UOC Chancellor: Modern society is mired in unhealthy tolerance
The Western world continues to make concessions to certain minorities that consider themselves disadvantaged, moving away from the truth in Christ, Met. Anthony noted.
For a society mired in unhealthy tolerance, real tolerance, justice and equality are not important, but only new rights and privileges are needed. The Сhancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich) of Boryspil and Brovary, spoke about this on the YouTube channel “STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS: On faith in colours”.
So, according to the Metropolitan, “reading news from the Western world, you catch yourself thinking that the world has gone mad, and at the same time you are surprised at a truly devilish substitution of concepts.”
“Probably no one will dispute the fact that racism is evil,” he said. “And it is thanks to the Christian ideas of mercy, the value of each human life, love for one's neighbour that phenomena such as segregation, the rise of one people at the expense of another is minimized in many countries of the world. But look at what the struggle for racial equality has become today in the United States of America. Now this is, in fact, the same declaration of racial superiority, with the only difference being that the black race has become the superior race. News columns are full of messages – the white kneel before the black, black people can violate quarantine, black students are exempted from exams, etc. Gangs are robbing shops and private houses with impunity, killing and crippling people amid demands to remove the police, which has already stepped back from what is happening.”
The UOC Chancellor believes that what is happening cannot be attributed only to certain social processes that go too far today.
“Activists are already demanding to remove the image of Archangel Michael trampling Satan, because Satan is traditionally depicted in black, which, in their opinion, is a manifestation of racism,” he explained. “And the most radical so-called fighters for justice have already raised a hand at the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, in their opinion, personifies racism with one fact of his being white.”
At the same time, Metropolitan Anthony noted, the religious leaders of the Western world did not defend their own shrines, but "try to make awkward curtsies to activists, saying that Christ was not completely white in his earthly life".
“If we look back over the past decades, we will see that such curtsies from religious leaders to various minorities who consider themselves disadvantaged are committed regularly,” he added. “And few people know that the more such concessions, the further those who concede move away from the truth in Christ. Make concessions to the so-called "representatives of non-traditional orientation" – and you will not be able to call sin a sin. For a modern society mired in unhealthy tolerance, priorities are shifted. For them, true tolerance, justice, and equality, which are possible only in Christ, are not important. They only need new rights and privileges.”
The hierarch emphasized that in Christianity it has long been common to hate sin but love and pity the sinner, but now, under the guise of leniency to the sinner, they are trying to instill leniency to sin.
“We shouldn’t dismiss that – they say this is happening in the USA and Western Europe, but this is impossible in our country. Alas, all this is already starting to happen here. And now you should be courageous enough to call a spade a spade, without regard to the society poisoned by the press. Otherwise, it will be too late,” resumed the UOC Chancellor.