Greek Bishops, Politicians Outraged Over Persecution of UOC

ATHENS — Hundreds of Greek Orthodox Christians, including bishops and politicians, have expressed outrage to the magazine Vima Orthodoxias at the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

This follows a report in Vima on the persecution of the UOC. It observes that Ukraine has revoked the citizenship of Met. Onuphry, the UOC's primate—a likely precursor to his deportation.

It also stated that in the past six months, dozens of historic UOC monasteries have been requisitioned, with monks forcibly expelled and holy relics moved without community consent.

These actions, Vima points out, all have one aim: to suppress the canonical UOC in favor of the state-backed, schismatic "Orthodox Church in Ukraine."

One prominent Greek archbishop told Vima: "We all know that Onuphry is being wronged. A hierarch who gave his life for Ukraine cannot be deprived of citizenship. However, geostrategic balances do not allow us to say it openly."

The Metropolitan of Macedonia warned about "the identification of Orthodoxy with geopolitical imperatives," while a hierarch from Crete warned that "silence will be written as complicity in history." Another powerful archbishop noted that "the people see the looting and wonder why we don't speak out".

Politicians from almost all parties are expressing concern about the developments. Opposition MPs speak of a "blatant violation of human rights", while government officials state that "Greece is closely monitoring the situation".

The silence of the Church of Greece has created a rift with the faithful. Many clerics on the ground express indignation. A protosyngelos of a provincial diocese emphasized: “If we saw such images in another country, we would talk about persecution. Why do we do what we do not see in Ukraine?”

The Holy Synod of Constantinople has yet to respond to these criticisms.

As the UOJ reported, Pat. Bartholomew recently vowed not to rescind the OCU's Tomos of "autocephaly."

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