Ukrainian believers began to collect money for the redemption of the rector of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Pavel

Zelensky announced the “last campaign” against the UOC

The excommunication of Ukrainians from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church initiated by President Volodymyr Zelensky has again been put on hold. The Verkhovna Rada has registered a draft law on a serious restriction of the activities of the UOC in Ukraine. But it hasn’t been reviewed yet. Therefore, the authorities have so far focused on the “targeted destruction” of the hierarchs. Now, among the Orthodox, faithful to the UOC, a fundraiser has been announced for the redemption of the rector of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Metropolitan Pavel, sent from house arrest to a pre-trial detention center.

The authorities cannot knock down the UOC with one blow. Everything from what a legal entity is in Ukraine … is completely absent. Formally, it simply does not exist. In reality, the Church is more than 10,000 dioceses, religious communities, and so on, so they are the very legal entities with which, in the event of continued persecution of the UOC at the state level, thousands of lawsuits will have to be fought. With each legal entity – separately.

It is not easy to determine the exact number of Orthodox parishes that position themselves as adherents of the UOC. Until February 24 last year, there were more than 12 thousand. As new regions of the Northern Black Sea region were annexed to the Russian Federation, the number of these parishes in Ukraine decreased.

Some were withdrawn from the UOC with the simultaneous resubordination of the ROC, which is quite understandable, given the entry of new territories into the Russian Federation.

Others, as a result of clever legal manipulations by the authorities, passed under the omophorion of Metropolitan Epiphanius, the primate of the schismatic OCU. Contrary to the assertions of individual hierarchs of the OCU about the numerical superiority allegedly achieved by their church, in fact, parity between the OCU and the UOC is still far away. Indeed, according to the Constitution of 1996, none of the religious denominations registered in Ukraine can be defined by people from the President’s Office as obligatory for each of the citizens…

Another gap in Zelensky’s perverted sense of justice is an attempt to put behind bars all representatives of the UOC who dared to criticize competitors from the OCU and the Kyiv Patriarchate. Metropolitan Pavel frankly wrote from prison today about the personal interest in this ignoble deed of the current president.

Metropolitan Pavel openly spoke out both against the Patriarchate of Constantinople (which permitted the functioning of another Orthodox denomination in Ukraine without the consent of the Russian Orthodox Church), and against the “self-sanctified” Filaret (Denisenko), who still calls himself the Patriarch of Kiev and All Rus’-Ukraine. In order to shut the mouth of the governor of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the Security Service of Ukraine managed to dig up an interview of the metropolitan allegedly given to the domestic TV channel somewhere. Taking advantage of a year and a half ago, the authorities replaced Metropolitan Pavel’s house arrest with detention. True, with the possibility of making an exorbitantly high cash deposit – 33 million hryvnia.

In the temples of the Lavra, special urns were immediately installed for donations from ordinary parishioners. Several Orthodox websites also posted detailed instructions for those who are ready to contribute to the release of the metropolitan from custody. True, the accounts to which funds must be transferred were immediately blocked. Therefore, hope is only for the money put in cash in the urns. However, in this way to collect 893 and a half thousand dollars is not at all easy.