“They go to these temples, but they do not want to associate themselves with this Church,” head of the SSERF about UOC believers

The head of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Religious Freedom of Ukraine, Viktor Yelenskyy, has said that believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, although they visit churches, do not want to associate themselves with the UOC. Yelensky believes that people visit a particular temple because of the personality of the priest, the building itself, but not because of its affiliation with the UOC. About this he told in an interview with the publication “Ukrainian truth”.

“Many people who visit the temples of this church do not want to associate themselves with it. They are ready to associate themselves with this temple, with this priest, but not with the whole church. Otherwise, the results of sociological surveys would not show 4-6% support. There would be no such thing,” – said Elensky.

The head of the SSERF is convinced that Ukraine should have long ago asked the Patriarch of Constantinople for autocephaly. Now, in his opinion, it is the anti-church law #3894(former #8371) that will help the UOC to break ties with the Russian Church.

“For the Orthodox tradition, there is a very clear algorithm here. A nation that professes Orthodoxy gains independence, and its government, its church appeals to the Ecumenical Patriarch with a request to grant it autocephaly. This is what Romanians did, this is what Serbs did, this is what Bulgarians did, this is what Georgians fought for. But the war dealt a decisive blow to this bundle. My hypothesis is that the Ukrainians in their time had a lot to do with the creation of this church. Because before Peter I took the clergy two-thirds from Ukraine and Belarus, this church was Moscow. And only after that it became the Russian, imperial church. Then it turned against the Ukrainians themselves, but this bundle remained. And for many people it remained important until now. And I think that this will allow to finally separate what once seemed inseparable”, – added Elensky.

Recall that according to the provisions of the anti-church law No. 3894 (formerly No. 8371) “On Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activities of Religious Organizations”, adopted on August 20, 2024 in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, state authorities have the right to prematurely terminate lease agreements for land plots, religious buildings and other premises that were concluded with religious communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.