Political expert: Attack on Drabinko provoked by power struggle within OCU

Former Metropolitan of the UOC Alexander (Drabinko). Photo: facebook.com/oleksandr.drabinko

The scandal around the "metropolitan" of the OCU Alexander (Drabinko) is connected with his attempt to strengthen his position through personal visits to Istanbul and meetings with Patriarch Bartholomew, which was followed by the information attack from the media loyal to Epiphany Dumenko, political counselor Dmitry Dzhangirov writes on his FB page.

The publication of the political expert  "Fight of Bulldogs Under the Carpet": Behind the Scenes of the "Gay" Scandal in the OCU" says that the main attack on Drabinko began on Channel 5, owned by Petro Poroshenko, which relied on the material published on the same topic the day before in the Lviv newspaper "Spravzhnia Varta".

“The Lviv newspaper Spravzhnia Varta published the material on the same topic, but this, as we understand, was ‘laundering information’ already ‘loaded’ for the TV channel,” writes Dzhangirov. However, Spravzhnia Varta gives its own – quite realistic! – version of internal church ‘showdowns’: a number of hierarchs of the OCU and, above all, Metropolitan EPIPHANY, are pointedly irritated by the excessively independent position, as well as the strengthening of the role of Metropolitan ALEXANDER within the organization."

The political expert notes that despite all the "patriotic enthusiastic sentiments" about autocephaly, Patriarch Bartholomew has powerful administrative leverage on the OCU; therefore a group of "hierarchs" led by Drabinko is establishing its own rapport with Istanbul, counting on the head of the Phanar in the internal church struggle.

Dmitry Dzhangirov believes that after the attack on Drabinko, other “hierarchs” of the OCU are worried about becoming next targets of information attacks by Dumenko's supporters. Also, the political analyst does not exclude that Epiphany himself may become the object of such an attack.

As the UOJ reported, it was predictable for Zoria to accuse Moscow of scandals within the OCU.

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