UOC rep: This isn’t a Church where old women are beaten and temples seized

On February 6, 2023, Metropolitan Longin (Zhar) of Banchy Monastery, Vicar of the Eparchy of Chernivtsi and Bukovyna, in his sermon said that in the true Church they do not beat up old women, who pray for everybody, and do not seize churches.

A video of the sermon was published on the YouTube channel of the Bancheny Monastery.

"In our canonical Church, we don't dance, we don't sing, we don't walk, we don't jump, we don't take crowbars and break open temple doors, we don't beat up those old women who have prayed for us sinners all their lives, we don't do that in the Church. That's not God's church, that's Satan's church. Is there God in that church or not? God was crucified for us," said the hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Metropolitan Longin urged to pray for Ukraine and protect the canonical Church.

"God has no nations and languages - all are His children; the Lord is one for all children, as well as Mother of God. Pray for our canonical Orthodox Church. The faith will always be with us. The Church is the Lord's, not a political Church, here the Lord God Himself rests. God is with us; God is Love and we have no right to divide people into left and right. People have started their own churches, but the Lord's Church is God's Church. We serve here not in Ukrainian or Russian, but in Church Slavonic, which is the spiritual language God gave us," the abbot of the Bancheny Monastery added.

As earlier reported, the UOC hierarch said that there would be persecution in all Churches whose heads would not sell out to the authorities.