UOC Chancellor: Support for Pat Bartholomew's visit to Ukraine is absurdity

Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich). Photo: facebook.com/MitropolitAntoniy

On July 9, 2021, the head of the UOC, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich), said that supporting the arrival of Patriarch Bartholomew to Ukraine is absurd.

In his analysis of the results of a recent study by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, which dealt with religious issues, Vladyka noted that “this is probably the first time we have dealt with figures from which smell of absurdity and, as many believe, an attempt to adjust the final indicators to the background required by customers."

According to Metropolitan Anthony, “somehow it turned out miraculously” that 49% of the flock of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are ostensibly positive about the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew to Ukraine.

“But for any sane person it immediately becomes clear that these results are a real nonsense,” the hierarch emphasized.

Vladyka noted that almost half of the UOC believers cannot support the arrival of a person, "whose decision launched the process of destruction of our Church was."

“What approval can there be for the visit of the one who is liable for the seizures of our churches, the beating of parishioners, and other violations of the fundamental rights of Ukrainian citizens? With so many supposed adherents of the head of the Phanar, how do the OCU adherents have to engage in raiding and not have millions of new supporters into their ranks?” Metropolitan Anthony wrote in bewilderment.

He is sure that "behind the mentioned 'numbers' there is a gross manipulation, the purpose of which is "to create the semblance of support for the Patriarchate of Constantinople and its head in the Ukrainian ecclesiastic environment and to relay this appearance to the level of other Local Churches in order to try to convince them – albeit with the help of a clumsy combination – in the alleged fallacy of the assertion that Phanar aggravated the split in Ukraine.”

However, the hierarch thinks, "the customers of this scheme went too far," because "embarrassingly dumb results of the corresponding sociological research can only be believed by people who are completely far from the existing realities."

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that according to Archbishop Nikolai (Pochtovy), the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople to Ukraine will push for a new wave of violence against the UOC.

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