Congressman Joe Wilson Declares War on the Orthodox Church
Congressman Joe Wilson, of South Carolina, wrote a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi in which he accused the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and "other Russian Orthodox Churches" of engaging in espionage on behalf of the Russian government. He of course made these assertions without the slightest evidence, but let's consider how absurd his claim actually is. The alleged espionage consisted of an effort by clergy and laity of ROCOR, the OCA, the Serbian Patriarchate, and the Antiochian Archdiocese to lobby members of our government. What were they lobbying for? Was it to eliminate sanctions against Russia? No. Was it to pass on military secrets to the Russian government? No. Was it to end military support of Ukraine? No. It was to stop the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. If this is what the Russian government put these people up to, you would have to conclude that the Russian government was the most selfless, altruistic, and Christian government that exists today, and perhaps has ever existed.
Some will claim that this effort was an attempt to embarrass the Ukrainian government, but that is also a ridiculous claim, because the only thing Ukraine would need to do to stop the embarrassment would be to stop persecuting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
What kind of persecution is happening? Clergy are being beaten. Parishioners are being beaten. Churches are being stolen, and then often just padlocked. Clergy and monks are being drafted into the Army, despite the fact they cannot fight, by profession.
This video shows the brutal beating of Metropolitan Theodosy of Cherkassy.
Several bishops have been imprisoned on trumped up charges, and kept under inhumane conditions.
In this video, Robert Amsterdam, who represents the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, and it also shows scenes of the persecution of the Church in Ukraine:
My daughter Catherine Whiteford did a video which also elaborates on the truth of what is going on in Ukraine:
Congressman Joe Wilson faced so much backlash for his ridiculous claims, that he attempted to walk it back, and say he was only talking about the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, but he would have us believe that they are Russian agents. Our primate, Metropolitan Nicholas was born in New Jersey. Prior to his repose a year ago, my bishop was Archbishop Peter, who was born in San Francisco. My acting bishop right now, Archbishop Gabriel, was born in Australia. Congressman Wilson's mother was my 7th cousin, and his father was my 8th cousin. My ancestors were among the earliest settlers in Virginia who arrived long before the Mayflower landed at Plymouth, and some of my ancestors were among the Indians that were already there to greet them. He is not attacking foreigners. He is attacking Americans, and he is attacking them for daring to speak out about the abuse of innocent people.
This persecution has nothing to do with the war, because it actually began in earnest in 2019, three years prior to the Russian invasion. The war is a pretext for intensifying and accelerating the persecution, but it was going on before that, and would have continued regardless of anything Russia did. This persecution was encourage by the US government, which established a fake Ukrainian Church back in 2018. You can see Mike Pompeo take the credit for it in this video, in which he thought he was speaking with Petro Poroshenko.
