PROCESSIONS OF "POLITICAL ORTHODOXY" RENEWED IN LUHANSK AND KIEV WITH BLESSINGS OF UPTs METROPOLITANS
Religiia v Ukraine, 15 December 2014
On the initiative of the Orthodox community and with the blessing of Metropolitan of Luhansk and Alchevsk Mitrofan, who is the ruling bishop of the local diocese and a member of the UPTsMP Holy Synod, a days-long church procession is being conducted in the city, called by its organizers a " Luhansk Repentance-Protection Procession of the Cross." Representatives of "political Orthodoxy" have conducted similar processions in Kiev with the blessing of the new primate of UPTsMP, Metropolitan Onufrey, Religiia v Ukraine reports with reference to the Luhansk portal 0642 and the website Moscow the Third Rome.
The marchers assembled in the chapel of the Elder Deacon Filipp, who is revered by Luhanskers, where a panikhida for him "and for all innocents who were killed in the fratricidal war waged by the antichrist Kiev authorities" was served, IA Novorossiia reports.
According to Father Alexander, one of the organizers of the action, the Orthodox people of the Luhansk region, in the current difficult time, are longing for the resurrection of Rus, and therefore the start of the procession of the cross on the feast day of the "Resurrecting Rus" icon of the Mother of God is very symbolic. (This is an uncanonical icon that is rejected by the hierarchy of the RPTs.)
Father Alexander told an IA Novorossiia correspondent this is why it is that the procession of the cross started at the chapel of Elder Deacon Filipp: "The Mother of God appeared to Deacon Filipp and she gave a prophecy about the future of the city of Luhansk, calling it Sviatograd ["Sacred City"]. According to the prophecy, it is in Luhansk that the revival of Rus and the gathering of the Russian lands will begin."
"The events of the 'Russian Spring' force us to view the prophecy of Deacon Filipp about the future of the city of Luhansk in a new way," IA Novorossiia concludes.
Previously, on 21 November and 6 December, similar measures were conducted in Kiev by representatives of "political Orthodoxy," a para-orthodox religious movement that has been frequently condemned by the hierarchy of UPTsMP, starting in 2007. The leader of the church parade is the head of the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods, Valentin Lukiianik, who was excommunicated from the church. "For the first time in many years we received a blessing from His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufrey for conducting the procession of the cross. Until recently, the marchers were forbidden even to enter the territory of the lavra," the organizers of the procession joyfully note the changes occurring in the Kiev metropolia of UPTs. (tr. by PDS, posted 17 December 2014)
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