Poroshenko responds to those who say church unification never happened

Petro Poroshenko. Photo: eurosolidarity.org

Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said criticism that the “Unification Council” failed to unite all Ukrainian Churches was unfounded. He made the remarks in an interview with Vitaliy Portnikov.

“I want to challenge the claim that we failed to unite the Churches. The goal we set was to open the doors of a single Local Church to all Ukrainians. You know, the main objection was canonicity. The Russians frightened everyone by saying that all these churches were uncanonical, that only theirs was canonical, and that there was no alternative but to swear allegiance to Kirill and Putin,” he said.

The former president called the “Unification Council” a historic decision and insisted that unification had indeed taken place.

“It united the Kyiv Patriarchate and the Autocephalous Church and accepted individual hierarchs from the Moscow Patriarchate Church. And it [the ‘Unification Council’ – Ed.] said to all Ukrainian Churches: unite. As for the Russian Churches – they are Russian and do not need to be united. So come and join us, because, especially in wartime, we must have a single Church,” Poroshenko explained.

The former president said efforts should continue to secure wider international recognition of the OCU and noted that while visiting the front, he had congratulated Patriarch Bartholomew on the anniversary of the structure’s creation.

As the UOJ previously reported, Poroshenko earlier said that the state created its own church five years ago, and that the UOC should therefore be banned because Ukraine “does not need it.”

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