Metropolitan Luke: Persecution is a sorbent for toxins in the Church

Metropolitan Luke (Kovalenko). Photo: press service of the Zaporizhzhia eparchy

In an interview with the Serbian pouke.org resource , Metropolitan Luke of Zaporizhzhia and Melitopol called the persecution of the Church a natural process of detoxification.

“We must clearly understand that not everyone is firm in faith and their convictions. It was, is and will be like that. <…> Persecution is a kind of absorbent that absorbs toxins from the Body of the Church. Only in this way does the Church crystallize, and those who came to it for some personal interests fall away from it,” Vladyka noted.

Metropolitan Luke said that he did not regret the trials that befell the Church and characterized today's events in the UOC as a detoxification of the church organism.

“A priest once said to me, 'I thought I would manage people, that they would listen to me and that this is it, but there is still much, much more work',” the hierarch added.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the brethren of the Zographou Monastery at Athos expressed support for His Beatitude Onuphry.

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