On July 7, 2023, Metropolitan Ioannikiy of Montenegro and Primorye (SOC) addressed his flock with a word of sermon after the Divine Liturgy in the Cetin Monastery. In his word, the bishop Ioannikiy paid special attention to the events surrounding the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This is reported by the Information-Educational Department of the UOC with reference to the press service of the Metropolitan Church of Montenegro-Primorye.
“Today we prayed for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, for the holy Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and especially for Metropolitan Onufry, who yesterday was banned from entering his residence in Lavra,” Metropolitan Ioannikiy said.
The hierarch noted that “the most terrible persecutions are being carried out. Such a persecution of Orthodox Christians has not happened since the October Revolution until today. A terrible persecution of Orthodox Christians, a terrible attack on Orthodoxy! And this, unfortunately, before the eyes of the whole world, which is silent about this blatant injustice and trampling of human and religious rights”.
According to the Montenegrin Hierarch, those who commit such crimes against the Church or rejoice in them are doomed people.
He also said that in our time, when the Montenegrin authorities began to attack Orthodox shrines, a man predicted the near end of this power, even though it seemed powerful. When this man was asked how he knew this, he said that his late grandfather had told him about a similar situation, namely how the Austro-Hungarian Empire had begun to remove bells from churches and take them to their foundries to be melted down. And in those days, this man’s grandfather witnessed a devout Christian from his village say that once the government committed this iniquity, it would reach its end.
“Today, dear brothers and sisters, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, led by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry, who is a pillar of Orthodoxy, stands on Calvary. And she experienced Golgotha on the eve of the feast of John the Baptist, who was beheaded for preaching the truth of God. And we must remember the suffering of our Orthodox brothers and sisters in Ukraine today, who are subjected to terrible humiliation, seizure of shrines and their desecration, cruel treatment and beating of priests, monks and nuns. And worst of all, most of the world is silently watching these horrible crimes. However, we are quite convinced that the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, by His power and His love is with those who are suffering today in Ukraine for the truth of God, and that St. John the Baptist, who had his head cut off for the truth of God, is with them,” Metropolitan Ioannikiy noted.
Summarizing what was said, the Hierarch noted that in these difficult trials in which the Ukrainian Orthodox Church finds itself, its Primate, bishops, clergy and laity are guided by the highest truth of God and preach love, forgive everyone, do not condemn people who are hostile to them, but, at the same time, testify to the truth, to the fact that they are forced to undergo the greatest humiliation, robbery of churches, ill-treatment, beating of priests and persecution of believers.