Poroshenko says the UOC should join the OCU

Petro Poroshenko hopes for the unification of the UOC and the OCU. Photo: risu.ua

On November 30, 2022, former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko expressed confidence that after the adoption of the law on renaming the Churches, the unification of the UOC and the OCU would begin. It is reported by prm.ua.

Poroshenko suggested that after the Constitutional Court unblocks the law introduced in 2018 on renaming the Churches, “the government will decide on the naming of the Churches with the obligatory mention of their affiliation to Russia.” Then, in his opinion, the UOC “will finally decide on complete independence and autocephaly from Moscow and recognize the Tomos granted to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and begin real negotiations on the merger of the Churches as part of a single Orthodox Church of Ukraine for those who have not been tarnished by cooperation with the aggressor country.”

He recalled that "Putin's goal is to blow up the country from the inside, destabilize and blow up our unity," with "the activity of churchmen" being an integral part of this.

In order to prevent the “aggressor country from winning the struggle for the Ukrainian soul,” Poroshenko in 2018 secured the granting of the Tomos and the creation of the OCU. “I had no other choice but to fight for the independence of the Ukrainian Church, autocephaly, Tomos from the first days of my presidency,” he explained, adding that “Russian agents” also prevented him from doing this.

As the UOJ wrote, Poroshenko hopes that the Constitutional Court will rename the UOC as early as this year.

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