Embassy of Ukraine to Montenegro continues to incite hatred for UOC

The building of the Embassy of Ukraine to Montenegro. A photo: waytomonte.com

The Embassy of Ukraine to Montenegro continues to publish critical materials that incite hostility towards the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its Primate, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, who arrived in Montenegro on February 27 to participate in the celebrations on the occasion of the commemoration of St. Simeon the Myrrh-streaming.

So, on February 27, the embassy’s official Facebook page posted a link to an article by the Montenegrin author Božidar Proročić, who calls the Primate of the UOC “Metropolitan of the ROCU” and accuses representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church of the ignorance of history.

“When you talk about the so-called Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev, you should say that he is the metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, and not the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as you present him,” the author writes, addressing the clergyman of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who made an announcement of the arrival and worship with His Beatitude Onuphry. “Remember that metropolitans such as Onuphry are merely instructed ‘officials’ of political and military circles.”

It also turned out that the Ukrainian diplomatic mission sent letters reflecting the position of the OCU regarding the visit of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry to Montenegro to the local media.

“When the incorrect statements, to put it mildly, of our diplomats against Metropolitan Onuphry and the UOC caused media hype, they slightly corrected the texts (almost without any changes in essence) and ... found nothing better than give a link to a dubious article by a local author with his private, in some places insulting opinion regarding the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Onuphry, and the Serbian Orthodox Church,” wrote political scientist Yuri Molchanov on his Facebook page. “I’m sorry, but is our foreign affairs agency going to post inscriptions on fences on their pages? There, too, a lot of information is sometimes given. I will cry once more to our Servants: why do we all need it? Why to make fun of Zelensky? Do you want to get confused in church matters as well?”

The famous Orthodox blogger Alexander Voznesensky also asked for explanations about what was happening.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, can you somehow comment on these actions of embassy employees who violate the Constitution of Ukraine and incite religious hatred both in Ukraine and abroad?” Voznesensky asked on his Facebook page.

We recall that on February 27, the Embassy of Ukraine to Montenegro posted a provocative statement against the UOC, in which the Primate of the UOC is called "Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church in Kiev, Bishop Onuphry", who does not have the authority to "express the opinion of the majority of Orthodox believers in Ukraine or the Orthodox Church of Ukraine".

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