A friend of mine recently returned from Ukraine, where he went to visit his grandmother. How he managed to get there - that's a story for another time. I asked him, how are things down there? Tell me how people see the church schism, and this newly created OCU, what do people say about it at all? My friend just looks at me blankly and blinks his eyes. He says his grandmother lives in the outback, but believes in God the old-fashioned way. As a couple of hundred parishioners, local villagers, used to go to their St. Nicholas church, so they go there still. Of course, we have heard about the OCU-guys, there are places where young pumped-up boys come, knock down locks, put their priest on the soleas and listen to his sermons, yawning. The people in the Ukrainian hinterlands, akin to the Russian, are at first perplexed by all that. Then they think for a long time, look, observe, and then they grunt, and shake everything up properly. This is what happens in many Ukrainian places. Schismatics come with officials, and the people will either arrange a prayer stand in front of the temple (and who can resist prayer?), or the whole community leaves and builds a new temple. Take it away, if such a law has been invented, we will build a new one.

My friend's grandmother doesn't know much about politics, but she won't let her God be offended in any way. They say: we'll leave with the women and the men, and we'll take our icons, and let these bigwigs pray in an empty temple, if they know how to pray at all. It is empty there - there are no people and there is no God either.

That's how it turns out. You can take away a building from people, but how can you take away God? Granny says, they have all gone crazy, first they wanted to fight off the Church, they wanted their own way. Now they want to celebrate Christmas in December so as to keep up with the Catholics. You'll see, next they'll force you to do the sign of the cross in a new way, from left to right. However, the thugs who are taking away the Orthodox churches, they don't do the cross at all, only on camera. Well, yes, let God judge them , if necessary, He will bring them to reason at once.

Christmas is coming soon, our real Orthodox Christmas. I think we need to pray that God will really bring everyone to reason, and the pumped-up guys, and officials, and grandmothers are also at the same time with us. After all, God was not born on Earth for us to squabble over Him with our Slavic brothers two thousand years later. And in order to be together after all, despite politics and disputes. All together, in one Church of Christ.