Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk prays that the Lord will bring back Roman Catholics and schismatics into the saving fold of the Church
It has been reported in Moscow that on 21 and 22 March Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk was sent by Patriarch Kyrill to Lvov, in the far west of the Ukraine. This is the area which was for centuries under Polish rule and has suffered enormously from the aggressive schisms of Uniats and Ukrainian nationalists in the last two decades.
Speaking after the Presanctified Liturgy for the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste on Monday, the Metropolitan said: ‘Faithfulness to the Church of Christ, faithfulness to the unity of the Church is a feat, especially in the circumstances in which the Ukrainian Orthodox Church finds itself in the area around Lvov and Galicia today’.
The Metropolitan expressed gratitude to Archbishop Augustine of Lvov for his stand on behalf of canonical Orthodoxy. He also thanked the faithful people and clergy for their stand for the Orthodox Church and unity. He said that all ‘prayed that the Lord would bring back all who had erred into the fold of the Church and that we must show love to these people’.
He added that ‘we must understand that they have been deceived, tricked and seduced by political slogans or promises. These people had ended up outside the saving fold of the Church. We must pray for them’. The Metropolitan said that he had no doubt that Patriarch Kyrill would visit the city in order to offer prayers together with the faithful and ‘strengthen you in your firm stand for Orthodoxy and for the truth’.
