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Already in May of 2024 The Balkan Press released an article destined to be a clarion call for the world to take notice that Volodomir Zelensky had officially become a “dictator.” Zelensky Is Now Officially A Dictator – The Balkan Members of NATO with a healthy dose of US Democrats and neo-Con Republicans did not heed its warning, pumping money and promoting the “Holy Cause of Ukraine” against Mother Russia with bravado and reckless abandon. Immediately, some remembered then Prince Edward Windsor and his morganatic wife, the American divorcée, Wallis Simpson, when they romped to cozy up to Hitler, with the extra bonus that Edward could speak fluent German. The elite of the Western World were lending tacit support to a dictator who had co-opted both the Lutheran and Roman Catholic state churches, leaving only the “Bekennende Kirche (Confessional Church)” to denounce Herr Schickelgruber’s misdeeds and tyranny. Pastors and priests paid with their lives.
It is not cliché to think that “history repeats itself,” because it obviously does, morphing its adjectives and players, its “pronouns” as it were, with the same nefarious effects in the end.
The canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the largest Christian denomination in what is today a rather new country of Ukraine, whose patriarch happens to be the Patriarch of Moscow. While Ukraine may have declared itself independent of Russia after the Fall of Communism, the Church has remained unchanged since its inception in the 9th century in the east Slavic state of Kievan Rus when Byzantine missionaries introduced it there. It has remained impervious, though challenged, through times of Mongol rule, Bolshevism, and the Fall of Communism. It is flourishing as a dominant religion in both Russia and Ukraine, hence it is a threat to the globalist supported Zelensky dictatorship.
Enter Metropolitan Arseny of the Sviatogorsk Lavra, The Holy Mountains Lavra of the Holy Dormition (Ukrainian: Свято-Успенська Святогірська Лавра, Sviatohirsk Lavra or the Sviatohirsk Cave Monastery), on the banks of the Siverskyi Donets River. Ironically, although today located in the administrative district of Donetsk Oblast, it was called Stalino Oblast, during Soviet times. How fitting is that moniker when we learn that the metropolitan, the diocesan bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church there, has been in custody for 120 days at the writing of this report. His crime: the head of his church is ecclesiastically Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. According to a report by the lavra (monastery):
The court session was attended by the People’s Deputy of Ukraine Victoria Hryb, who personally supported Metropolitan Arseny, as well as by brethren of the Lavra, sisters of St. John’s Skete in the village of Adamovka, pilgrims and local residents.
All three days of the meeting, Metropolitan Arseny was escorted from the Dnipro pre-trial detention center to Sloviansk in a cramped box measuring 50 cm × 70 cm × 150 cm. The journey took at least 15 hours round trip, during which the metropolitan was left without food and water. Vladyka asked the court to give him the opportunity to participate in sessions via video link or not to schedule court sessions for two or more days in a row. However, the judge rejected this motion.
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The defense petitioned for the release of the metropolitan on bail and the personal vouchers of nine people’s deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, representing different factions. The prosecutor insisted on the need to extend the detention, arguing that Metropolitan Arseny could allegedly escape or influence witnesses. In response, Bishop Arseny said: “If I lived in this monastery for 30 years and stayed there even while it was being shelled, I am not going to flee now either. When the troops of the Russian Federation stood 80 meters from us across the Donets, I did not leave the monastery, but stayed with the brethren and refugees.”
The metropolitan also stressed that he had taken a monastic, priestly and episcopal oath to serve in the place where the Church would place him, and the Svyatogorsk Lavra was his place of service. He asked the court to release him, noting that he did not intend to put pressure on witnesses and that nine people’s deputies were ready to take him on bail.
Despite these arguments, Judge Tatyana Khaustova decided to leave Metropolitan Arseny in custody for another 60 days until October 13 (emphasis added – EP). If this decision is not overturned by the court of appeal, the metropolitan will be behind bars for almost six months.
After the announcement of the court’s decision, MP Artem Dmytruk said: “I, like eight of my other colleagues, people’s deputies, wrote a statement about taking Vladyka on bail. But the judge cynically ignored this motion. This is not just a systematic disregard for the law, it is a deliberate destruction of a person and, at the same time, an attempt to destroy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church!”(emphasis added – EP)
Metropolitan Arseny also commented that the case prepared by the prosecution contains false reports from the media and Telegram channels that have nothing to do with real events and accusations. He stressed that this is not so much a trial of him as of the Svyatogorsk Lavra and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The judge rejected all the arguments of defense lawyers and people’s deputies, leaving Metropolitan Arseny in custody. His lawyers are already preparing appeals.
This persecution and harassment, very much like Stalin’s historical malice towards the Church in a district once named “in his honor,” is more evidence for the Balkan Press article mentioned above. If one can’t force the people to turn on their religious organization, the State will dismantle such to remove the perceived threat. Case in point, the RADA (The Verkhovna Rada), the unicameral parliament of Ukraine, has now introduced legislation to eradicate the largest church body within its borders. One must keep in mind that the same lavra which Metropolitan Arseny serves, with Christ as its vicar and Kirill as its patriarch, was already attacked by Bolshevik forces during the Russian Revolution. Its church treasures were stolen, priests and monks murdered, and finally its monastery turned into a sanatorium while the religious functions were completely banned. Zelensky, rightly dubbed by The Balkan Press a “dictator,” is replicating Bolshevik strategy in a style also reminiscent of the Hitler regime.
The European Union seems to be following suit in that Czechia has now ordered its intelligence agency to investigate Orthodox Churches there for “Russian Influence.” More on this at Czech Senate committee calls for examination of Orthodox Churches in the republic / OrthoChristian.Com At the same time, Zelensky, now a dictator, is conferring with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople about his plans to dismantle Orthodoxy in Ukraine. It is this author’s observation, not a representation of the publisher of this article, that it is ironic that a non-Orthodox, in this case a non-Christian, would be conferring with an Orthodox patriarch about outlawing an Orthodox denomination with a different Patriarch. One smells a whiff of “globalism” to eliminate that which is not convenient about the faith. One must remember that it was said Patriarch of Constantinople who conspired with Zelensky, now a dictator, to create “The Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” as a state-acceptable variant to the larger Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The stench of 1930’s Germany with the smoke of 1917 Tsarist Russia fills the air of the Donbas, filtering into the inner sanctum of the dictatorial Zelensky Regime.
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