Archbishop Longin: “I love all the brothers and sisters of Russia. I love Belarus, Romania, Moldova... And we will never be separated from each other!”
Archbishop of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate Longin (Zhar), from the inner circle of Metropolitan Onufry, awarded in 2008 with the title “Hero of Ukraine” for the adoption of more than 400 orphans with developmental disabilities, called on the rulers of Ukraine to stop interfering in the affairs of the Church and finally pay attention to the plight of the state .
At the service on the day of Pentecost, the vicar of the Chernivtsi diocese, Archbishop Longin, recalled that this holiday is considered the birthday of the Church. “But the Verkhovna Rada - the godless Rada, the servants of Satan - voted to create their own church, the Church of the Antichrist and the Church of the Devil,” he said at the sermon. – We live in the Church of God. And no one has the right to tell me how I should pray, in what language, because the Lord himself rules the church. The Slavic language is our Orthodox language... It was not created by the Verkhovna Rada, but by God’s holy people.”
Metropolitan Onuphry (driving a motorcycle) and Archbishop Longin
“Let the Verkhovna Rada and our president take a better look at how people are dying of hunger, how hospitals pay their last penny for medicine,” Bishop Longin urged. – I would like to ask our rulers: have you resolved all the issues in our state, have you already reached the church? You have no God at all, no faith! You can't feel sorry for these people. You have deprived us of everything. You deprived my orphans of scholarships... The same Verkhovna Rada recently voted on sexual orientation. Aren't they ashamed? Why don’t we see that we are the men and women God created us to be?”
“Look how churches are being taken away in Ternopil, Kolomyia and throughout Ukraine,” the bishop continued. - Look how they beat our old women, mothers and grandmothers. Have you seen these atheists, servants of Satan... They have anger on their faces all the time. Just like the schismatic false patriarch “Filaret”... Now he is afraid to die. It's scary to breathe. How much evil he did, how many people he killed with his words, sent them to death.”
Archbishop Longinus also mentioned the failed ecumenical “Pan-Orthodox Council”: “Our Orthodox Church became persecuted because it was not at the Cretan false council, at the satanic council... Same-sex marriage, homosexuality. But our patriarch said “no” - our Orthodox people will never have this. Our patriarch had the power to say this.”
“I love all the brothers and sisters of Russia,” said the bishop. – I love Belarus, Romania, Moldova and all Orthodox countries. And let all these countries know that we are their brothers, and we will never separate from each other. And let this satanic power take its worldly hand away from our church and from our Orthodox land. I thank you that hundreds, thousands have signed up for the preservation of the canonical Orthodox Church... If we lose the Church, we will lose God... We will then lose everything... Therefore, let our leaders, the atheists, for whom sexual orientation is more important and who want to “create a church,” listen. who beat believers, priests and take away the most sacred things: nothing will work out for you, because God is where the truth is... I want to convey to all the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada who voted for laws against God - expect the Lord’s punishment.”
P Bishop Longin's sermon on Pentecost (06/19/2016) is biting and heartfelt. About Patriarchs, metropolitans, bishops who have sold themselves and are selling the Orthodox faith. “Filthy rags”, “Satanists and Freemasons”, “pensioners without the grace of the Holy Spirit”, “who sent them?!”, “how will they look the people in the eyes?” And big shocks await us all for this. Bishop Longinus undertakes to shelter all the priests and monks against whom persecution will begin - in fact, he creates one of the “islands of salvation.” For those who dare to denounce Bishop Longinus as a schismatic (as you know, Bishop Longinus publicly refused to commemorate in his diocese heretic and freemason Patriarch Kirill, see the video at the end of the note), after the text of the sermon I will give a couple of stories from life, so that it is clear who Bishop Longinus in the person of God really is.
This video contains only the final part, where Bishop Longin briefly conveys the content of the entire sermon for the Russian-speaking flock. The entire sermon is in Mold. By link. Below is my translation.
[translation, from the 6th minute]:
The Lord said “In the world you will have tribulation; but take heart: I have overcome the world.”(John 16:33). It's hard here on this Earth. Don't lose Heaven brothers! Jesus Christ, when he ascended, said: "I'm going to prepare a place for you,<...>so that you too may be where I am"(John 14:2-3). The enemy is the devil and the mystery of lawlessness (the work of the Antichrist), today on the island of Crete they are making their own church - church of demons, devilish.
We are looking forward to these days to see how the Patriarchs, the hierarchs who participated in that demonic Council, “wolf”, as the Holy Fathers call it, and deceitful and crafty - how will they return home, to their Homeland, to their Churches? ! Mosh Georgiy will return ("mosh" - Moldavian "grandfather", an appeal to the elderly), mosh Kostake - Patriarchs, archbishops, metropolitans and bishops will no longer return - they will return as people without the Holy Spirit. How will the Church be led without the Holy Spirit?! It was the Holy Spirit who led His Church for thousands of years! what don't they like? What doesn't suit them? They did not want to remain faithful to the Lord, they betrayed holy Orthodoxy, if they sign those documents that are so crafty, deceptive, and which destroy Church dogmas, canons, and those 7 Ecumenical Councils in which we remain and believe - these people, so that they know, be the Patriarch , metropolitan, bishop - they are deprived of the Holy Spirit, they are sold to the Antichrist, they are preparing the way for the Antichrist.
Our church is beautiful, good - for this we fought. We want to keep our faith pure. We don’t want to demonstrate to anyone who we are and that we are doing something, we haven’t done anything worthy of praise or anything else, but we just want to fulfill the duty of an Orthodox Christian to preserve the purity of the Orthodox faith. It's time for confession. You brothers, don’t sell yourself - I ask with all my heart - neither the Patriarch, nor the Metropolitan, nor any bishop has any power - without the Holy Spirit, without the Truth, the Orthodox faith, which must be preserved with all love and fear - no one has any power "to bind" nor untie(Matt. 18:18). Only those who remain in the Truth of the Holy Spirit.
Satanists and Masons gathered there who for thousands of years want to destroy our Orthodox faith - they gathered there to introduce the Church into a great (great) heresy - into a universal faith, because they must make one faith, one king, one bank, so that the Antichrist will come to everything ready. Times today are not too sweet, and the last times, and we see again how we, as bishops, again strangle Christ, mock Him, and spit in His face, and laugh like Judas - "Guess who hit you, if you are the Son of God?" You were Lord, and you are, and you will remain forever, and the gates of hell will not prevail against Your Church (Matt. 16:18).
So remain as you were until today. Today I thought with pain about my brothers the Romanian bishops... how will they return to the country? How will they look into the eyes of those who were imprisoned for years and endured torture and beatings, but preserved the purity of Orthodoxy? How will you return brothers? How will you look into the eyes of your Church, your people? What will you answer to the people who sent you? Satan, who sent you to sell our holy Orthodox faith there? What was not good about our Church? What was not good and what needs to be changed? Initially it was clear that the work of the Antichrist. When at the Orthodox Council the question of legalizing homosexuality and marriages of a man with a man and a woman with a woman was raised, it was the first shame and the first blow to our Orthodox Church. When did our people, Patriarchs (!), discuss such issues?! brothers! at the Councils? Orthodox?! We must discuss how to save the world from sin, how to lead people to Christ! And then they took on dogma together in order to unite heresies... Thank the Lord God for stopping it - at least some of the Churches showed that the Holy Spirit was still working. And there can be no Council, without the Church in its entirety, without the fullness of Orthodoxy - there can never be such a Council, unless those who have gathered to sell their faith will return without grace.
The Lord will punish with waters. Floods. With big droughts. Wars, big wars with great misfortunes. After they make decisions and sell the Truth, then God will turn His face away, and then you will see what great misfortunes will fall on this earth. You are brothers, remain faithful to God. How we will exist is not yet known - it will be seen.
We will embrace in our arms all those who will not sell their faith or their people. We will embrace all those who remain in the Truth, and will not leave a single priest, not a single monk, who will be mocked, who will be persecuted, as has already begun with us - today I served with the fathers who were oppressed in monasteries, from -for not remembering the Patriarch.
For us (approx. dralex: i.e., the flock of the Russian Orthodox Church), the first issue has been resolved - that they did not go to the Council, this is very good. Secondly, we must withdraw from the World Council of Churches, from the heresy of heresies - from ecumenism. And third - those who met with heretics and testified that they were brothers and "holiest"(note by dralex: nod towards Patriarch Kirill), and recognized other churches as "sisters", must testify by public repentance that the only saving faith is the Orthodox faith, and there is no other! And then we will begin to commemorate the Patriarch again in our churches.
And so that everyone knows that faith with fear, with trembling, and not through betrayal, deceit, is a holy confession, dear faithful. Nobody plays with God. We didn't come here to do what we want. To do from your own mind, willfully. We don't need honors and regalia. God is everything - both in heaven and on earth. [in tears] We are unworthy children, worthless, who have sinned a lot and ask for forgiveness and come to Him. May God protect you with His care. Thank you for your holy prayers.
[translation into Russian for the blog "Notes of a Layman"]:
Alexander Dranicheru
We didn’t send them, the people didn’t send them. Let's go, like brothers choosing our own. For there to be a Council, there must be a Patriarch, a priest, a monk and laity [approx. dralex: apparently, this means the Local Council, and not the Ecumenical Council, see the note: "[Spirit of the Great Assembly -3]: Bishop Nikodim Milash - criteria for Ecumenical Councils. The principle of "All bishops" "]. From one side, four bishops should go - they did it their own way, and went as they saw fit. Now they decide the issues for themselves. Christ will further solve the problem of the Orthodox Church. And let the traitors repent, and let them be ashamed, all the Patriarchs and bishops who went and returned like filthy rags, dirty, back to the country, to your Church! So that they would be ashamed, let us no longer look with our eyes at the heavens, but shamefully at the earth, that the devil has misled us... cheerful ones who are riding... - what great things are you doing? Do you want to destroy what the Holy Fathers created and the decisions at the seven Ecumenical Councils? “The whole world was saved”... God will not forgive them anymore. This sin is never forgiven! Let all sinners come to Christ; let no one be cast out with a scourge. Those who have sinned against the Holy Spirit are [not forgiven] either here or after [death]. All through the Holy Spirit.<...>All Ecumenical Councils were in the Holy Spirit. Now there is no Holy Spirit there, because people do it themselves, people interpret it themselves, people want to destroy the Church of Christ. Who is this, brothers? Is it the devil? Christ created the Church, the devil wants to destroy it. Don't leave her brothers. You are strong - the people are the power of God, you are the hands of God. Therefore, pray unceasingly and preserve the right Orthodox faith, in which they suffered, endured and were imprisoned in communist dungeons - no one betrayed them, they were sincere believers of God! Imitate their faith "looking at the end of their lives"(Heb. 13:7). Don't sell yourself, because you won't be able to come back. There is no more repentance for those, brothers, who fight against the Holy Spirit. They need to think carefully first, so they were told to “stop a little, work some more” - but they didn’t want to.
I congratulate you on the occasion. May God pour out the power of the Holy Spirit on you - on everyone! “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22)! Take him into your hearts, souls, into your homes, and go, go with God.
[note: “filthy” can also be translated as “defiled”]
Miracles
Towards the end of the sermon, Bishop Longin said that, it turns out, on the Monday before this festive liturgy, he had surgery again. But he says he felt great grace, he really felt the surgeon himself praying for him. The surgeon’s wife sent an icon of St. Luke Voino-Yasenetsky to the ward, he himself asked the surgeon to allow another surgeon to perform the operation, he thought and agreed, and this second surgeon turned out to be the relics of St. Luke, which the bishop asked the surgeon to put in his pocket.
When the operation began, and Vladyka began to go into anesthesia, he heard the akathist being sung to St. Luke. The operation lasted 3 hours and he heard this akathist for 3 hours. (Unfortunately, I didn’t understand a little from the story - was it the akathist that was played for him, or was it a miracle). And then for the first time, in its entirety, he felt what it was to be Orthodox. He felt neither fear nor loss of strength - the Lord gave him strength, and after the operation he feels very strong. And thanks his surgeon Stefan for his faith in God.
Let me give you a small quote from my note about the trip to Bancheny:
"The monastery itself rose in just 20 years. The scale is impressive. There are at least 4-5 churches on the territory of the monastery. The largest Trinity Cathedral is unique of its kind, there are only two of its kind in the world (one in Serbia). It has as many as 7 altars "Vladyka Longin promised God to build him up before going to the operating table with a heart attack, if the Lord God would have mercy and prolong his life."
["Notes of a Layman"]:
Now the logic is very simple - for the Lord God, the most precious thing is the soul of a person, therefore, would God have extended the life of Bishop Longinus, for the sake of one Council, so that he would then fall into the grave sin of schism, and thereby go into eternal destruction?
***
So that Bishop Longin is not perceived as simply a “good priest” at the level of a social worker who sheltered more than 400 children, I will tell you one case. Somehow, by God's providence, even before all these events, I met one seminarian - we crossed paths by chance right opposite the Cathedral, he was walking with a hierodeacon I knew. We stood and talked. About the last times, what is happening, what will happen, what to do. And the conversation turned to Bishop Longinus. It turns out that this seminarian knows the bishop well personally, and often went to his monastery for liturgies. The seminarian himself told about himself that he grew up throughout his childhood in the faith, consider it in the church, but then with age he became carried away by worldly life and, like many young men and women of his age, “left his first love” (Rev. 2:4). And when the time came to enter college, he fell in love with spiritual Orthodox literature and his love for the Church was rekindled, and then he faced a serious dilemma - to become a doctor or become a priest. And he went for advice to Bishop Longinus. He says that he didn’t even have time to ask him yet - as soon as he approached him, Bishop Longin looked at him and said directly: "Vows to God must be fulfilled" and the whole burden immediately fell from his soul, and he no longer had any doubts about what to do and did not ask.
Bishop Longinus and the Virgin Mary.
Let me remind you that the Mother of God herself blessed the bishop to raise the monastery and gather children - the bishop almost never mentions this, even in the well-known film "Outpost" not a word about it. I accidentally came across his interview with a Romanian channel, where the bishop told everything openly for the first time. See note: " .
***
The bishop, while still a simple rural priest, Mikhail Zhar, became quite famous even before the construction of the monastery and the orphanage for children, and again, by the goodwill of the Mother of God, when her icon in the church of Father Michael began to flow myrrh, and became quite widely known as the “Boyanskaya icon".
See note: ".
Bishop Longin on the commemoration of Patriarch Kirill
It is deceit before God to pretend that you don’t know that Patriarch Kirill is not a heretic (great greetings to Priest George, as soon as people are allowed to the big feeding trough, theology changes), and it is even more deceit to equate failure to remember the heretic Patriarch with a schism. Fear the Lord God, gentlemen "academically educated."
[video: Why is His Holiness Patriarch Kirill not remembered at the liturgies in the Holy Ascension Panchevsky Monastery]
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["Notes of a Layman" on the black list [ ], if the page does not open, use the services: http://ru.downforeveryone.com/ and http://bloka.net, or other similar]
On the evening of December 1, 2017, we met with the saint-confessor, the scale of whose feat puts him on a par with the Great Athanasius or the Hieromartyr Patriarch Hermogenes: Archbishop Longinus of Banchensky is the hierarch on whom alone rests the very canonicity of the Russian Orthodox Church as such in its current apostasy state.
Over time, memory will more and more vividly fill in the missing details and strokes of the events and impressions of this holy meeting, which literally, as if with a sharp ray of God’s Truth, cut life into “before” and “after” it...
Bishop Longin should not have been present at the cynically staged performance in advance called “The Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church.” The decision to include him in the Ukrainian delegation came at the last minute. Metropolitan Onuphry obviously understood that if the Archbishop of Banchen did not go, then there would be NO ONE at all to raise his voice for the Church of God, which was desecrated by heretics. But this is how it happened: Bishop Longin was alone at the council - he alone directly and courageously denounced Kirill Gundyaev and his accomplices, who, along with heresy, lost both the patriarchate, the rank, and Christian dignity.
And this fact is either deliberately kept silent or conveyed to the media with deliberate distortions. In fact, on November 30, at a closed meeting of the “council”, Archbishop Longin personally from the podium read out loud to the entire assembled episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church his Appeal, which, I am sure, will go down in the history of the Russian Church on a par with the immortal Appeals to the Russian people of Patriarch Hermogenes, soaked in the great tears and martyrdom of the confessor .
Bishop Longin acted strictly within the framework of Church law, remaining to the end a faithful child and archpastor of the Russian Orthodox Church. The very form, the very style of his Address testifies to him, first of all, as a Christian. He, fully understanding his position as a “voice crying in the wilderness” (see John 1:23), is aware of the colossal responsibility before God for each of his holy words. The Bishop remains, according to ancient church tradition, “sorrowful” for the entire Church, for the people entrusted to him by God: he strictly denounces the patriarch who has fallen into heresy, gives him the LAST CHANCE to correct what he has done - he tries to the end to exhort him, to reach out to the perishing soul, to appeal to the burning soul conscience...
From the Address of Archbishop Longin:
Pictures requested by Bishop Longin “...We have repeatedly asked you to hear us and understand our pain, since we sincerely wish to remain in the bosom of our Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. We firmly know that only in Orthodoxy there is truth and there is no other path to salvation except the Church...
There are no other “churches” and there is no other way of salvation!!!
...We want to observe the canons, dogmas and teachings commanded to us by the Holy Fathers, so as not to turn out to be apostates, traitors to Christ and the Orthodox faith.
We ask... to hear the cry of our soul about the difficult situation in which our Orthodox Church finds itself... Let us forever remain in our saving faith, but we will never recognize any heresy that is preached today.
...The brothers of the Holy Ascension Banchensky Monastery humbly ask to hear the undying and anxious pain of the soul - to defend the truth and purity of our Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church...”
And the faithful Orthodox heart, loving the Lord and His Church, cannot help but tremble at these words of the Archpastor of Christ, heavy and bitter, “like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44).
The Bishop’s Address itself, as we know, contains four key demands - the most important, painful and acute for our Mother Church - he has repeatedly voiced them before:
First. Withdraw from the World Council of Churches and cease participation in the ecumenical movement.
Second. Cancel the Havana Declaration of February 12, 2016.
Third. Do not recognize the Cretan false council as Orthodox as not containing the fullness of truth and having an ecumenical heresy at its basis.
Fourth. It is conciliar to refute the slanderous film “Matilda”, recognizing it as another attempt to publicly dishonor the memory and Name of the Saints - the Tsar and His Family.
The saint's verb sounded like thunder. The entire hall of the Church Councils applauded him, and there were tears in the eyes of the bishops. During the break after the meeting, they approached the Bishop, bowing gratefully for his fiery speech, which literally lifted a heavy stone from the heart of everyone present.
Archbishop Longinus, with his Address, blocked the lips of presiding Kirill, forcing him to sharply change his tone and begin to flatter and flirt with the “rebellious” archpastor, giving oath assurances ( violated, however, the very next day).
Here it is necessary to clarify that immediately before this, Metropolitan Meletiy of Chernovtsy directly asked Gundyaev on what basis he, having violated the canons of the Church, went to a meeting with the Jesuit Francis without the advice and permission of the bishops. But, apparently, the Metropolitan experienced fear and excitement at the same time, since his voice trembled. And the “patriarch,” like a predator, sensing the weakness of the victim, rushed to humiliate and trample the venerable ruler into the dirt with selective abuse, threatening to deprive him of his chair. After this “fatherly” patriarchal teaching, the Metropolitan was provided with medical assistance...
Vladyka Longin is a special archpastor. Having crucified with the Lord on the cross of love and compassion, he shone with the abundant fruits of active mercy. Therefore, he appeared before the council as an experienced spiritual warrior, clothed in the strong armor of personal righteousness, holding in his hand the two-edged sword of the Word of God - the Holy Tradition of the Church (see Eph. 6:14-17). And the Spirit of the ruler - the Spirit of Christ - is unbending and unbreakable. And the Lord saw him, the only one remaining faithful to Him, the bishop - like once the youth David for the victory over the giant Goliath - in order to shame both the “patriarch” with the entire heretical clique, and all the cowardly rabble, called to be called the “sanctified cathedral”, abolishing the power of the outwardly huge and invincible majority.
Saint Longinus, who through his evangelical life, or rather through his constant dying for Christ, acquired the great conciliar virtue of Christian Courage, has every right to echo the Apostle with the words inscribed on the monastic paraman: “For I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus on my body” (Gal. 6, 17). And the Courage of the pure in heart is always clothed with Humility and Meekness. Moved precisely by these holy virtues, Bishop Longin bowed before the self-styled Patriarch of Moscow, asking him, as a common man, for forgiveness for personal sins. He made this bow so that he could then stand up to his full height, straightening his heroic shoulders, and pronounce in the name of the Lord God, like the once holy prophets, moved by the Holy Spirit, a formidable denunciation of all the vile heretical acts of the presumptuous high priest. Like “mene, mene, tekel, upharsin” (see the book of the prophet Daniel 5:25), with the word of the confessor of Christ, a concrete act of God was actually accomplished, from which the blasphemers can no longer escape.
And THEY have done this more than once: there have already been four (!) attempts to poison the holy confessor. The most famous one was last spring: a poison containing mercury and arsenic was mixed into the bishop’s meal. He, Archimandrite Lawrence and Hieromonk Cleopas, despite everything, survived. The other two poisoned died... The saint, having barely come to his senses after resuscitation, tried not to miss a single bishop's church service, despite the fact that his kidneys had failed due to arsenic, and mercury had affected the central nervous system so that for some time it became It was difficult to navigate in space and they helped Vladyka, leading him by the arm.
The last poisoning was “congratulated” on Archbishop Longin on his name day on October 29 of this year - a little more than a month ago. Bottled drinking water sent both to the monastery itself and to the orphanage was poisoned. Since sick orphans are constantly being cured under the care of the bishop in the orphanage, and the first symptoms of poisoning appeared in the children almost immediately, fortunately everyone was able to receive medical assistance in a timely manner.
During our conversation, the archpastor bitterly stated that the “patriarch” and his satraps allowed him to come, speak, and even “swallowed” accusations against them only because they knew about the serious state of health of Bishop Longinus - for them he was “not a survivor” , therefore, they assume sooner or later to “silence” the “rebellious” archbishop...
It should be noted that on that day - December 1 - we “hunted” for the bishop for eight hours. Each time he appointed a new meeting place. He was stubbornly followed and accompanied before and after our conversation by several vehicles with a characteristic specific contingent - the ruler hoped not to “set us up.” All the subsequent time, we fervently prayed for the safe return of Bishop Longinus home, safe and sound.
The colossal pressure on the archpastor also has another side: it is clearly demonstrated to the entire “sanctified assembly” how “like death” it is to go “against the flow” - against the general line of the “Moscow Pope”. Fear, a general inexplicable mystical fear, paralyzed the common sense of several hundred intelligent and impeccably educated men. Fear of a monster, an octopus, which uses the so-called figure as its “face”. the patriarch is an exceptionally vindictive person who never forgives anyone. The behavior of the members of the “council” was only further evidence that departure from the Truth deprives a person of all spiritual strength and will, and not just reason. It is enough to show dissimulation and remain silent in the face of untruth once in order to lose all boldness before the Lord, and your conscience will fall asleep like a dead man - as a rule, there is no second time...
According to the bishop, this gathering could not be called a “Bishops’ Council” by any criteria—there was no conciliarity observed there at all. Topics for consideration were given to the members of the “cathedral” in ready-made thick folders: there was no time to leaf through them, let alone read them. And they didn’t give anyone a word. Voting took place automatically, as at party congresses.
After the Address of Archbishop Longin, at the end of the stormy ovation of the entire bishops' meeting and tears of gratitude, at the next closed meeting the same bishops “automatically” voted for the adoption of a monstrous decision that actually destroyed the institution of the Family - the Small Church - “On the canonical aspects of church marriage”, in in particular, blessing free marriages with non-Orthodox people.
It is very important that five Ukrainian bishops voted against this decision and abstained from voting. “Against” were: Archbishop Longin, Metropolitans Meletius and Fedor. Following the Charter, in this case the presiding officer was obliged to submit the decision for conciliar discussion and revision. However, this did not follow: one vote was deliberately “undercounted” - “aspects of the further collapse of the church marriage” were accepted “unanimously” by the hierarchical masses shaking with fear...
... The so-called “Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church” at the end of 2017 is moving further and further away in time. Official chronicles only contain documents from this forum, and numerous analysts, observers and critics talk only about the consequences of the decisions made. After a week, no one remembers the fateful Address of Archbishop Longinus at the closed meeting of the council on November 30 for the entire Church of Christ. And this is done consciously - after all, it is the individual who creates history. The Divine Person of Jesus of Nazareth created a New history of humanity through the Church created by the Blood of the Cross. And no matter how much money the Jewish high priests gave to the soldiers to keep silent about the Resurrection of the Lord, His glory soon conquered the entire universe.
And the glory of the valiant warrior of Christ, Archbishop Longinus, is all still ahead; for the time being it will be hidden. Some of his earthly affairs are already known to people, at least from the film “Outpost” (but they also require amendments: now more than 450 children, of whom more than 150 are terminally ill, have been adopted by the shepherd of God), but most of them are preserved by God until the time appointed by Him ...
Only the Lord, for example, knows how much the ruler had to endure endless torment, torture, bullying and humiliation in the dungeons of the SBU. And they threw him there because he did not allow a SINGLE MAN of the Chernivtsi diocese into the fratricidal massacre in the ATO zone by the power of God given to him: “I ask you only one thing: to unite and not give your children to death. Our Orthodox faith does not allow us to kill each other. For the sake of political interests, for the sake of those who defend their business, who defend their leadership positions, they want to kill our people who live in peace with faith in God,” the courageous bishop urged. And with the archpastor’s blessing, women - wives and mothers - blocked roads, blocked recruiting stations and ultimately defended the truth of God, without becoming accomplices in Cain’s sin.
“Let flattering lips be dumb, speaking against the righteous iniquity, pride and humiliation” (Ps. 30:18)! Those who now blaspheme or try in every way to humiliate the feat of Bishop Longinus do this either out of paid engagement or out of envy of the saint. For their proud “mouse” natures do not reach his Christ-like holiness, and therefore they are seduced into the path of Judas.
The evening of December 1, 2017 divided my life into two parts. We were present at the real Last Supper, and the face of Bishop Longinus shone with the glory of the Heavenly Lord. He spoke simple words, and Heaven shone in his tear-stained eyes: “I’m a simple priest, like everyone else, but I just can’t live without Christ! I love the Lord and His Church and fear nothing but sin.” And this is the whole saint...
... Having blessed each of us, the bishop quickly left. They said goodbye again near the exit, at the moment when he was getting into the car. With a wide, childish smile, the archpastor pointed with his gaze at the “black shadows” who were relentlessly watching him: “FEAR NOTHING!” - he said, crossing us again: “NOTHING!”
—...A priest in some monastery in western Ukraine adopted 253 children.
-How many? — I ask my interlocutor again.
“Two hundred and fifty-three,” he repeats separately. “He also built houses for them, founded two monasteries and is building a shelter for the disabled. And yet he never asks anyone for anything.
At this point my brain completely stopped working. Either this is not true, or everyone should know about it. Or this: too beautiful to be true. And it's a shame if it's not true. There is only one way - to find out and see everything for yourself.
Banchens - where is this?
The Patriarch preceded me. Back on October 2 of this year, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, during his visit to the Chernivtsi region, visited the house at the Holy Ascension Monastery in the village of Bancheny.
“This is a completely unique part of our country and the Church,” says the vicar of the Chernivtsi diocese, Bishop Meletiy of Khotyn. — The locals live in their own way, in the Romanian tradition. There are still people in the villages who do not understand the Ukrainian language, although the region has been in Ukraine for 70 years. In churches, services are officially celebrated in the new style and in Romanian. There is a special blessing for this from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I. The fact is that the Romanian Church is new-calendar, therefore, when the Hertsaevsky district became the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate, in order to prevent possible schisms, the parishes retained the right to serve as they were accustomed to. But in the Banchen Monastery, probably the largest non-Slavic monastery in the Russian Church, they also serve in Romanian, but still according to the old style.”
The monastery is headed by Archimandrite Longin. The same one whom two and a half hundred children call dad. This is a truth that is stranger than fiction.
Monastery on a vacant lot
“Our story began only 17 years ago,” says Father Amphilochius, a resident of the monastery. He speaks in a Russian-Ukrainian-Romanian mixture of languages. Almost all locals talk to visitors this way. Between each other - how it is convenient for someone to speak and understand. This is your kind of little Babylon. “When Father Longinus came here with the first four monks, there was a wasteland here. But the locals knew and loved the priest well - before he was tonsured, he served in the neighborhood, in the church in the village of Boyany. Therefore, when construction of the monastery began, many helpers gathered. Those who lived in the surrounding villages came to the construction site and worked. Those further away helped in any way they could: bricks, logs, food, and money.
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“Well, we have children, that’s why we have ponies,” Father Amphilochius, like an experienced guide, anticipates my question. — At first the shelter was in the monastery. Father Longin took his first children back in Boyany, and they moved with him, one might say, to a construction site. When there were more children than monks, they began to think about building a separate building for them. A convenient place was found four kilometers from the monastery, in the village of Molnitsa. And in Boyany at that time, a women’s monastic community was formed on the basis of the parish. The sisters began to take care of the children. And so it happened that now there is a monastery in Bancheny (it now has 86 monks), in Boyany there is a women’s monastery (it has 120 nuns), and in Molnitsa there is an orphanage. Father Longin is the confessor of both monasteries and the adoptive father of all the children in the orphanage.
“We need to love our children!”
Longinus is a monastic name. In fact, his name is Mikhail. Mikhail Vasilievich Zhar. He is only 46 years old, 20 of which he has been raising orphans.
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“God’s,” he says so that you believe. Faith, in principle, does not require any evidence. And what difference does it make who was the first to decide to gather children that no one wants, feed them, nurse them, treat them, teach them literacy and faith?
The story of the appearance of the first children in the monastery has already become a local legend. Longinus's father (then still Mikhail's father) had cows in Boyany. In the early 90s there was a time of famine. And he began donating milk to a local orphanage. In gratitude, the nurses decided to show the priest who this milk was going to. The conditions the children were in shocked Father Mikhail. He grabbed two kids in his arms and took them with him. This was the beginning of a “family-type orphanage,” as the monastery orphanage is now officially called, and the father of three children born in marriage became the father of five. Then Father Mikhail adopted 27 more. And then his passport ran out of pages where children were registered. He took custody of the next 224 children. I collected them throughout the region. If he goes somewhere on business, he will definitely bring it.
“Once I performed the funeral service for a young woman,” recalls Father Longin. - It was winter. I see that after the funeral service, four boys remained at the grave. Everyone has left, and they stand completely frozen, wearing rubber boots on their bare feet and not going anywhere. It's frosty outside - 20 degrees. And the smallest of them was still tiny. I ask: “Why aren’t you going home?” And they tell me: “We won’t go without mom. We have nowhere to go." Their father left them, and their mother died. “Your mother is now in heaven,” I say. “Will you come and live with me?” They nod. Well, I brought them to the monastery.
Once a newborn girl was thrown to the gate in a banana box.
“Mom gave birth to her on New Year’s Eve, threw her into a box and brought her to us. I don’t know how long she lay there in the cold,” says Father Longin with a soft, melodious Romanian accent. “I took her in my hands, she was as cold as a stone.” Completely frozen. We quickly took her to the hospital. All the doctors said there was no chance. But with God's help the girl was saved. The doctors themselves gave her the surname Happy. And we named her Katenka.
Father met Styopka at a boarding school for disabled children. The armless boy jumped forward and read his own poems to Father Longin. Then he followed on the heels of the priest and the mothers, and when he was about to leave, Styopa pressed his face to his cassock and asked: “Please take me away from here!” Father burst into tears, hugged Styopa and took her with him. Here, in the orphanage, the boy began to read books. A lot of books. Now he likes to argue. Mother Elizabeth affectionately calls him “a philosopher.”
And his friend Romka is called a “musician” because he plays the synthesizer, which was placed - on purpose - next to his bed. This boy has difficulty moving. He has cerebral palsy.
But here the atmosphere is like this: no one feels unhappy or unnecessary.
What else do children need? Only to love you for who you are.
- At first we thought: well, we’ll take 50. Then - 100. Then we decided - we’ll be able to see through 150 children, but... They, poor people, have suffered so much in their still short life that I don’t have the strength to know how much they hurt, and don't take it to yourself! And when there were already 200 of them, I thought - well, that’s all! But what about “everyone”?.. Now I say, probably there will be 300.
This is Father Longinus making plans for the future. Yours and your children’s, future ones too.
“Yakbi could hug all the orphans on earth, I wouldn’t give a damn,” when he gets very excited, his words in Russian and Ukrainian come out mixed up. - They are weak. You have to love them. All children need to be loved. And let’s help them, so they can see. I can't live without them! Stinks are my medicine. If they weren’t with me, I would have lived on earth in vain then.
For some reason, he is not afraid to adopt children with cerebral palsy. Strange, isn't it? Then he began to collect those whom even the doctors gave up on: they say, they are not residents. Yes, yes, I'm talking about AIDS.
When AIDS recedes
There are 49 such people in the shelter today (six of them have now been diagnosed). Father collected them from orphanages from all over Ukraine. “Due to” the special contingent of priests, the statistics of “childhood AIDS” in many regions of Ukraine decreased, and in Chernivtsi region they increased. These are statistics, numbers, commas. What does he or we all care about her, right?
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How did children with a terrible diagnosis end up in the shelter?
Very simple. In the baby's house, Father Longin saw a beautiful girl. Her mother abandoned her because her daughter was HIV-positive. The nurses also shied away from her. In the patriarchal Western Ukrainian society, the words “AIDS” and “death” are somewhere nearby.
“When I saw her, I felt very painful,” recalls the priest. “She looked at me so sadly, and I was afraid to touch her so as not to bring an infection to my children.”
I think that Father Longinus did not sleep that night, remembering this two-month-old girl. And in the morning I asked the brothers in the monastery to furnish the room as best as possible, to put an elegant crib there, because a child, a girl, would live here.
Little Larisa - that was her name - was baptized, now she is Philatea. Here, at the shelter, the girl underwent a course of retroviral therapy. Doctors were very surprised when they recently saw her tests: there were no traces of HIV infection in her blood. Now Philatea lives with the rest of the children, she has entered the fifth grade.
How it's done?
Father Longinus is idolized in Bancheny. He gives people hope. Live like people. And not only by raising children.
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The gas line to the shelter was thrown across the Prut River. At the same time, the village also benefited.
-I know that you are not asking for help. Fundamentally,” I say to Father Mikhail. - But how is it that you and your children have everything?
“I think the Lord himself places this on our hearts, who want to earn good. There are so many kind people in Ukraine... who are next to us.
He remembers how one day the kitchen ran out of oil. And there is no money to buy, but you have to cook for so many souls! At one time, only salads (about 15-20 kilograms of vegetables) are used up.
And suddenly one of the local businessmen appears: “I want,” he says, “to help your children, I have my own tank, I promise I’ll bring it for you, take it.” It's from the heart."
Father blessed him and kissed him. To celebrate, he then brought almost a tank of oil.
Father does not say that the first brick in the foundation of one of the bell towers of the monastery was laid in 2004 by the then Prime Minister of Ukraine Yanukovych. Then he came again, brought gifts for the children and a home theater. And President Yushchenko awarded him the order. It is easier for an order-bearing priest to resolve issues. Gas was supplied to the shelter with the help of Yuri Boyko and Igor Bakai. You also need to be able to reach that high.
The nuns say that “another woman, who wanted to help the children, brought a cow, and gave a friend a whole share, two hectares.”
On these hectares, the nuns grow potatoes for the children's town.
By the way, on the grounds of the monastery there is everything: fields, orchards, vegetable gardens, a farm, flower greenhouses. The monastery and shelter have enough of their own products. The surplus is distributed to nearby social institutions free of charge. Children work on monastery farms along with adults.
What happens?
Three-story buildings, bright windows, marble stairs, and equipped lifts for those children who find it difficult to move independently. This is a family-type orphanage. Each house is a different color. Pink, yellow, blue...
Inside the parquet is covered with carpets. Not carpet, but real soft carpets.
The walls are covered with paintings: nature, religious subjects. There are aquariums with fish everywhere. Birds are singing. Lots of greenery. And around the buildings there is an incredible amount of flowers.
Children live four to six people in a room. There is a sister assigned to each room. In total, 104 people care for children in the shelter, of which 65 are nuns, the rest are paid employees: nurses, cooks, teachers. The shelter itself looks like a gingerbread town. The facades of buildings, windows, entrances - everything is decorated with flowers. There are figurines of fairy-tale characters on the lawns. In the backyard there is a playground and a stadium. One day, the younger children asked their dad - Father Longin - for roller skates. Father bought skates for the children. Everyone. More than 200 pairs. But it turned out that there was no place to roller skate in the village. Then the monks from Banchen came to the rescue and laid asphalt in the backyard of the orphanage. Now you can ride a bicycle there, roller skate, or walk with a stroller.
“Is it a monk’s job to entertain children?”
“The monastic path and the family path are very different,” agrees Father Longin. “And our shelter is separate from the monastery. But I look at my monks and see a lot of goodness in their souls. They know when the children’s birthdays are, they buy them gifts, and even ask them to come and congratulate them. And I don't think that's a bad thing. Heaven rejoices if someone brings joy to an orphan. A monk will not depart from his monastic life, but he must also give goodness to others. It's not a sin. Do you know, when the children lived in the monastery, it used to happen that people would come to services and ask where Father Longinus was? And I play football with the children. Can you imagine what a temptation this must be for people! Rector - and football instead of service. So what to do? “Dad, let's play football!” - How can you refuse? I think the Lord will forgive me this sin, if it is a sin. Without mercy no one will be saved. Nobody.
What will happen?
The eldest pupil, “Donya”, was the first to marry about four years ago to a good guy, by the way, from a neighboring village. The tables were set, guests were invited - probably about a thousand came. Or more. The whole area was walking.
A year later - another wedding: he gave away another daughter. Then again...
And how many more weddings are to come, where “that Mikhailo” will sit in a place of honor, as befits a father, and be proud of “his children”!
“Then I will be calm, as soon as they all become family.” And look at the saint before me!.. Oh happiness! - the priest says dreamily.
Of course, a skeptic will say that the doctors could have made a mistake with the diagnosis of little Larisa. As in five other cases. Of course, children who have recovered from cerebral palsy by swimming in a real pool on the territory of the family home do not prove anything. And it goes without saying that faith in the Lord and the prayers of Father Longinus, the monks and nuns of his monastery, whom the children call “mothers,” and the help of everyone who has been helping them for almost 20 years have nothing to do with it. I won't argue. Then don’t argue that Father Longinus, who indiscriminately takes in feeding and raising children with “bouquets” of diseases - from cerebral palsy to AIDS with congenital hepatitis - and even if he does not save them from death, then prolongs their life in care and love, - Holy man. Agreed?
By the age of 46, Father Longin had suffered three heart attacks and two heart surgeries. Someone is holding it on our sinful earth... Do you happen to know who?
Archbishop Longin (Zhar) of Banchen, awarded the title “Hero of Ukraine” in 2008 for the adoption of more than 400 orphans with developmental disabilities, called on the rulers of Ukraine to stop interfering in the affairs of the Church and finally pay attention to the plight of the state, reports the Strategic Culture Foundation.
The fiery, passionate speech of the Lord, appealing to the conscience, to the soul of everyone, who is sick at heart for the Church being destroyed, torn apart by a crowd of liberals, schismatics and Uniates, will touch every even the slightest believing soul. But is there even a drop of faith and a grain of conscience in the souls of the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine who support the current lawlessness? The answer to this question, we think, will be the further actions of the Rada.
At the service on the day of Pentecost, the vicar of the Chernivtsi diocese, Archbishop Longin, recalled that this holiday is considered the birthday of the Church.
“But the Verkhovna Rada is a godless council, the servants of Satan are voted to create their own church, the Church of the Antichrist and the Church of the Devil, - he said at the sermon. – We live in the Church of God. And no one has the right to tell me how I should pray, in what language, because the Lord himself rules the Church. The Slavic language is our Orthodox language... It was not created by the Verkhovna Rada, but by the holy people of God.”
“Let the Verkhovna Rada and our president take a better look at how people are dying of hunger, how hospitals pay their last penny for medicine,” called Lord Longin. – I would like to ask our rulers: Have you resolved all the issues in our state, have you already reached the Church? You have no God at all, no faith! You can't feel sorry for these people. You have deprived us of everything. You deprived my orphans of scholarships... The same Verkhovna Rada recently voted on sexual orientation. Aren't they ashamed? What don’t we see that we are the men and women God created us to be?”
“Look how churches are being taken away in Ternopil, Kolomyia and throughout Ukraine,- the bishop continued. - Look how they beat our old women, mothers and grandmothers. Have you seen these atheists, servants of Satan... They have anger on their faces all the time. Like the schismatic false patriarch “Filaret”... Now he is afraid to die. Scared to breathe. How much evil he has done, how many people he has killed with his words, sent them to death.”
Archbishop Longin mentioned the failed “Pan-Orthodox Council”: “Our Orthodox Church became persecuted because it was not at the false council of Crete, at the Satanic council... Same-sex “marriages”, homosexuality. But our Patriarch said “no” - our Orthodox people will never have this. Our Patriarch had the power to say this.”
“I love all the brothers and sisters of Russia,” declared the Bishop. – I love Belarus, Romania, Moldova and all Orthodox countries. And let all these countries know that we are their brothers, and we will never separate from each other. And let this satanic power take its worldly hand away from our Church and from our Orthodox land. I thank you that hundreds, thousands have signed for the preservation of the canonical Orthodox Church... If we lose the Church, we will lose God... We will then lose everything... Therefore, let our leaders, the atheists, who are more important than sexual orientation and who want to “create a church,” who beat believers, priests and take away the most sacred things, hear this: nothing will work out for you, because God is where the truth is ... I want to convey to all the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada who voted for laws against God - expect the Lord’s punishment.”
“You will forgive me for upsetting you on such a holiday,- Archbishop Longin addressed the believers in conclusion, - but we will no longer be silent. We were silent when we were starving, we were silent when we had no money for medicine, we were silent when we were paying our last penny for utilities. Teachers, doctors have a pension of 1400-1500 hryvnia... Please tell me what to live on? And our teachers today are looking for a piece of bread in landfills. They look for their food in garbage bins, having worked for 40-50 years... Come to your senses. Stop. Wake up. You’re going the wrong way!”
