World Council of Churches did not accept OCU into its membership, - Cyril Hovorun

The defrocked former cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill Govorun, spoke about his impressions of participating in a meeting of the World Council of Churches held in Johannesburg. Govorun was outraged by the fact that the WCC has not yet accepted the OCU into the organization, blaming it on “Russian propaganda.” He wrote about this on his account on the social network Facebook.

«As for the organizational issues, the WCC continued to please the Russian Orthodox Church and strengthen the glass wall for Ukraine. Archimandrite Filaret (Bulekov) was re-elected to the executive committee of the AUCC. Filaret (Bulekov), who at the General Assembly in Karlsruhe compared the anti-war statements of the AUCC to those of McDonald’s. The WCC did not accept the OCU, although they should have, but at the same time accepted the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria, the Presbyterian Church of Central Africa in Malawi, the International Apostolic Pentecostal Church in Liberia and the Union of Evangelical Free Churches in Germany,» — Hovorun wrote.

The ex-archimandrite added that the recent events in Chernivtsi, where supporters of the OCU beat the clergy and believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church during an attempt to seize the Holy Spirit Cathedral of the UOC, shifted the focus from political issues to interfaith troubles. He accused the Russian side of using this situation to divert attention from the war to the OCU’s continuous attacks on the UOC.

«It’s not that the Ukrainian side doesn’t sometimes help build the glass wall itself. Yes, I know that the issue of abducted Ukrainian children was discussed in Johannesburg. But this discussion was successfully neutralized by the stories about the seizure of the UOC Cathedral in Chernivtsi and the beating of a local priest. Therefore, this story has already pleased the Russian side in an attempt to raise the much more significant issue of the abduction of Ukrainian children,» — he added.