On March 29, 2023, the Primate of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfiry, sent a letter of support to the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry. This was reported by the Information and Educational Department of the UOC.

“It is with a feeling of deep concern that we observe how you are being persecuted and persecuted by the Ukrainian authorities, who reached the heights by seizing churches and announcing the expulsion of 250 monks and several hundred professors and students from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra,” the letter says.

Patriarch Porfiry noted that “the entire Christian world knows very well that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is the only canonical and recognized by all other Churches and, given the number of priests, monks and believers, the largest religious organization in Ukraine.”

The hierarch emphasized that the decision of the current authorities to expel His Beatitude from the Lavra together with the governor and the brethren “is a terrible intention of state terror against the Church with a gross violation of religious and property rights.”

“Even if this evil comes true, everyone understands that the memory, history and all traces of primordial Orthodoxy in Ukraine will disappear in order to radically change, that is, distort its identity,” Patriarch Porfiry emphasized.

The Primate of the Serbian Church also added that “we see, feel and know that you, together with the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and God, the believing people entrusted to you, courageously and humbly bear your cross and in these days of Great Lent with hope ascend to Calvary of Christ.”

“We expect all Churches and religious communities, as well as all institutions for which peace, justice and order are important, to condemn the mentioned threat to religious freedoms and violation of property rights,” the letter says.