On December 4, 2022, on the feast of the Presentation of the Most Holy Theotokos, Metropolitan Longin of Banchen, during a sermon, urged the faithful not to pay attention to the actions of the authorities and security forces, but simply “pray, love your neighbors and serve the Lord.”

“I call you to prayer and to love. The prayer of Orthodox Ukraine will defeat the visible and invisible enemy. Do not fight people, the devil does it, the confrontation between God and Satan has been going on for many thousands of years, but Christ always wins,” Metropolitan Longin said.

The bishop also noted that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has a thousand-year history, and the newly created “churches” are the churches of the Antichrist.

“They won’t kill us all, because Ukraine is all Orthodox, if they kill us, our country will not remain. Thanks to our state for wanting to take away the most precious thing from us – the Church and faith, but nothing will come of it! <…> No one can defeat God and the Church of God,” the bishop added.

The bishop urged the faithful to pray for His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry.

“Many of you call him “our dad”. He is a true spiritual father who prays and worries for our Ukraine,” the hierarch noted.