Metropolitan Longin of Banchen stated during his sermon that the authorities in Ukraine had started a war against God and His Church. This is reported by the Telegram channel “Pershyi Kozatskiy.”

The bishop emphasized that “they are not expelling monks from the Lavra; they are expelling God from Ukraine! But the descendants of the communists will not succeed in destroying monasticism and expelling the clergy from the very heart of Orthodoxy.”

“Monks are the most precious thing our state has. These are the children of God, who left everything for the sake of the Lord God and went to monasteries to serve God and pray day and night for us sinners,” the abbot of the Banchen Monastery explained.

“We must go to the Pechersk Lavra and defend it! This is our shrine! Our ancestors! They built for us,” emphasized the vicar of the Chernivtsi-Bukovina diocese of the UOC