In Lviv, Ukraine, Rev. Addriy, a priest of the Ukrainian
Greek Catholic Church rather than the Ukrainian affiliate of the Russian
Orthodox Church, said after a Mass in June 2014 that the European Union is an
“empire of evil” defying the Word of God and spreading sins including
homosexuality and pedophilia. The priest went on to characterize the Ukrainians
who toppled President Viktor Yanukovych as “Godless deviants” and “fools . . .
in the pay of hostile foreign powers.”[1]
Being in the western part of the
state, the eastern-looking priest was not exactly “preaching to the
choir”—meaning he must have known that his message would not be well-received
by his congregation. This disjunction illustrates a distinctly religious
problem that can arise when clerics fly too far afield from the religious
domain onto those of politics, economics, or even social problems.
