“The Primate of the UOC has almost officially made a decision to be a persecuted church” - religious scholar Sagan

Oleksandr Sagan, a lobbyist for the OCU, head of the Department of Religious Studies at the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences, believes that the UOC should not be expected to make any moves toward merging with other structures. The religious scholar is convinced that such a course was announced by the Primate of the Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv and All Ukraine. He said this in a commentary to Glavkom.

“In his sermon on the 10th anniversary of his enthronement as Metropolitan of Kyiv, Onufriy clearly said that believers are saved only through suffering and through going through certain difficulties. That is, he almost officially decided to be a “persecuted” church. In Russia, this is called “standing in the faith,” — Sagan says.

Nevertheless, the religious scholar is convinced that in connection with the adoption of Law No. 8371 “on the prohibition of the UOC,” the transitions of communities from the UOC to the OCU will intensify. Therefore, despite the position of the Primate of the UOC, the process will continue, although it will not bring the desired result.

“Somewhere around 20-25 religious communities a month transfer, both clergy and believers. I know that many priests were waiting for this law because they did not want to take the initiative themselves and waited for the state to make the appropriate decision. The law gives communities a fairly long period of time to think about it — nine months, so many will wait until this period expires. A certain number of communities will make their decision within a month or two, but a significant number of communities will look to the hierarchy. And the hierarchy in the UOC (MP) is very interesting — according to official data alone, 28 of them have Russian passports. So why should they rush to the OCU?”, — the OCU lobbyist summarized.

As reported earlier, Oleksandr Drabynko, a former bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who joined the OCU in 2018, claims that the adoption of Law No. 8371 banning the UOC will not properly affect its existence. The representative of the OCU is convinced that the UOC will continue to act, and, in his opinion, the process of finding new canonical models for the canonical Church with the support of the Patriarchate of Constantinople is underway.