Met Longin: I’m tried as I don't go to the Church of crowbar and grinder
The bishop said he would be faithful to the canonical Church where people pray, love and forgive each other.
Metropolitan Longin of Bancheny said in a sermon why he is being tried. The video is published on the YouTube channel of the Bancheny Monastery.
"Do not fear anything, brothers and sisters, because the holy true Orthodox faith and God are undefeated. We remain in the Church, which is already thousands of years old. We remain faithful to God, our Orthodox faith and our Beatitude Onuphry. And you are not afraid of anything, just pray. By prayers, the Lord will give us everything. They will judge us and close us. Wasn't the Lord in prison? Wasn’t the Lord God beaten and tried? And this is the way that leads us to the Kingdom of God to eternity. And I ask you very much that you do not depart from our canonical Orthodox Church," the Metropolitan said.
At the same time, he stressed that there are people today who "establish their own 'churches'".
"Do you know what they are trying me for? Because I said I want to be in the Church of God. I don't want to be where they beat, where they break doors with an angle grinder, where they beat up the old women who have prayed all their lives in the Church of God. But I didn't name that Church. I want to be in this Church, where there is peace, where nobody is beaten, where people pray, cry and forgive each other. God has no nation, neither Jew nor Gentile, and my father's house is a house of prayer for all nations. For this, I am being tried. And those who put on some military uniforms, they incite interfaith hatred and interethnic enmity," the bishop stressed.
As reported, Romania called on the president to react to the beating of Metropolitan Longin.