Professor of the KTA: After the Council in Feofaniya, hundreds of priests of the UOC wanted to transfer to the Phanar Exarchate

Serhiy Bortnyk, professor at the Kyiv Theological Seminary and Academy and employee of the Department of External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, said that in 2022, after the Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Feofaniya, clergymen of the UOC massively contacted the exarch of the Patriarch of Constantinople in Ukraine, Bishop Komansky Mikhail (Anishchenko), with a request to provide them with a canonical alternative. He stated this on the YouTube channel “Viche.”

«I know that after the Council in Feofaniya, hundreds of calls were made to the Exarch of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Ukraine, Bishop Komanskyi Mykhailo, from priests of the UOC with the question: how can we separate from the Moscow Patriarchate, but in such a way as to remain canonical and not join the schismatics (the OCU, ed.)? At least three years ago, this was happening very actively. I don’t know how relevant it is now,» — Bortnik said.

At the same time, the professor added that the state has every opportunity to approach the Ukrainian church crisis in a meaningful way and create conditions under which the UOC can painlessly leave the Moscow Patriarchate without joining the OCU.

«If we think from the point of view of the state, then the state must have its own interests. There is a problem. Many Orthodox believers are potential enemies of Ukraine precisely because they want to remain faithful to the UOC and see no alternatives. During Poroshenko’s time, the state created very strong pressure and much was done to create the OCU. The state was very active in resolving this issue. If the state today takes on at least a third of its capabilities, it will be able to resolve the issue so that Orthodox believers of the UOC feel that they are canonical and not associated with the bloody Moscow Patriarch, and at the same time are not forced to go where they do not want to go, that is, to the current OCU, which is putting serious pressure on them,» — he said.

Earlier, OCU lobbyist and editor-in-chief of the website “Orthodox Ukraine” Yaroslava Mishchenko, also known as Lana Samokhvalova, expressed her joy that the state would soon ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Mishchenko noted that without the bishops, clergy, and believers of the UOC, the world “will definitely become better and safer.”