UOC believes customized sociology of OCU is done for visit of Phanar head

Spokesperson for the UOC, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich. Photo: a screenshot / YouTube-channel "Miriane"

Customer-oriented sociology is done specifically for the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. The spokesperson for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich wrote about this on his TG channel, commenting on the figures published by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).

According to the KIIS study, over the past year the number of Ukrainians who consider themselves Orthodox and who “self-identify” with the OCU has grown by 10% and now accounts for 58% (while 25% of those surveyed said they belonged to the UOC). Also, according to the data presented, the majority of Ukrainians (57%) are positive about the upcoming visit of the Phanar head to Ukraine. The survey, which was conducted from June 25 to June 28, 2021, using the telephone interview method, was attended by 1003 respondents from different regions of Ukraine, except for the Crimea and the uncontrolled territories of the Donbass.

According to Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, "this sociology is specially done for the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew".

“That is, in fact, in this way they prepare public opinion by interviewing 1,300 people by telephone and presenting it as the opinion of all Ukrainians,” the UOC spokesperson said.

The clergyman noted that 7,000 parishes of the OCU exist only on paper, while the real ones are about 3.5–4 thousand “if it gets to be so". And the real difference in the number of believers of the UOC and OCU can be seen in religious processions.

“For if there are 12,500 in the UOC, and they have 7,000, then this is more than half of the UOC. But religious processions show the difference in the number of believers not two times less (compared to the UOC), but 10 times or even more. And this year, "OCU", obviously, in order not to embarrass themselves and not show their scantiness, generally cancelled their procession on the feast of Prince Vladimir.

Well, this is right. Poroshenko is no longer in power, there is no one to gather state employees, take them to Kyiv and take them for believers of this denomination. Times are changing. All that remains for them is to inflate the percentage, live off custom-made sociology and create virtual reality. But you can't show percentage at a cross procession because living people are needed there. And they have very few of them,” resumed Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich.

Earlier, the Ukrainian political expert explained why the processions of the UOC and OCU are so different.

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