Thread by @Favillez

1) Several interesting responses from the ROC to the decision by the UOC-MP to distance itself from Moscow.
Let's start with the Synod, which held an extraordinary meeting on Sunday to discuss the issue.

2) The synod basically says, it's ok, we understand that you were forced to do this by radicals, schismatics and nationalists, and that you don't really mean it. Anyhow, your decisions are basically pointless, since your status is up to us.
Judge for yourselves...

3) "Express all possible support and understanding to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is subjected to unprecedented pressure from representatives of schismatic structures, local authorities, the media, extremist organizations and the nationalist-minded part of the public."

4) For good measure, Met. Hilarion then added "extremist groups and schismatic structures" in his own commentary.

5) The synod adds in #3 that "the status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is determined by the Diploma of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia of October 27, 1990"

6) Met. Hilarion - who is basically the ROC's #2 man - decided to explain that the decisions of the UOC-MP need to be seen in context.
"It is connected with the fact that for many years the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been denied the right to be called as it calls itself.

7) They are trying to force it to be called the “Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine”, and the goal of this is to re-register all parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and alienate them in favor of a schismatic structure."

8) But it doesn't really matter, anyway, because according to Hilarion "There is an opinion that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church separated from the Russian Orthodox Church. This is not true. There was no statement about separation from the Russian Orthodox Church.

9) No statement was made that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church would have any new status; on the contrary, it once again confirmed that it has the status of independence and self-sufficiency, which was given to it back in 1990."

10) So, in typical Russian style, we have a potpourri of contraditions here.
#1 - Nothing to see here, they are only reaffirming the status quo.
#2 - We understand that they had to do what they did, because of all the nasty nazis who forced them. Although they didn't actually do

11) anything (see #1).
#3) This nothing that they didn't do, has to be studied, even though we have already said that all they did was reaffirm the status quo.
#4) Even if they did actually try and do something - which they didn't - they can't, because their status has already

14) been decided, and only we can change it, and we're a little too busy at the moment.

And, if this wasn't enough, we also got treated to Kirill's ranting about how demonic forces have always tried to weaken Russia. This time he blamed Lenin, which is a nice change.

15) "The supreme ruler decided to destroy his country, and we know that the consequences of that terrible decision still affect the fate of all of us - people living in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, and other places.

16) Of course, many have got used to it, many even consider that all this is good; how many heads - so many minds. But the great country, the stronghold of Orthodoxy, the force that balanced all other forces, weakened through these terrible historical decisions."

17) Yes, Lenin is dead, and the USSR, buried, but wait! Danger still lurks... Still today "dangerous attempts are being made to weaken our Fatherland."
So this explains what is happening in Ukraine at the moment.

18) "we cannot but grieve over what is happening in fraternal Ukraine. Undoubtedly, the same spirits of wickedness in high places took up arms against our Church, striving not only to divide the Orthodox people of Russia and Ukraine, but to make sure that an abyss lay between us.

19) And not just an abyss, but that a ditch be dug, like those ditches that are used during a military operation, so that the enemy does not pass through."

I might have avoided the ditch reference, given the mass graves found in formerly Russian occupied territories, but hey...

20) Still, everything is going to be OK.
"despite any changes in the borders between states, the Church of the united people that emerged from the Kyiv Baptismal font, like the people themselves, will undoubtedly keep in their hearts, in their memory, in their pious customs

21) the great heritage of their ancestors"
Yeah... I might not count on that.

Patriarch Kirill's latest statements, and the resolutions of the council are here: actualidadereligiosa.blogspot.com/2022/02/war-in…
Met. Hilarion's are here
actualidadereligiosa.blogspot.com/2022/02/war-in…

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