"Typical nerd": OCU cleric criticizes traditional icons, calling Christ's image "caricatured"

During a lecture at the Volyn Theological Academy, OCU cleric Roman Hryshchuk sharply criticized traditional iconographic depictions of Jesus Christ. According to him, he sought to destroy the image, which, in his opinion, “has been imposed by the Moscow Patriarchate and Orthodoxy in its edition for the last centuries.”

In a video posted by Hryshchuk himself, he called the canonical icons caricatured. He described the image of the Savior on them as “a man with a disproportionately small head, a thin body and long fingers, small lips, a large place where the brain and eyes should be.” The clergyman used a derogatory comparison, saying that this image with a hunched back is a “typical ‘nerd'”.

In contrast to the traditional image, the OCU cleric presented his own vision. He argues that Christ was “a physically strong, hardy person, a person who did not go into his pocket for a word.” Hryshchuk also expressed the opinion that the Savior’s harsh words addressed to the scribes and Pharisees “we call today swearing or even swearing.” In his opinion, Christ showed humility exclusively before God the Father.

Earlier we reported that the notorious OCU chaplain Roman Hryshchuk, who is actively involved in the seizures of churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Chernivtsi region and incites hatred of the UOC on social networks, was officially recognized as a mentally ill person. MP Artem Dmytruk published a certificate stating that Hryshchuk was undergoing outpatient treatment in a psychiatric clinic due to an exacerbation of mental illness.