To please the nationalists: the UOC-MP joined in the distortion of history
In the photo: a mosaic with the face of Mazepa in one of the favorite churches of Metropolitan. Luke (Zaporozhye diocese of the Moscow Patriarchate)
The Synodal Information Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) announces an essay competition dedicated to Yaroslav the Wise. The competition aims to "engage schoolchildren in an in-depth study of the history of the Ukrainian state during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise ."
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We're talking about the very same prince who headed the state called "Rus'" ("Russia" in international treaties), but, as the information and education department of the UOC-MP apparently believes, was simply ignorant of the existence of such an "ethnonym" as "Ukrainian." Perhaps because he was Orthodox, and the term "Ukrainian" would only be coined by Catholics more than 800 years later, initially for the Uniates.
However, Yaroslav the Wise does not appear among the Catholic saints. His name was included in the Orthodox calendar with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow.
The competition is being held with the blessing of Metropolitan Luke of Zaporizhia, who proposes establishing a separate host of Ukrainian saints from the all-Russian one . This will include the "Ukrainian Prince" Yaroslav the Wise. Of course, not just Ukrainian, but "Euro-Ukrainian" – judging by the fact that the competition's organizing committee has announced the official theme: "Yaroslav the Wise: Diplomatic Relations with Europe through Dynastic Marriages" (although Yaroslav himself, whose state was one of the poles of world politics, did not attach particular importance to relations with secondary players, which were the Western European kingdoms during his reign).
PolitNavigator recalls that it was Metropolitan Luka of Zaporizhzhia who, on the eve of Euromaidan, campaigned from the pulpit for support for Ukraine's association with the EU, but banned a priest from serving who wore a ribbon with the colors of the Order of St. George outside the church on May 9.
Today, the Zaporizhzhia Diocese, with the blessing of Metropolitan Luka, a native of Donbas, provides financial and prayerful support to the ATO soldiers.
The bishop himself holds ecumenical conferences on the topic of “the conciliarity of Ukraine,” where representatives of the diocese cite the presence of “imported ethnic Russians” in the Ukrainian Donbass as an obstacle to achieving this “conciliarity. ”