Politologist: Zelensky's entourage is not unanimous about OCU

The head of the OCU Epiphany and Patriarch Bartholomew in Kyiv. Photo: facebook.com/epifaniy

There is no unanimity on the OCU in the entourage of the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, and the authorities are unlikely to continue pedalling this topic, said the political scientist and head of the "Third Sector" centre Andrei Zolotarev in a comment to the UOJ.

The visit of the Patriarch of Constantinople to Ukraine will not have any serious consequences, the expert believes, “since even among the President's entourage there is no unanimity regarding the OCU, unlike those times when Petro Poroshenko was president, and everywhere it became one of the ideological pillars of his positioning as president”.

“Zelensky made a number of certain curtsies in the direction of Patriarch Bartholomew, but I think they will not continue pedalling this topic since they more or less adequately see the situation and understand perfectly well that the OCU is the brainchild of Petro Poroshenko, and playing from someone else's score will not bring them any political dividends,” said Andrei Zolotarev.

He noted that the head of the Phanar himself and the OCU continue to build a parallel reality, in which thousands of parishes and hundreds of thousands of believers, but "it has the same relation to reality as a Hollywood movie".

The political expert is convinced that, in fact, the OCU project is stalled, "because without the support of the authorities it is doomed", "and we have seen perfectly well on July 27 that the overwhelming majority of believers remained with the UOC and are not going to join any OCU."

As reported, according to Ruslan Bortnik, after the Phanar head’s visit to Ukraine, religious tension may increase.

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