A few days ago there was an interview with Fr.Tikhon Kulbaka about what had happened to him when he was held captive by terrorists: physical and psychological torture associated with his religion plus the demands to convert to the Moscow Patriarchate. He was taken hostage by the ‘Russian Orthodox Army’.

Orthodox. Do you see the point? And this ‘orthodoxy’ is clearly linked to the Moscow Patriarchate. Do you see the point? What is in common between the UOC-MP and the “Russian Orthodox army?” That's right, the Moscow Patriarchate. Metropolitan Onufriy Berezovsky made a rather unwise statement that “our flock is both here and there”, both among the Ukrainian armed forces and the ‘militants’. Aren’t they your flock? Here you are, get a parcel.

By God's mercy, orthodox terrorists of the Moscow Patriarchate released Fr.Tikhon alive after having held him captive for 10 days. Details of this captivity are appalling. And, comparing Fr.Tikhon’s story to the stories of other witnesses affected by missionary and catechization activities of the ‘Russian Orthodox Army’, we assume that the captive has got off cheap. It is hard to escape the simplest obvious ethical solution: the UOC shall offer public apologies to Father Tikhon on behalf of its entirety, as long as the entire UOC declares that it is against terrorism. And here we go:

“But these terrorists are not ours!” How come they are not yours? Here is an interview with the famous political orthodox extremist Igor Druz (Dus’): "We were instructed by the local priests who served at the same time in their parishes and came to support us. Majority of Orthodox priests throughout Ukraine are on our side ... Most of the militants are enchurched orthodox believers who regularly confess and receive Holy Communion. For the first time in a hundred years, an Orthodox army consisting of Russian people has emerged.” I this your man? But of course! He used to receive your blessings for wacky religious processions from the Kyiv-Caves Lavra.

One more ‘awesome’ counterargument why the UOC is not obliged to apologize to the former hostage: “But in Volyn the dissenters seized our church and beaten our parishioners and did not apologize to them.” What a wonderful excuse. The UOC does not regard the Kyiv Patriarchate as a church in principle. How come that the UOC, in line with Eric Berne, started bartering crimes of its children for the bonuses against aggression (often deserved aggression) towards itself?

The third argument: “Why should the UOC apologize for those terrorists? Our entire parish is against the Russian world, we are collecting money for the ATO and so on.” Well, all of that is a kind of infantilism. The UOC at all its levels more and more suggests that it is not an integrate body. Everyone is ready to be responsible in the best case for the buttons sewn by one’s own hands, and the overall appearance of a jacket is simply not grasped by this fragmented consciousness. All that resembles with high precision the situation of the car with the missing pigs, while the transport, water and regular police shifted the dead-end investigation from one to another. As a result, according to the testimony of ‘eyewitnesses’, the pigs’ wedge entered the waters of the Gulf of Finland, and headed towards the area of Kronstadt. So does the UOC. The bishops have a clear understanding of ‘their territory’: “I am personally not responsible for the accident on the territory of another bishop of the UOC.” And in the end no one is. Just a kindergarten.

All of 23 years the UOC realized itself as a church through one single prism - the Moscow Patriarchate. It was the Moscow Patriarchate that allowed the UOC to be a church to the extent that it was a church itself. In other words, the faithful, clergymen and bishops of the UOC delegated their ecclesiality (and respectively, their ecclesial consciousness) to the ‘center’. Therefore, any attempts of the UOC to give rise to its own Christian ecclesiality encounter misunderstanding and resistance. Well, it has no ecclesiality without the permission of the Moscow Patriarchate! Just no. For over 23 years the people have played church. And now they start overdoing their part, turning into a sort of tragicomic old woman, who is forgiven any gestures and grimaces as a specific theatrical character.