UOC cleric: People tell me, "We support you but fear to attend your church"

Archpriest Oleksandr Klymenko. Photo: Screenshot from the Viche YouTube channel

Archpriest Oleksandr Klymenko of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) said in an interview with the Viche YouTube channel that due to the current situation, many people are afraid to visit UOC churches out of fear of reprisals.

Discussing with journalist Ilona Sokolovska the attendance at OCU and UOC churches, he emphasized that the two confessions are not on equal footing today.

"I’ll be direct: many people come up to me and say, 'Father, we support you, we are with you, but times are such that we cannot openly attend your church.' How about that information?" the priest said, addressing Sokolovska. "And what about the fact that across the country we have a huge number of public sector workers – their families, their friends – those dependent on state funding and payments, workers in the educational, medical, social spheres, employees of local government bodies, and the judicial system? They simply cannot attend UOC churches because nowadays this could lead to not an obvious, but very real, form of accountability, not grounded in any law."

In response, Sokolovska countered that working in the public sector in Kyiv, she has not observed such issues.

Fr. Oleksandr replied that Kyiv is an exception and that the situation changes dramatically just a short distance outside the capital, particularly in the western regions of Ukraine.

"Believe me, there are many cases in Western Ukraine where people are afraid of losing their jobs simply because they attend a particular church, and so on. Everything is being very closely monitored. People who come to UOC churches even just to bless their Easter baskets risk becoming outcasts in their own workplaces. Because there is now a trend, forgive me, toward a 'state church.' This is happening. We should not silence these stories or pretend that there is equality. There isn’t," the priest stressed.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that knives were found by police among the belongings of the assailants who stormed a church in Verkhni Stanivtsi.

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