The Ukrainian Orthodox Church hopes that the religious issue will be included in the package of agreements with Russia, says a religious studies expert

Oleksandr Sagan, a lobbyist for the OCU and head of the Department of Religious Studies at the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, criticized the status granted to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 2022 following the Council in Feofaniya. Sagan believes that the Theophania decision is an attempt to stall for time until peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. According to the expert, the Ukrainian church issue should become one of the subjects of an agreement between the warring countries. He spoke about this in a comment to the publication “Grunt.”

“The Theophany Council is an attempt at institutional mimicry in wartime. An attempt to preserve the structure while formally removing the most obvious signs of dependence on Moscow,” Sagan noted .

He also suggested that the UOC is hoping to stall for time until the end of the Russian-Ukrainian war. According to Sagan, the church issue will be one of the topics of discussion in the negotiation process.

“They are likely dragging out the process because they hope that the religious issue will be included in the package of agreements or negotiations with Russia,” he added.

As a reminder, Ukrainian political analyst Kostyantyn Bondarenko previously suggested thatthe Ukrainian OrthodoxChurch would become one of the subjects of peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.