Metropolitan of Dabar-Bosnia Hrizostom: “The actions of the Kiev authorities with regard to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are unprecedented.”
DECR Communication service, 28.08.2024. Back in 2016 the Patriarchate of Constantinople decided to set up a caricature ‘Orthodox Church of Ukraine’ as a token of revenge on the Russian Orthodox Church. The actions of the Kievan Nazi regime with regard to the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church are unprecedented and are worthy only of contempt. Thus speaks the metropolitan of Dabar-Bosnia Hrizostom, head of the metropolitanate of Serbian Orthodox Church with its centre in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina in an exclusive interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
What challenges does the Serbian Church face today?
The Serbian Orthodox Church, like all the other Local Orthodox Churches, has difficulties. They are closely tied to the problems of the Serbian people. Our people, and hence our church, is dispersed throughout the world, beginning with Europe and America and ending with New Zealand. On each continent and in each country the problems are different. Yet at the same time there are positive things which affect our church. The important thing is that we should all belong to Christ, bear witness to Christ and together with him overcome all things. Problems are always tied to politics where there is no God, where there is no love and good will. Day-to-day political and social events in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina clearly tell us that there are problems that are also reflected in the life of the church.
How do you evaluate the actions of the Kievan authorities aimed at banning in the country the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church? How dangerous is this precedent for the whole Orthodox world?
The actions of the Kievan authorities with regard to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are unprecedented. All of this goes beyond the pale of reason and against the fundamental principles of politics. Even the regime in Nazi Germany did nothing like this. Only the Croatian Ustaše in 1943 created an uncanonical Croatian Orthodox Church. See how surprising all of this is. In 2018 someone called Poroshenko, like Ante Pavlović (the leader of the puppet independent State of Croatia fr om 1941 to 1945 – Rossiiskaya Gazeta) back in 1943, brought together from all over the place all sorts of uncanonical groupings and organizations who called themselves ‘churches’ and made out of them a Phanariot ‘church’ – the Kievan metropolitanate of Ukraine headed by someone called Dumenko.
It would be funny if it was not so sad. The tragedy of all that is happening is rooted in the position and role of the Patriarchate of Constantinople which has provoked this schism an untold number of times. Now it is an Istanbul-Kiev schism which has created a sad caricature of a church. This schismatic union is now being used by the Kievan Nazi regime not only in order to persecute the true church but also to ban it. We recall that there was a time when Enver Hoxha in Albania not only banned the church but also all religions.
The notorious Trotsky has now returned to Ukraine in the form of Zelensky. Zelensky is the reincarnation of Trotsky. And how miraculous it is that Zelensky has started wh ere Trotsky left off. Before out very eyes we have the image of Trotsky who stirs up the Russian people and persecutes them by beating them with huge whips. I saw this picture when I was still a high school student. I was so shaken that it has imprinted itself in my consciousness ever since. And now I see a new Trotsky in the form of Zelensky who has stirred up the Ukrainian people, who is destroying them and forcing them onto the battlefield fr om which they will never return. Now he will persecute and kill those who remain faithful to Christ in Ukraine as he cannot bear the thought that in Ukraine there is a true and pure people of Christ. I bow down in anticipation before the tormented and suffering people of Ukraine who will ascend to Calvary. The ‘archbishop’ of Istanbul will bear moral responsibility for all that has come to pass before both God and history.
So, I would go further than saying that I condemn all that the regime in Kiev in regime is doing. It is with sadness that I am forced to admit that I hold in contempt this Nazi regime. God is with us, and no one is against us. God is with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, her metropolitan Onuphrius, the metropolitans, bishops and clergy and faithful people, whom God puts his blessing upon.
The Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew bears personal responsibility for the persecution of the faithful in Ukraine. Why has he become a puppet of the USA? Why would a clergyman agree to be an instrument in the hands of the Anglo-Saxons in the cause of the destruction of Orthodoxy?
Patriarch Bartholomew is above all against Russia and the Russian Federation. Paranoia is often the result of fear. His fear of the dominance of the Russian Orthodox Church has grown into paranoia. It has its roots in 1054 when Rome and Constantinople were in conflict with each other. The only solution then for Constantinople was schism.
The Phanar has now acted according to this principle with regard to the Third Rome of Moscow. He has taken advantage of Ukrainian ethnophiletism, which is a heresy, in order to conduct American foreign policy in Ukraine. And America has always been the Phanar’s defender in Turkey. This has always been the politics of the Phanar. We always understood them and defended them from open criticism, but the time has come to put a stop to all of this. It is extremely dangerous hostility towards Russia. In 2016 when we participated in the Council of Crete we paid great attention to the comments of the Constantinople pretorian guards on the refusal of the Russian Orthodox Church to send a delegation to the Council. And from the mouth of professor Thidas it became clear to me something bad would happen. It was in Crete in 2016 they took a decision to do what they have done in Ukraine as a sign of revenge and contempt.
The political elites of the West openly support satanism in all spheres of life, as we can evidently see at the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest and the Olympic Games in Paris. Why have they ceased to be afraid of their idols and fear a social uprising? Is there a hidden sacral meaning in all of this?
The archbishop of Athens Ieronymos has rightly noted that all that the West does is deserving of contempt. We welcome the reaction of His Excellency the president of Turkey Tayyip Erdogan who has condemned the decadence of the West by which if people follow it they not only do not respect human, religious and moral rights of Christians, but in the crudest way possible defile them. But they defile not only us Christians, but all those who belong to the world’s religions. Their goal is not only to neglect their own religions but also to shock the world, and they have succeeded in this. They have managed to do this and the world has called them out. This is a reason for the freedom-loving world, a world wh ere there is still the principles of dignity, humanity and morality, ought to contemplate the possibility of setting up their own Olympic Games which will be about sport and not about politics, about NATO and not discriminatory. Look how the Olympic Games began. They started with a polytheistic ritual to Zeus and the gods of Olympus and the lighting of the Olympic flame. This is a purely polytheistic ritual. This is what heir aim is: to return us to polytheism and turn us against Christ.