OCU wants to "decommunize" UOC churches

Oleksandr Drabinko (second from the left) and Georgiy Kovalenko (far right). Photo: dess.gov.ua

"Metropolitan" Oleksandr Drabinko and "priest" Georgiy Kovalenko stated that the temples of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church need to undergo "decommunization". The representatives of the OCU voiced their "idea" during a conference on the topic of "Religious Organizations during War: Examples of Unity and Risks to Sustainability," reports the DESS press service.

Georgiy Kovalenko mentioned that "religious communities that join the OCU face the fact that Russian imperial symbols remain in the church interiors". Therefore, the "priest" continued, the "decommunization process should affect both the interiors and the names of the churches".

Oleksandr Drabinko, who heads the OCU eparchy in the Kyiv region, expressed the opinion that the inclusion of UOC temples into the organization of Dumenko and their "decommunization" is "one of the most important tasks in the Kyiv region".

As previously reported, the First Deputy Head of the State Ethnopolitics Service (DESS), Viktor Voynalovych, stated at the same conference that there is a need for "spiritual decolonization of the Ukrainian space" in order to "liberate Ukraine from the influence of Russian Orthodox ideologies".

Earlier, the head of the OCU, Epifaniy Dumenko, stated that Ukrainians should renounce their saints in whose honour they were baptized if these saints have any connection to the ROC or Russia.

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