Saturday, April 20, 2024

Johnson takes a stand

Political courage from an unexpected source.

4 comments:

Auriel Ragmon said...

Ukraine is not a democracy. Numerous parties that conflict with Zelenskyy have been banned. The canonical Orthodox Church has been banned. People who disagree with the guys in charge have been beaten etc.

John (Ad Orientem) said...

That's laughable. Whatever imperfections Ukraine has, they are light years ahead of Russia which is a fascist dictatorship. The ROC has been banned because it is a propaganda organ for the aforementioned fascist dictatorship, which is waging a cruel war of aggression against another Orthodox Christian country under patently false pretenses. The catalogue of Russian war crimes in Ukraine is far too long for a comment. I suggest reading this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine

siege said...

John, the Ukrainian parliament is considering legislation that will ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, whose primate is Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv and All Ukraine, supports Ukraine and its democratically elected government, not the Russian aggression and genocide against their people. For example, read this recent statement by the UOC's Department of External Church Relations: https://news.church.ua/2024/03/28/calls-for-the-destruction-of-ukraine-and-the-justification-of-a-military-aggression-are-inconsistent-with-the-gospel-teaching-statement-from-the-uoc-department-for-external-church-relations/

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church was formerly part of the Moscow Patriarchate, but the UOC separated itself from Moscow in May of 2022 over the Moscow Patriarchate's support for the invasion of their country. Nevertheless, several figures in the Ukrainian government are blaming the UOC for the outrageous behavior of the Russian Orthodox Church, and they are pretending it didn't separate from the Russian church and are trying to ban it on that basis.

Ilya Zhitomirskiy said...

I agree. Bill 8871 is nonsensical and should not come to pass.

Many of those who serve in the Ukrainian army are UOC parishioners. There have been quite a few funerals of UOC parishioners who died defending Ukraine. UOC priests and bishops have prayed for peace in Ukraine unceasingly since 2014, and have rallied around the Ukrainian army since the invasion.