"You cannot stand it that we insist upon the fact that people must live according to the commandments of God and not according to the dictates of the U.S. State Department . . . "
Editor's Note: Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye, one of the leading Orthodox Christian Bishops in Ukraine, has written a letter, pointing out the strategy often used by godless governments who persecute the Church.
Fr. Zechariah Lynch has provided us with an English translation of this timely letter:
Christ is in our midst, my dear readers!
The world desires not Christ but Barabbas.
Today during the Divine Liturgy we heard the Gospel reading which recounted to us the judgment of Pontius Pilate on Christ Jesus (Mark 15:1-15). The hypocrisy of the Jews is revealed during this trial. While gathered at the Sanhedrin they accused the Lord of “blasphemy” because He made Himself equal to God. Yet, when they came before Pontius Pilate the Jews brought against the Savior only political accusations.
Now, it turns out, His main guilt is that He has made Himself a new king, and thereby is rebelling against the government authority of Caesar. It was much simpler to attain from the Roman procurator a death sentence for Christ in this manner. “What evil has he committed?” Pilate asked. Unable to answer this question, the Jews were only able to cry aloud, “Crucify, crucify Him!”
Has much changed in our times? God-opposing powers always use political accusations against the Church. After the revolution of 1917 clergy were labeled “accomplices of imperialism;” in 1937 we were accused of “counterrevolutionary conspiracy with the goal to overthrow Soviet power.” After 2014 we became “Kremlin agents” and “accomplices with aggressor states.”
People, inspired by the devil, never will say that they hate the Church because she serves God. They will always have some political accusations against her. I would like to repeat the question of Pontius Pilate, “What evil has our Church done in Ukraine?” Bring forward concrete examples of her “anti-government actions.”
Are we guilty of the fact that we have collected money and hundreds of liters of blood for children with cancer? Or is it because we feed the poor and repair hospitals for soldiers? No, in reality, we are “guilty” of the fact that we speak "wrongly" — wrongly because we do not accept the new genocidal ideology which is being imposed upon us by the new world order.
Our “guilt” is found in the fact that we call war evil* and insist that children must have a mother and a father, and not "parent number 1 and number 2". We also firmly believe that certain parts of a person's body are created by God, not for sexual indulgence, for they have a completely different purpose, and this also makes you irate. You cannot stand it that we insist upon the fact that people must live according to the commandments of God and not according to the dictates of the U.S. State Department. You want to crucify the Church because you desire to see Barabbas freed rather than Christ. This is because the world desires not God but an outlaw.
— Metropolitan Luke of Zaparozhye
* Translators note: this a reference to the fratricidal war which began after the U.S. supported a coup in Ukraine in 2014, overthrowing the democratically elected government and installing a puppet “government” subservient to the U.S.A. Thus, Ukraine was forcibly and violently brought into the “Western” sphere of influence.
For more great memes like this one, follow Global Orthodox News on Telegram: https://t.me/globalorthodox