Novinsky: There is one canonical Church in Ukraine, the rest are simulants

Vadim Novinsky in Arkady Mamontov's film "Samosviaty" (“The Self-Consecrated”). Photo: youtube.com

People's deputy, businessman and philanthropist Vadim Novinsky in Arkady Mamontov's film "Samosviaty" (“The Self-Consecrated”), dedicated to the church schism in Ukraine, said that there is only one canonical Church in the country headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry, all the rest are simulants serving various political interests.

"All other structures are simulants or political organizations created by politicians, including the previous President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and consecrated by Patriarch Bartholomew," the people's deputy stressed.

According to Novinsky, the schisms are mainly due to the desire of politicians to make the Church their own pocket organization, serving the interests of political leaders.

“During the collapse of the USSR, the leaders of Ukraine also wanted to have a pocket Church, but it was forgivable for them because they came from communism and wanted to have everything national – an army, a bank, an anthem, a flag and a Church, not realizing that the Church is not a political organization, but heaven on earth, a divine-human organism that is not measured by the framework of a temporary state. For thirty years, politicians such as Kravchuk, Yushchenko and Poroshenko supported the schism, and Patriarch Bartholomew fueled their hopes, although he had to say once and for all that this schism and schismatics can return to the bosom of the Church only through repentance," Novinsky said. 

“First, history was rewritten in Ukraine and heroes became traitors, and traitors and criminals became heroes, then they tried to change the faith and make Ukrainians mankurts, people without the past, without traditions and values. When a person dies and the soul passes away, the body decays. When the faith is replaced by a surrogate, the people also decay,” the people's deputy added.

Read also