Expert: Zelensky considers actions against the UOC permissible

Ruslan Bortnik. Photo: screenshot of the video of the First Cossack Youtube channel

Ruslan Bortnik, Director of the Ukrainian Institute of Politics, on the air of the Right to Faith program on the First Cossack Youtube channel, said that if the President does not react to actions against the UOC, it means that he considers them, at least, acceptable.

“We can see the lack of response of the President himself to such actions, which means that he considers them, at least, permissible, if not beneficial,” Bortnik said.

According to the political expert, the Servant of the People party consists of young people who are equally indifferent to both the UOC and the OCU, but if they are told that the UOC is an enemy, they will act against the Church.

“This is a young, secularized, liberal generation; there are few believers in Servant of the People. These people do not care, they treat the UOC or OCU in the same way, but if they say that this is an enemy (UOC – Ed.) that encroaches on power ... 30-50 people from the Servant of the People Party share the views of the European Solidarity, and their landmark outside Ukraine is Westernophiles," Bortnyk added.

“First, the elites were split, then, due to the Tomos, they won public opinion, and today we are at the stage when the elites who are supporters of the UOC are being squeezed. Then there will be further attempts to seize new, not just rural churches, but religious symbolic buildings, and they will try to liquidate the UOC as an organization. The ideal moment when it was possible to turn the situation around – 2019 and the beginning of 2020, when Zelensky was still himself, rather than Petro Poroshenko. But this moment is lost – it was not taken advantage of by another part of society,” the expert noted.

As the UOJ previously reported, Metropolitan Varsonofy told the youth about the history of the UOC and the current persecution.

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