Kiev-Pechersk Lavra
An attempt to finally destroy the Church, turning it in laymen exiles in their own land, is outrageous, believe in the organization “Veterans of Ukraine”.
Veterans of Ukraine wrote an open letter in support of the UOC. Document published on 20 September 2018 on the official page of organization in Facebook.
“Today we are witnessing a dangerous confrontation in the Ukrainian society on religious grounds, the letter reads. – In the media it is presented as the struggle of the Ukrainian faith, Churches, “Kiev Patriarchate” against an enemy of the Church of the aggressor, i.e., “the Moscow Patriarchate”. The information field of Ukraine makes daily charges against the latter, and with it and those who support them, of being unpatriotic, destructiveness and hostility”.
In this regard, the veterans of Ukraine are expressing their support for the clergy of the UOC headed by his Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry.
“With all responsibility declare, that the years of experience of cooperation between our organizations of veterans with UOC shows the opposite characteristic of this religious organization than the one that served in the media, – the statement reads. – The representatives of its episcopate, clergy and flock carry out a systematic and substantial program of spiritual care and material assistance to the veterans, participants of war, veterans of labour and pensioners. Volunteers and priests, the Synodal military Department implements various charity actions on the territory of Ukraine and directly in the zones of alienation and the ATO”.
The letter also notes that obvious and outrageous is the attempt to finally destroy the Church, made Her and her laymen exiles in their own land by creating a parallel religious organizations, the so-called Local Church.
“Quantitatively and qualitatively throughout the history of the national independence of the UOC proved that it is self-sufficient and a Church of the Ukrainian people in the arena of world Orthodoxy. The desire somehow to undermine its spiritual authority from the outside by means of the granting of autocephaly some other community consider unfair, unjustified and baseless,” reads the letter.
The organization “Veterans of Ukraine” is a voluntary all-Ukrainian civil organization of veterans of the great Patriotic war, other wars and military conflicts, veterans of work, military service and internal organs. The organization was founded in 1987.