A lobbyist for the OCU called the attempt to seize the UOC Cathedral in Chernivtsi “Russian destabilization”

Edgar Kalancha, a lobbyist for the OCU who launched a horrific fake news story about violence against children in an orphanage at the Ascension Monastery of the UOC in Bancheny, said that the attempt to seize the Holy Spirit Cathedral of the UOC in Chernivtsi was an attempt by Russia to destabilize the region. Kalancha noted that some “pro-Russian Romanian forces” were also interested in the seizure, which harshly criticized the OCU for attempting to raid the main church of the Chernivtsi diocese of the UOC. He said this in a comment to Espreso.

«On June 17, clergymen planned the first service in Ukrainian at the Holy Spirit Cathedral. Currently, the cathedral is registered in all records as belonging to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Among the people who came to support the UOC-MP at that time, there were many boxers. A priest from the Storozhynets community, Georgy Kovalchuk, whose relatives in Russia have a parish and collect money for the Russian army, also came and made a video recording. It was he who recorded a video in Romanian, which was used by pro-Russian Romanian propagandists. Romanian media outlets reported the incident as if Ukrainians had beaten Romanians in a cathedral belonging to Romania. I want to emphasize that there is no oppression of Romanian speakers here, as some Romanian politicians who support Russia are trying to portray. But Romanian television broadcast it with the wording “oppression of Romanian speakers.” American lawyer Robert Amsterdam, who is financed by Vadym Novynskyi, commented on these video messages,» — Kalancha said.

The activist added that “pro-Russian Romanian forces” are also interested in what is happening, bringing the conflicts between the OCU and the UOC in Bukovina to the international level.

«The representatives of the UOC-MP in Bukovina are destabilizing the situation the most. Because in Romania, the events at the Holy Spirit Cathedral were presented in such a way that Romanians were beaten and intimidated here. Pro-Russian member of the Romanian parliament Luis Lazarus stated from the rostrum that Romanian speakers had been oppressed here for years and that priest Longin was being tried on trumped-up charges. After that, UOC-MP officials thanked Romanian politicians. Representatives of the UOC-MP in Bukovina are trying to destabilize the situation. One of the main goals of the Russians is to destabilize regions where national minorities live, namely through priests of the Moscow Patriarchate promoting narratives about the alleged disrespect of Ukrainians towards other nationalities, which is completely untrue. They even enlisted the help of Robert Amsterdam, an international lawyer in the US who is the main lobbyist for the UOC-MP in the US,» — says Kalancha.

Earlier, we reported that the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which met in Bucharest on July 1-2, 2025, published a press release on the results of its work, in which, among other things, it criticized the Ukrainian government for refusing to register the Romanian Patriarchate — the Romanian Orthodox Church of Ukraine — on its territory. The Romanian Orthodox Church considers this decision by the Ukrainian authorities to be an “abuse.”