares for defense against "Phanariots"
by Pavel Dulman
Rossiiskaia Gazeta, 1 October 2018
While Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew is only preparing to embrace the Kiev patriarchate (UPTsKP), which is rejected by world Orthodoxy, its supporters have already begun to seize canonical church buildings. On Friday, several dozen of such "Kievan Orthodox" with insignia of the "Right Sector" (an extremist organization which is forbidden in Russia—RG note) seized by force the church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Bogorodchany of Ivano-Frankovsk oblast, while, as local news media report, they had formal permission of district authorities to beat the priest and flock. Now they are threatening the Holy Dormition Pochaev lavra.
In this way, thanks to the efforts of militias and self-declared nationalistic clergy, Ukraine has come to the brink of clashes on religious grounds, intensifying the sharp civil conflict that is far from resolution. It seems that the current Kiev authorities and their western patrons now very much need to move it to the stage of religious and possibly ethnic massacres. Only in a situation of bloody chaos, which has already come to bloodshed, will the heretic Poroshenko, the Baptist Turchinov, and the Uniate Paruby (a parishioner of the Greek Catholic Church that is subordinate to the Vatican) get the chance to retain their positions, freedom, and life.
"At various times in history, our Christian forebears and relatives in faith and spirit had to bear witness and confess their faith and defend their holy places. Considering the present situation, according to information at our disposal, and the threat of reprisal, which is ever more growing apparently, and we will have to experience," an appeal of the abbot of the Pochaev lavra, Metropolitan Vladimir, says, which was published on the website of this 500-year-old Russian monastery. The Vladyka asks faithful Orthodox for their support, primarily prayerful and moral, but he does not rule out that "even your physical presence will be needed."
"Whoever is not indifferent to the fate of the Pochaev Holy Dormition lavra, our Ukrainian Orthodox shrine, and not only Ukrainian but a world shrine—we will be ready to defend it. In addition, we will try to inform you when to come," Metropolitan Vladimir writes in his appeal.
The storming of Pochaev—one of five lavras of Russian Orthodoxy and second by status in Ukraine—may begin at any moment, as Metropolitan Vladimir's appeal shows. But Ukrainian nationalists sin with love for symbolism, and thus they have chosen 14 October as the date for the start of the religious war. This day stands alone in the calendar of "political Ukrainians." On one hand it is the day of the creation of the Banderist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA, which is forbidden in Russia—RG note) and the Day of the Defender of Ukraine, a local "male holiday," established in the place of the "decommunized" 23 February, and on the other hand, the feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God for all Orthodox. However it so happens that in recent years in Ukraine, this date has ceased to be a Christian holiday. Now 14 October is the day of torchlight parades of the "new Banderites," who come from the merger of the Freedom Party and its allies of neonazis from the National Corps, who at the level of ideology reject Christ, in principle, and pray to pagan idols. But when it comes to the destruction of canonical Orthodoxy and the murder of the Russian soul, they become a unified organism, together with Jehovah's Witnesses and charismatic sects, who flooded Ukraine long before the coup d'etat.
It seems that they now do not care about the procedure, whether Bartholomew will take under his omophorion the nationalistic and tiny "Kiev patriarchate," whose faithful flock nowadays consists primarily of veterans of the ATO [anti-terrorist operation—tr.] or those who still fear heaven's wrath; they have put the matter on hold. Those who are now clinging to the proponents of the Constantinople patriarch—in the Orthodox community they are called "Phanariots," from the name of the Phanar quarter in Istanbul, beyond which Bartholomew's authority does not extent—are obsessed only with blood lust and the continuation of the "Ukrainian national revolution" and profit. They were taught this by the "chaplains" from the UPTsKP on the Maidan and thereafter in the Donbass, between shellings of peaceful cities. The self-proclaimed "Patriarch" Filaret has forgiven them the sins of pride, murder, and even sodomy in his sermons, if only they will fight for the "independence of Ukraine."
Pastors of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate prayed at that time for peace for the country that was at the disposal of heretics. And they pray even now: over the appeal of the abbot of the Pochaev lavra is continually placed the prayer of the Lord Almighty for peace and the end of internecine hostility.
Filaret's militants do not realize either the scale of the tragedy in which they are participating or the comic situation into which they have fallen, which are understood only by politicians or true Orthodox. After all, the tomos from Bartholomew will not give patriarchal status to Filaret personally and independence to his sect of the "Kiev patriarchate." The form of "Ukrainian autocephaly" that is being discussed today in the Phanar, Washington, and Kiev provides only an exarchate—an affiliate, vassalage dependence upon the quarter in Istanbul and not genuine self-administration. And the exarchs who arrived in Kiev from beyond the ocean--representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora Daniel and Ilarion—are a true sign of this. Both figures, if one believes the Ukrainian news media, are schooled in the best traditions of "globalism" and Ukrainian nationalism, and that means trained to simultaneously venerate Stepan Bandera and bless sodomy. It is clear why the primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Onufrey, refused to meet with them, although both of these young men sought this meeting. Conversations with such exarchs are impossible for a true Orthodox person. For the same reason, the storming of Orthodox Ukrainian shrines by militants, who betrayed God for the possibility of looting and murder, is inescapable. (tr. by PDS, posted 1 October 2018)
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