The OCU has labeled the activities of UOC parishes in Germany as a threat to national security

Petr Bokanov, a cleric of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), issued a statement claiming that the expansion of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s (UOC) network of parishes in Germany poses a potential threat to that country’s national security. He made these remarks in an interview with the Libertas Fidei website.

Bokanov expressed concern over the UOC’s efforts toward institutional development, including the construction of its own churches and active participation in religious education within Germany. The OCU representative justifies his position by arguing that the views on the conflict conveyed in UOC parishes could influence Ukrainian refugees. Since many of them plan to obtain German citizenship in the future, Bokanov believes that this could affect public sentiment within German society itself.

According to the statistics cited, the UOC currently has 25 parishes and 36 clergy members in Germany, while the OCU is represented by only three parishes. The cleric also criticized the practice of local German churches providing premises to UOC communities and called for an active effort to explain the differences between Orthodox jurisdictions to both state and church organizations in Germany.

As a reminder, we previously reported that a public scandal had broken out between two OCU representatives in Poland, Arseniy Revtov and Sergiy Sirenko. The incident was triggered by mutual accusations of arrogance, hypocrisy, and attempts to single-handedly take control of the OCU’s structure in the country.