UOC rep: People driven into OCU as Bolsheviks forced into collective farms

The methods with which Epifaniy Dumenko and his supporters, backed by the authorities, force believers to defect to the OCU are similar to those used by the Bolsheviks when they imposed collective farms, said in his sermon Archpriest Vasyl Balan, rector of the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos in the village of Murovani Kurylivtsi, Vinnytsia region.

Commenting on Dumenko's statement that all Orthodox Ukrainians, regardless of their wishes, will end up in the OCU, Father Vasyl noted: "This is already a dictatorship. It reminds me of the stories of our grandparents: when the Soviet power came, wealthy people were dispossessed, claiming that they were enemies of the people, and all their property was taken away, and they were forcibly transferred to collective farms. 'Whether you want it or not,' the Soviet power said, 'you will be in a collective farm.'"

"Recently, someone has told me," Father Vasyl continued, "'You know, Father, it's like having a loving mother, and the children love their mother, but someone comes, brings another woman and says, 'This is your mother now. Whether you like it or not, she will be your mother.' What will the children do? Will they go to that woman? No, they will resist and turn away. And today we see that this is a stepmother. People don't want to go there.'"

He pointed out that Dumenko's followers are taking away churches from believers, using grinders, crowbars, and tear gas, and these churches stand empty.

"The Lord says, 'You will know them by their fruits.' If you approach a pear tree, and someone tells you there are plums or apples on it, you still see that it's a pear. If someone claims to be a Christian but beats, uses violence, and humiliates, what kind of Christian is he/she? We don't see love in them, and we distance ourselves from them because Christ is not there. Here, for millennia, it's Christ, and we follow Him," Father Vasyl emphasized.

"It has been 30 years since I became a priest," he said. "I was forbidden from going to church from my childhood, but I've been in the church almost all my life. When I joined the army, and they let me go for a couple of hours, I, in my military uniform, would first go to church. Everyone would look at me and wonder how a soldier could go to church. But I went, lit candles and bowed. When I was back from the army, we were reviving the nativity scene in our village. We were pursued by all sorts of people, and threatened by the first and second secretary of the regional party committee, but we hid, moving from house to house, and still praised Christ. And no one prohibited me. I know it's a thorny path, but God will always be with us. No matter how much they intimidate us, no matter how much they try to forbid us, these people will sooner or later be gone; they are not immortal. But faith, the Church, Christ – they are eternal."

According to the priest, the members of the Ukrainian Parliament who passed an anti-church bill in its first reading "reminded [him] of the Jews who crucified Christ – how they rejoiced and shouted. But then the time came when they beat their breasts and said, 'Lord, have mercy!'"

The priest warned that attempts to "forbid what is established by God" could provoke "great wrath and divine punishment on all those who want to go against Christ".

He expressed confidence that Christ will nullify the efforts of the Church's opponents, "but first, He will test us. And may God give us the strength to stand in our Orthodox faith, in our Orthodox Church, to be faithful children of the Mother Church, to protect and defend our shrines," Father Vasyl concluded.

Earlier, Metropolitan Feodosiy of Cherkasy and Kaniv noted that the last time the Orthodox Church experienced persecution similar to the current persecution was under Khrushchev, "but even Khrushchev did not think of passing a state law banning the Church".