Expert: Lavra is Zelensky's fatal mistake

Political analyst Kostiantyn Bondarenko. Photo: discover24.ru

In an interview with Ukrainian TV presenter and blogger Oleksandr Shelest, political expert Kostiantyn Bondarenko said that Volodymyr Zelensky and his team made fatal mistakes in relation to the canonical UOC, which will end in the defeat of the authorities.

“Every president has his own fatal mistake during his presidential term. The main fatal mistake of Zelensky is the case around the UOC, because the matter concerns not only the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. A draft law has already been registered to take the Pochaiv Lavra from the UOC, there is also an intention to take all the cathedrals from the UOC. Obviously, there is a persecution of the Church,” Kostiantyn Bondarenko said.

The expert noted that the authorities began an open “war of annihilation” against the UOC, criminal cases are being opened against the clergy under far-fetched pretexts, churches and monasteries are being illegally transferred to schismatics.

According to him, the Phanar demands that Zelensky transfer all the Lavra to the OCU or to the personal administration of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

“There is an understanding that the Phanar is directly controlled by the Bureau of Religious Freedoms of the US State Department and in this respect Bartholomew is just a tool rather than an independent player,” he added.

“From a political technology point of view, the authorities have already lost this campaign. The government has brought people to the Lavra who discredit it, who declare that they are Satanists, pagans.... what they are doing is outright Bolshevism of the 20s of the last century. Justice will sooner or later be established, but not on the side of the current government,” the expert summed up.

As the UOJ reported earlier, the OCU is going to “serve” in the Dormition Cathedral of the Lavra on the Annunciation.

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