Post-Soviet Orthodoxy Expecting Piousness’ Revival in Catholic Church

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.

HaWoz

New member
Dec 6, 2018
1
0
1
#1
Greetings. I would like to share with you my article about disgraceful behavior of some Eastern Orthodox bishops.

Post-Soviet Orthodoxy Expecting Piousness’ Revival in Catholic Church
Unfortunately, scandals and crimes committed by Catholic priests in many countries are quite common. In Chile, 178 children and adolescents fell victims to sex abuse, in August, more than a thousand were subject to it in the state of Pennsylvania alone. However, Orthodoxy is facing the same issue. Unfortunately, their Primate Patriarch Bartholomew, as well as Pope Francis, can’t resist the current aggression of liberalism and degeneracy.
With great regret I want to describe the horrifying examples of some Orthodox archbishops’ immorality – of course not to justify our clergy or criticize the other confession but to show that we need drastic changes in our lives, our ministers’ conduct and the policy of the Holy See.
The world is suffering while we close our eyes and tolerate the sins of our clergy. Especially affected are believers in post-Soviet countries, most of whom still haven’t find divine and Catholic faith after 70 years of Communist tyranny.

Vikenty Chekalin1.jpg Vikenty Chekalin2.jpg

In September at Australian Southport District Court, Vincent Victor Berg, a Russian emigrant who scammed work as psychologist, was sentenced to four years and three months’ imprisonment for fraud and forgery.
Vincent Berg’s real name is Vikenty Chekalin. In his homeland, he is known as a pedophile and a criminal… as well as one of the founders of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) revived in 1990.
From 1987 till 1990 he was imprisoned for corruption of minors. Then, coming to Lviv he posed as a bishop and together with Ioann Bodnarchuk, a former bishop of Moscow Patriarchate, “ordained” the first hierarchs of the uncanonical UAOC. In 1992, claiming to be a “political refugee”, Chekalin fled to Australia with a kidnapped boy Andrey. For unknown reasons Australian authorities never studied this issue. Even the case of forged doctor credentials lasted for 13 years.
Meanwhile, without any communication with canonical churches the UAOC could easily recognize such priests like the founding father Vikenty Chekalin. Many of these “bishops” joined the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyivan Patriarchate and vice versa. Literally, in 28 years since their creation these structures, accepting banned and defrocked priests or simply impostors, aggregated all the vices of the Orthodox Church in post-Soviet countries.
Dreadful enough, many bearers of these vices are still bishops and preach in Ukrainian Orthodox temples. For example, in 1991 in Russia a criminal case was launched against Adrian Staryna, a then Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) archimandrite who hocused altar boys and participated in orgies in his temple. Now he is a metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP).
Sodomy in UOC-KP and UAOC is also not that rare.
Metropolitan Joasaph Shibaev of Belgorod and Oboyan (UOC-KP) for many years maintained sexual relations with hieromonk Seraphim Baranchikov (UOC-KP) until 1991. The latter, living in France, in 2003 married a former bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) Varnava Prokofyev.
Metropolitan Dimitry Rudyuk (UOC-KP) of Lviv and Sokal is engaged in sexual relations with archpriest Yaroslav Romanchuk (UOC-KP).
Metropolitan Mikhail Zinkevic of Volyn, archbishop Clement Kush of Simferopol and Crimea, archbishop Mephody Skribnyak of Sumy and Ahtirka, retired archbishop Iov Pavlishin (all from UOC-KP) and UAOC metropolitan Roman Balashuk are said to maintain homosexual contacts with various partners.
This list also comprises late hierarchs and those who voluntarily joined other unrecognized jurisdictions: bishop Paisy Dmokhovsky, bishop Seraphim Verzun, bishop Feodosy Pecina of Drohobych and Sambir (all ordained in UOC-KP).
Even forced to remove sinful hierarchs, the heads of some Orthodox churches in Ukraine prefer to defrock them not for homosexuality but for embezzlement (see the case of former UAOC archbishop Geronty Hovansky of Sumy and Ahtirka), alcoholism (former UAOC metropolitan Roman Balashchuk) or for “losing connection” with church (former UOC-KP bishop Varuh Tishenkov of Tobolsk and Yenisey).
UOC-KP is also tolerant to explicit nationalist sayings. Thus, incumbent metropolitan Mikhail of Volyn called the soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which slain more than 40 000 Poles in Volyn “people of holy life” and “the holy of the Ukrainian land”.
The drug addiction of UOC-KP archbishop Geronty and bishop Paisy also wasn’t considered a ground for a punishment though the latter not only used drugs but was involved in their trading.
It’s not that surprising to see such forgiveness of Orthodox churches as their primates are linked to criminal organizations. For example, when late metropolitan Mefody Kudryakov already was head of the UAOC, he took part in gang shootings: once he fired his own rifle at a café in Ternopol, and in 1987-1989 he served his time in prison for a fight with police officers. In his turn, UOC-KP primate Filaret Denysenko was married and had children, was involved in quasi-legal schemes in the USA, sold American Green Cards to illegal migrants and owned a mercenary company. Besides, there were allegations in the media that he was connected with a number of assassinations.
Alcoholism and filth is not something extraordinary for the UAOC – one of its most powerful metropolitans Andrey Abramchuk of Ivano-Frankivsk and Galicia often conducts service dead-drunk. He is also said to have lived with two women in the 2000s.
Every Christian who hasn’t betrayed God’s Commandments for the liberal values of the modern world can’t help deeply sympathize with the local believers. They have to direct their lives to Lord not by the virtue of but contrary to the example of holier-than-though bishops who may be teaching chastity but live lecherous lives.
Late UOC-KP bishop Grigory Kachan participated in group sexual orgies. Late UAOC primate Mefody Kudryakov was a frequent visitor of houses of prostitution. Incumbent UOC-KP archbishops Iakov Makarchuk of Drohobych and Sambir, Alexander Reshetnyak of Bohuslav, late UOC-KP archbishop Daniil Chokalyuk of Rivne and Ostroh (father of metropolitan Epifany Dumenko, locum tenens of the UOC-KP primate Filaret) kept mistresses
What family values and marital fidelity can bishops teach if everyone knows about their laxity?
True Christians must come together to resist those who pretend to be servants of God. Our church has a global salutary mission so we, and first of all our clergy must come back to the true Traditional Catholic Faith. And not only traditionalist Catholics expect this but the whole Christian world.