If they don’t repent, they won’t be saved, fr. Gabriel emphasized.

The clergy of the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) are fake blasphemers, and they and those who have Eucharistic and prayerful communion with them will not be saved, says Elder Gabriel of the Kelli of St. Christodoulos of Koutloumousiou Monastery.

He gave an interview to the journalist Sotirios Letzio on Saturday, posted on the YouTube channel Aikaterini Anagnostopoulou.

The “priests” of the OCU are sacrilegious, and “many hierarchs pray and concelebrate with heretics,” the Elder said.

“The Ukrainian schismatics are not priests, they are blasphemers. They are heretics and schismatics, non-ordained and ‘self-ordained.’ If they don’t repent, they won’t be saved, and those who have Eucharistic communion with them and concelebrate with them also won’t be able to inherit salvation,” conveys the words of the Еlder Оrthochristian.

He made the same affirmation in an open letter to the Sacred Community of Mt. Athos in October: “The schismatics of Ukraine will not be saved; they will go to hell. The monasteries (Athonite or not) that accept them, cooperate with them, pray with them, and commune with them, will also not be saved and will also go to hell.”

As the disciple of St. Paisios explained, this is not his opinion, but the official teaching of the holy Orthodox Church. He cites Apostolic Canon 45: “Let a bishop, presbyter, or deacon, who has only prayed with heretics, be excommunicated: but if he has permitted them to perform any clerical office, let him be deposed”; and Canon 2 of the Council of Antioch: “And, if any one of the bishops, presbyters, or deacons, or any one in the Canon shall be found communicating with excommunicated persons, let him also be excommunicated, as one who brings confusion on the order of the Church.”

Both canons are among those ratified by the Holy Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils.

An excommunicated man is one “who is outside the Church and will not be saved,” the Elder explained.