Phanar hierarch: UOC bishops did not join OCU due to RF special services
Archbishop Elpidophoros. Photo: Facebook
The head of the Archdiocese of the Constantinople Patriarchate in America Archbishop Elpidophoros stated in an interview with "Viche" that 100 out of 102 hierarchs of the UOC did not attend the "Unification Council" of the OCU in 2018 due to the fear of the Russian special services.
"The reason that many hierarchs did not join this autocephalous Church was the unjust pressure they experienced from Russian special services, intelligence services, which blackmailed through personal files, pressured, oppressed or even threatened hierarchs so they would not join," assures Archbishop Elpidophoros.
According to him, this is "obvious", but he does not know "whether anyone has ever spoken about this publicly and openly."
Thus, it can be stated that, in Archbishop Elpidophoros's opinion, only Metropolitans Simeon (Shostatsky) and Oleksandr (Drabinko), who appeared at the OCU event, were able to avoid pressure from the Russian Federation special services. The latter positioned himself as the creator of the "Russian world" ideology.
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