Dear brothers and sisters, I thank you all for your love, for your faith.
Yesterday (the attempt to seize the cathedral in Chernivtsi) — that was vandalism. Our people suffered for the Orthodox faith. You all saw how our Metropolitan Meletiy of Chernivtsi and Bukovyna was beaten, how our priests were beaten...
Yesterday they wrote that today, the first day, the service in the cathedral would be held "in the Ukrainian language". No... Blood was shed there, there was vandalism there. They mocked our shrine, our Church there. They went into the altar and defiled it. Such are the "true" Orthodox believers. And we must be silent? No. We must serve God.
Where is justice in our Ukraine? I want to ask the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine: how did you bring up your cops, that yesterday they beat up our Christians, our mothers, our sisters, hit them on the ribs so that no one would see. But there is a God who sees everything. Stop. Turn away from your bad path. Your path leads straight into hell.
I want to tell everyone how a group came from Ivano-Frankivsk specially to kill me. Understand me correctly, I am afraid of nothing. I have no security... Our protection is from heaven. And I thank the Orthodox people of Bukovyna and all our Ukraine. We will unite our Ukraine for the sake of God and for the sake of the future.
Brothers and sisters, strength is in truth. Our children are dying at the front line. I have never seen our accusers weep over a coffin, over a grave. But with us it is every day.
You know what they did to my children, who defended me, who were at the front line between death and life. My son took his commander and carried him on his back for three kilometres. Everyone told him: "Leave him, he will die anyway". But he answered: "He is alive. How can we leave him?" And they were abandoned. Then he asked the lieutenant colonel: "Why did you abandon us at the front line without help, without anything? We had nothing to defend ourselves with, nothing to eat, nothing to drink". Because of this my son remained disabled for the rest of his life... We came with him to the military commissariat. They accepted the hospital discharge summary, all the documents, and said they would grant a disability group. But at the same time they wanted him to go back to the unit. But he is disabled, he cannot go. Then the military commissar said that we will send you the documents home. But so far there is nothing. We cannot even register the disability. And I already have three such disabled people at home. All from the front line. Two graves. About the others I will not speak, because otherwise they will not come home.
Son Dymytrii, whom we buried in the monastery... By the evening of the day when he spoke in my defence, he was beaten very badly, they took the card with money and sent him to the other world...
Where is the truth? Our leadership, when it comes to power, takes an oath on the Gospel, on the constitution, that all citizens of Ukraine are equal for them. But where are our rights? Where is the constitution for us? They do not exist.
Where was the constitution when these barbarians were beating our priests? They tell us that a door fell on them... You did see how our Metropolitan Meletiy was struck and fell to the ground. How much longer will this go on happening in our Ukraine?
I would like to ask those who yesterday beat our mothers, sisters: how will you look into the eyes of your mothers, your wives, your children? Are you not ashamed? Our children, our sons, you sent to war, to the front line, and here you beat their sisters, wives, mothers. Are you not ashamed? We live in such a country...
Today we ask for worldwide help. No one hears us here. The children wept, asked for help. But the accusers are trying in various ways to have me locked up. By deception they are securing a charge against me. They paid the children money, to buy them, so that they would speak badly about the monks, about the sisters, about me. One person called my children when I was at interrogations last week, and said: "You are all washed up, there in Molnytsia". That is what they were told on the phone. "And why do you say such a thing?" "Because your dad is a bandit... You are fools. You go to that fool in the monastery. He is raising you for organs, to sell you for organs..."
I think the time has come to get up off our knees. We are in our own home, we are in our own faith, in our own Church, Orthodox, canonical. And we will never betray our faith.
I never named any names. I said only one thing — I do not want to be in that church where they beat. And let them judge all of us, all of Ukraine.
They tell our priests: transfer to the OCU, and if not, then to the war, to the front line. Our priests are now being taken and sent to a military unit. They took the superior of the Holy Spirit Pochaiv Monastery. Metropolitan Arseniy has already been locked up in prison for a second year. For what, tell me? And these barbarians are free. It is bad that yesterday they let them out of the cathedral. It was necessary to take a guarantee that no one would do anything to them, but each one had to be photographed, where they came from, what you are looking for... Blood was shed there. It was not prayer in Ukrainian there. They all spoke Russian. And they beat many there who wanted to defend the church. And we are wrong?
The Lord will be with us. Fear nothing. I call upon all Ukraine to stand up in defence of our canonical Orthodox faith. This is the Lord's Church. This is God's Church. This is the Church of our ancestors. It is thousands of years old.
You mock us so. People barely survive, they no longer have anything to eat. The men have all gone into hiding. How many have been killed. US counterintelligence reported yesterday that two and a half million of our Ukrainians have perished.
Tell me, where are your children? Ours are at the front line. Yours study abroad, go out freely to restaurants, they have it good. And we, the fools...
I ask the officers of the TCC (territorial recruitment centres): do not touch our children. Dear brothers and sisters, the time of confessorship has come for us. Do not walk past when they are caught on the road, their arms are twisted and they are sent to war by force.
My ten children, of their own accord, out of love for their homeland, the state of Ukraine, went to defend it. In what did I fail to please our Ukraine? I love, I loved and I will love my state, Ukraine. We live here. But at present no one defends us.
I am being tried because I do not want to join the OCU. They did an expert examination and say that I said something there against the OCU. Provide the video, we will see. I never said this and will not say it, because they are of absolutely no interest to me.
What, if I put on a white coat, am I a doctor already? Or if I put on a police uniform, am I a policeman already? No, brothers and sisters, we must be who we are, what the Lord called us to. If someone has put on a cassock, does he have the grace of God? No. And they are already showing their own. I would never have done such a thing in God's church, such vandalism as there was yesterday in our Bukovyna.
I ask, Bukovyna, unite, all of you, to the glory of the Holy Trinity, of our faith. Beat no one, offend no one, defile no one. But we have rights. Here we were born, on this land, and our faith is thousands of years old.
I will no longer be silent. My children are already in the ground. Here are young lads, our policemen, they are our boys, they are our brothers. Yes, they have the law, but it is not to kill but to protect the people. The Security Service of Ukraine. If you are security for our people, why do you do all this? This is your hand. Stop before it is too late.
Yesterday they wrote that I organised these people in Chernivtsi. That did not happen. People themselves know where and how to defend their faith. Bukovyna is multinational and multi-confessional. And we have never had problems. Everyone went to whichever Church, to whichever God, he wanted. We took churches from no one. We did not beat anyone. We do nothing bad. We wait with love for people at the divine service.
Once again I thank the clergy of all Ukraine. I thank Moldova, Romania... You did see how in Chisinau a dad was beaten before the eyes of a child. It is one order everywhere, so that Orthodoxy would not remain.
The Lord created the Church. The Lord is our faith. And only the Lord can stop us. We ask for holy prayers. And fear nothing, brothers and sisters. Fear nothing. The hour will come when we come, but we will not leave. We frighten no one. But our rights... Where are our rights, tell me?
I ask all priests, hierarchs of our Ukrainian Orthodox Church. We do not serve Moscow or Russia. We serve our own country and our own people, but above all God.
God's help to you, God's blessing. We do not need them to go on trampling us underfoot. Enough. It is already the fourth year. And if we count from the year fourteen, and even from the year ninety-two, how much our people have suffered! When on Anna's Hill they jabbed swords into the stomachs of a children's choir. That is the kind of "faith" they have. That is not god. God is the judge of all. I forgive everyone, I ask everyone for forgiveness, and God's help to you, brothers and sisters. Be firm in your faith. God is with us. God's help. May the Lord God save you.
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