Oleksandr Tkachenko: We do not physically expel the UOC from the Lavra, but, so to speak, encourage them with legal decisions

Oleksandr Tkachenko, in an interview with the BBC, answered, in particular, the question of why he used to advocate for the UOC and OCU to co-serve in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and now he is really driving the UOC out of the Lavra.

“We do not physically expel them, we, so to speak, induce them with legal decisions,” Tkachenko said.

He added that “we have a very diverse religious life. Before the war, the dialogue (between the UOC and the OCU) took place, although not without difficulties, we managed to avoid a dramatic development of events. During the war, we tried to resume the dialogue between the UOC-MP and the OCU, even held one rather successful round table in Sofia”.

To the journalist’s remark that there were no bishops there, but only ordinary priests, the former minister said that “nevertheless, it was a public event. After that, the leaders of the UOC-MP forbade their priests to enter into such a dialogue.”