There is no reaching Orthodox unity without UOC, – expert

Cross Procession of the UOC in Kiev

Unity in the world Orthodoxy without the UOC cannot be achieved, said Andrei Vidishenko, an expert at Kiev Center for Political Studies and Conflictology in his interview with EADaily.

"None of the 15 Primates of Local Churches is ready to sacrifice the unity of the Holy Church for the sake of cynical political desires of whatever Ukrainian politician," Vidishenko said. “The Georgian, Polish, Antiochian, Alexandrian, Serbian, Bulgarian Churches, the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia condemned any interference of Kyiv in ecclesiastic affairs and expressed support to Metropolitan Onufry. Unity in Orthodoxy without the UOC simply cannot be achieved; accordingly, the initiative of Poroshenko is directed solely at the legalization of the split in Orthodoxy in Ukraine."

According to the expert, in Ukraine the Universal Orthodoxy is represented exclusively by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry.

"The UOC is the Local Church of the people of Ukraine. It would be good if the government of Ukraine learned this axiom," Vidishenko stressed.

According to the expert, the interference of any external force in a purely internal issue of the canonical Church in Ukraine forms an existential threat to the unity of the entire Orthodox civilization, the threat of a rupture of the body of the unified Church of Christ.

"This, God forbid, can really provoke a new round of the Ukrainian political crisis and a full bloody inter-confessional conflict within the whole country," Vidishenko concluded.

In mid-April, Poroshenko addressed Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople with a petition to grant the Tomos on autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine and announced the creation of a Single Local Church. The Verkhovna Rada supported the appeal of the President.

Read also