Svoboda leader urges the President to grab Orthodox Lavras from UOC

Leader of the nationalist movement, chairman of the party VO Svoboda Oleg Tiagnibok

Head of the nationalists shared his plans as for the Orthodox shrines and his attitude to the issue of autocephaly in the live program of Ivano-Frankovsk TV and radio company “3-studio”.

"The Ukrainian voter has a short political memory and they count on it. Pay attention to what the President has done now – the creation of an autocephalous Single Local Orthodox Church centered in Kiev, "Tiagnibok said. "I, as a Christian and as a patriot, really want it to be created ... this is the 29th paragraph of our program to protect Ukrainians."

He is convinced that in case of receiving autocephaly, voters will forgive Poroshenko: "People are ready to forgive Poroshenko all his sins. That is, it is the style of our politicians. I have never sanctified an Easter cake in the Moscow Patriarchate in Mariupol, and never gone to that church. I am a Greek Catholic, raised in the family of a Greek Catholic priest and I will not change my faith. Most Ukrainian politicians are yesterday's parishioners of the Moscow Church and even today's ones."

According to Tiagnibok, the authorities can start acting immediately without waiting for the decision of Patriarch Bartholomew by taking away Orthodox sanctuaries.

"We generally believe that in this situation the Ukrainian authorities can do many other things without Constantinople. For example, appropriate the shrines that belong to the Moscow Patriarchate and which are actually ours, Ukrainian. And not to ask Bartholomew for that. Transfer them to the ownership of the Ukrainian Church. Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Pochaev Lavra. What are the problems? To forbid the Moscow priests access to power structures. How come those representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate are chaplains in the Ukrainian army," said ex-deputy Tiagnibok.

Earlier, another Svoboda party member Irina Farion stated that "we already have our own Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church," while the property of the UOC should be confiscated.

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