“You can take communion with murderers and rapists, but not with their victims,” - Yelensky on the Synod of the UOC-MP

This opinion was expressed on Facebook by a well-known theologian Viktor Yelensky, analyzing recent decisions and statements of the Synod of the UOC-MP.

"Journalists continue to call about the Synod of the UOC-MP. One lady said so bluntly: briefly and "without emotion." I'll try.

1. The leadership of the UOC-MP is responsible as they have been hitting Ukraine in the back since 2014. When its bishops disrupted the mobilization in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, consecrated the weapons with which their flock is now being killed, took parades in the DPR, talked about the Civil War and Crimea, "which drifted away", selflessly "fought for peace" with Kyiv and never with Moscow.

2. It was the unprovoked hostility. Even during the Russian aggression, the "princes of the church" received lands, even orders, but fervently, shoulder to shoulder with Moscow Deacons, they groaned in Strasbourg about "unprecedented persecution". Until February 24, the top of the UOC-MP, which constantly repeated that its flock was on both sides of the contact line, did not really hide which side it was on.

3. After February 24, no one from this elite has heard any remorse, the slightest hint of admitting their mistakes. Now she is immeasurably more interested in the preservation of her own corporation than in the fate of her flock. The main enemy is internal, "schismatics from the OCU"; among the external ones – not the best student in the school of hatred for Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill, but a friend of our country, Patriarch Bartholomew.

4. Accusing the OCU and Poroshenko of the Russian invasion is, as far as I know, a carefully considered step, but deeply flawed given the future of the MP in Ukraine. This will not be forgotten soon (if at all). They should easily mention the biological laboratories, the flight time to Moscow, fascism-Nazism, the expansion of NATO to the East, and the specific Russian lands that Lenin insidiously gave to Ukraine.

5. Now the leadership of the UOC-MP has received something like a "security certificate" from the central government. They decided that the hierarchy of the MP, together with the presenters of Medvedchuk's channels, "went over to the side of Ukraine." That, at least, its "prayerful connection" with the Moscow Patriarchate, which is no different from the average Russian Ministry in terms of the degree of intelligence in a criminal military machine, is not particularly dangerous yet. That's not true. The hierarchs "have not forgotten anything and have not learned anything." Just read the interviews or Easter addresses of some diocesan bishops and try to understand who attacked whom and who is to blame for what. Or compare Metropolitan Epifaniy's Sermon on Palm Sunday on opposing untruth with Metropolitan Onufriy's sermon on the same day on humility.

6. The policy of "non-interference", which has been implemented in the religious sector since 2019, is erroneous. Especially and first of all, when the enemy brazenly and on a large scale intervenes in this sector. And attempts to transfer the leadership of the MP in Ukraine "to the side of Ukraine" (we are talking about the leadership, not the faithful) will be unsuccessful as long as they represent the MP here. These attempts were made first by Poroshenko, and before that - by Yushchenko, and even earlier by Kuchma; their disappointment awaits the Zelensky administration.

7. The leadership of the UOC-MP is unwilling to change anything. They hope to shut the mouths of those who are dissatisfied; to punish and forbid, to simulate anxiety, to hold some meetings once controlled by it, with ready-made decisions, to buy time and leave everything as it was. They look out from behind the backs of those selfless priests who seek to feed, warm, protect and evacuate their (and not only their) faithful. Hierarchs try to identify the Church of Christ with the administrative and managerial structure that is part of the Russian Orthodox Church and declare a break with this structure a "betrayal of the Church". Otherwise, it is impossible to silence the conscience that rises up against being in the ranks of the masterminds of murderers, looters and rapists. You must take communion with these murderers, looters and rapists from a single Chalice, the hierarchs say. But it is a great sin to take communion with those who protect you from Inhumans, with the victims of their tortures and pogroms. This is the formula of the UOC-MP's policy at the current stage.

And a completely rhetorical question: Does the Ukrainian state have the right to tolerate this policy?"