The Ukrainian Orthodox Church compares persecutions of Orthodox believers in Ukraine to Soviet atheist era
February 13, 2017. Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church administration Metropolitan Antony of Borispol and Brovary compares ongoing persecutions of Orthodox believers in Ukraine to actions of Bolsheviks, as reports Interfax-religion website.
“The things we see in certain western regions of our Motherland where Orthodox churches are seized, believers are beaten, priests with their families are thrown outside, can be called a complete breakdown of law and order,” he said in his interview published by the UOC website.
According to him, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church faces “slender and threats, and their logics and context do not differ from apostatic ideas which resulted in mass victims and repressions in the 20th century.”
From the beginning of military actions in Ukraine representatives of the self-proclaimed Kiev Patriarchate seized several dozens of UOC churches, some of them were captured with the support of local authorities and radical nationalists.