The Primate of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Nicholas of Eastern America and New York, has sent a letter to His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kyiv and All Ukraine. This is reported by the ROCOR website.

“Having learned about the adoption in the first reading of the bill No. 8371, which provides for a ban on the ministry of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on the territory of Ukraine, I hasten to express to you our love, support and sympathy. This bill demonstrates the lack of religious freedoms in a country known for its piety and is directed against the majority of its believing citizens and defenders”, – Metropolitan Nicholas said.

The Hierarch added that, as we stand before the Koreno-Kursk icon of the Mother of God “The Sign”, the relics of St. John (Maximovych) and other shrines, the ROCOR prays during these days of sorrow “for the strengthening of you, fellow archpastors, pastors, monastics and faithful members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church”.

“We also pray for the sanity of the persecutors who have lost their sobriety. For the present situation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reminds us of the events of a hundred years ago, when some in the Orthodox world, turning away from the legitimate Priesthood of the persecuted Church, supported together with the godless so-called “zhivotcherkovniki”. We pray, hope and believe that the memory of the new martyrs and confessors of the twentieth century will strike each of us Orthodox in the soul, helping us in these difficult times to follow the example of faith and fidelity of the persecuted and not to be on the side of the persecutors”, – the First Hierarch emphasized.