Politologist: His Beatitude has the only proper conduct with authorities

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry. Photo: news.church.ua

In relations with the authorities, the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kyiv and All Ukraine, is a role model for not only his personal fortitude and faith, but also for his awarenes of the cause-and-effect relationships of all developments. This was stated by political expert Sergei Belashko during the round table "The Basic Law of Ukraine and its Application to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church."

The expert noted that over the past decades in Ukraine the authorities have tried to replace God with state ideology, since the authorities "understand what the Church is and would very much like to make it the third pillar of their own regime alongside the system of education and the media."

“Anyone at the helm of the state makes every effort to ensure the loyalty of the Church and use it in the interests of his own political advancement. This was done by Kuchma, Yushchenko, Yanukovich. And Zelensky too will obviously try to do this.

<...> The state has pressed, is pressing and will press on the Church. In this regard, as it seems to me, the position of Metropolitan Onuphry not only commands respect for its perseverance – when a person has a core, it cannot be bent or broken or twisted like gutta-percha. But in the end it also turns out to be pragmatic, i.e. it is not just a model of courage, faith and personal resilience, but it is also a model for understanding causal relationships in all these processes. Any flirtation with the state, as long as it takes the Church away from God, will be futile,” the political expert said.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that, according to Archbishop Nikolai (Pochtovy), the state should stop its anti-popular policy for the sake of peace and further development of Ukraine.

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