Expert: OCU begins to fall apart

Political expert Nikolai Spiridonov. Photo: First Cossack

The OCU has begun to break down and in many respects it was accelerated by former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko's losing the presidential election, political analyst Nikolai Spiridonov said on the air of First Cossack.

“The OCU is going to be confronted with certain problems, since Filaret announced the rebirth of the Kiev Patriarchate. It means actually that this structure began to fall apart. As they say, the OCU is Poroshenko’s pocket church of Ukraine, and since Poroshenko has lost the vote, his church, respectively, can face problems,” said the expert.

In his opinion, in the confrontation that arose between the head of the UOC KP Filaret Denisenko and the head of the new church structure Epiphany Dumenko “youth will win”. However, the very fact that problems are emerging is not in favor of the newly created religious organization.

“There is a chance that they will cope with the problems. But this is not very good for an infant church to be facing problems,” concluded Spiridonov.

Recall that Filaret invites the “episcopate” of the OCU to the “Council” of the UOC KP, which is to be held on June 20, 2019. “I invite you to take part in the Local Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, which will be held at St. Vladimir Patriarchal Cathedral of Kiev city on June 20, 2019, at 11 am,” say invitations, sent out by the head of the UOC KP to the OCU “hierarchs” on the letterhead of the Kiev Patriarchate.

According to Epiphany, such actions of Filaret destroy "age-old aspirations of the Ukrainian people". “Certain imperious ambitions on the part of ‘Honorary Patriarch’ Filaret intend to destroy all the age-old hopes of the Ukrainian people to have their independent Ukrainian Local Orthodox Church. Many generations of our ancestors dreamed about it,” claimed Epiphany.

Read also