In his message to the faithful of the UOC-MP, Metropolitan Onufriy blessed traditional processions and prayer stations to be held in all diocesan centers on the first Sunday of Great Lent, when the Triumph of Orthodoxy will be celebrated.
Religious processions and stands, according to the plan of the head of the UOC-MP, should remind the authorities how brutally the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine is discriminated.
According to the Information and Educational Department of the UOC-MP, Metropolitan Onufriy "expressed concern that, despite numerous requests and appeals, the laws adopted by the previous government and which significantly restrict the rights of believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have not yet been repealed in our state."
"I would like the voice of our believers to be heard," he said. "Therefore, on the first Sunday of Great Lent, when the Triumph of Orthodoxy will be celebrated, I bless you to hold traditional processions and prayer stations for this day in all diocesan centers of our church, taking into account the epidemic situation. We must walk through the streets of our native cities with a prayer on our lips and shrines in our hands, in order to witness both our loyalty to Holy Orthodoxy and our love for our native Ukrainian land – our earthly Homeland."
As RISU has already reported, the spokesman of the UOC-MP, Mykolai Danilevich, threatened that the UOC-MP could bring up to two million believers of the Moscow Patriarchate to street protests if the authorities fail to listen to their wishes.
The Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine, as you know, reacts very painfully to attempts to rename their denomination and under no circumstances agrees to indicate in its name its subordination to Russia, the aggressor country.