“These transfers were not voluntary": religious scholar tells how UOC was liquidated in Lviv region

Liudmyla Fylypovych, a well-known lobbyist for the OCU in the media, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor at the Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, commented on the situation with the liquidation of parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Lviv region. She believes that 27 parishes of the UOC, which allegedly “transferred to the OCU,” did so under duress and pressure from local authorities. She said this in a commentary to the Hromadske publication.

“I assume that these transitions were not voluntary, open, clear, without doubt, without coercion. They could have explained to these communities: “Just as in 1946 the Greek Catholics had to survive, and they moved to the Moscow Church, so now we need to survive, so we will move to the OCU.” I don’t know what arguments were used there. Because a conscious, deep, patriotic, national call does not always work. When you have to go over because you cannot belong to the Church that is now shelling our churches, children, stealing our future, and so on. Therefore, it would be good to study these processes of transition,” – believes Fylypovych.

Earlier, the head of the Lviv regional administration, Maksym Kozytskyi, said that there were no more religious communities in the Lviv region that were part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He added that during the full-scale invasion, 27 UOC communities joined the OCU, and another 27 ceased their activities of their own free will. Kozitsky called on other regions to follow the example of the Lviv region in this matter.