UOC Chancellor Denounces Government Ultimatum as 'Orchestrated Plan' to Dismantle Church
Metropolitan Anthony warns of spiritual consequences amid legal threats and escalating pressure on Ukraine’s largest religious body.
KYIV — Metropolitan Anthony of Boryspil and Brovary, chancellor of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), delivered a forceful sermon on July 20, condemning what he described as a state-led campaign to eradicate the Church through legal ultimatums and political coercion.
From the pulpit, Met. Anthony sharply criticized a July 17 directive from the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, which demands that the UOC sever any “remaining ties” with the Moscow Patriarchate by August 18.
“The directive sounds like an ultimatum, and any response will be considered incorrect,” he said. “It’s clear that this is all part of an orchestrated plan, and nobody actually cares about the Church’s statutes.”
Despite the UOC having amended its statutes in May 2022 to declare full independence from Moscow, Ukrainian authorities continue to treat the Church as a Russian affiliate - basing legal decisions on Russian Church documents rather than the UOC’s own canonical declarations.
In a sermon that invoked the trials of Job and the Apostle Paul’s call to “bless those who persecute you,” Metropolitan Anthony emphasized the spiritual stakes. “We have something to suffer for - for truth, for tradition, for the canons of the Church,” he said. “And we have something to die for - for Christ.”
His remarks come as the Ukrainian government intensifies its crackdown on the UOC. Legal proceedings have been launched against members of the Holy Synod, and earlier this month, Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship - an act justified by authorities on claims of dual citizenship, which Met. Onuphry denies.
The July directive has raised fears that the UOC is being pushed toward a forced and uncanonical merger with the state-backed schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). In response, Met. Anthony urged the faithful to remain vigilant in their worship practices: “Visit churches, confess, and receive communion only where there is God’s grace.”
He concluded with a message of resilience and spiritual hope: “God created the Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against Her. And even if in the earthly dimension it seems that this is the end... the Lord will find a way to revive the Church and will not give Her over to mockery.”
Met. Anthony's full homily, as published first by OrthoChristian.com, is below.
Today the holy Apostle Paul once again addresses us: Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.
After the end of the Soviet period of our history, we thought that the end had come to atheism, to the struggle against the Church and faith. And the word “persecutor” remained in the past. Back then, even in our worst nightmares we wouldn’t have dreamed that we would have to experience this again, that they’d want to close churches and ban the Church.
On July 17, a directive was published by the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience stating that our Church must correct certain violations that were discovered by an expert commission in analyzing our statutes.
The directive sounds like an ultimatum, and any response will be considered incorrect. Apparently, the verdict has already been prepared. It’s clear that this is all part of an orchestrated plan, and nobody actually cares about the Church’s statutes.
Previously, legal proceedings were opened against members of the Synod, then the primate was stripped of citizenship, and recently, this ultimatum-directive was issued.
There’s one goal for all these actions: to ban our Church. There are two possible options—either completely or in parts. How should we, the faithful, respond to these challenges?
The book of the holy righteous Job comes to mind. Job was a God-fearing and pious man. He was devoted to the Lord God with his whole soul and in everything acted according to His will, turning away from evil. The Lord endowed righteous Job with great wealth: he had much livestock and all kinds of property. And in one day, by God’s permission, Job suddenly lost all his riches, and then all his children. And afterward he was struck with a terrible disease—leprosy, which covered him from head to toe. But however hard it was for him, he didn’t sin before the Lord God and didn’t utter a single foolish word. Although they suggested to him, seeing his hopelessness and terrible torments: Curse God and die. But he didn’t murmur against the Almighty, but humbly said: Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away [as it pleased the Lord, so it was done]; blessed be the name of the LORD.
And today let us say with the words of righteous Job: Blessed be the Name of the Lord! We priests and hierarchs have something to live for: for you, the faithful. And we have something to suffer for—for truth, for tradition, for the canons of the Church, and we have something to die for—for Christ, because it’s precisely in Christ that the true life of a believing man is revealed.
Let us courageously accept everything that the Lord sends us, and let us not cross the final line, so as not to find ourselves completely outside the canonical field. And whatever happens, you, as believers, must be attentive and sensitive, so that you go to church, confess and receive Communion only where there is God’s grace.
We mustn’t play around with faith and God. God created the Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And even if in the earthly dimension it seems that this is the end and there’s no future, if a man holds to the foundation of faith, the canons, the dogmas of the Church, then the Lord will find a way to revive the Church and won’t give it over to mockery.
Let us pray more fervently, asking for God’s help and protection. We, of course, will use every tool at our disposal to defend our Church in the legal, earthly field. But we all also understand what is happening in that field now...
Our hope and trust is in the Triune God, Whom we serve and to Whom we hope to come in earthly life, to be in the Kingdom of the Heavenly Father.
Previously, UOJ reported that the Ukrainian government’s directives to the UOC have effectively become instruments of repression, according to OSCE expert on religious freedom Natallia Vasylevych.
