UOC spokesman: Ideology of the OCU divides people and the country

Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, Deputy Head of the DECR UOC. Photo: Apostrophe

The ideology of dividing people into right and wrong Ukrainians is not the way to unite the country and the people. The deputy head of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, said this in Yan Taksiur's program "The Right to Faith" on First Cossack, commenting on the conduct and rhetoric of the OCU supporters.

The clergyman noted that the UOC speaks about the OCU in the case when it is necessary to react to some events and explain to the Ukrainian society where the truth is and where it is not. At the same time, he noted, “we say that we are Ukrainians, and you are also Ukrainians, but we are the canonical Church, while you are non-canonical.”

"What they (the OCU – Ed.) tell us is that we are schismatics and, moreover, not Ukrainians, "Muscovites","Russian rag tags", etc." because they divide the people precisely on the basis of nationality."

The UOC spokesman explained that there are confessional, interreligious disputes, there are lots of confessions in the country, but we are all are citizens of Ukraine regardless of our religious affiliation. However, supporters of the OCU say: no, we are true Ukrainians, and you are not true, you need to be ousted from the country.

“In fact, this is a threat to state security; this is the division of the country. When they accuse us of being the ‘fifth column of Moscow’, that's where the problem is, because such an ideology makes other people feel outcasts in the country. This is one of the reasons why we had the Crimean and Donbass issues, when we lost some territories and have a war in others. The matter is that those people felt like strangers amid new ideological conditions in the country. Therefore, this is not the ideology that will integrate the country, not the path that can pacify and make our state and our people united,” Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich emphasized.

Earlier, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich urged not to portray the believers of the UOC as enemies of Ukraine, calling them "Muscovites" or "Russians".

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