Priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church receive money “from the center” to prevent transfers to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, - religious scholar Bogachevskaya

Ukrainian religious scholar, OCU lobbyist, and head of the Department of Philosophy and Pedagogy at the National Transport University, Iryna Bohachevska, stated that the process of religious communities transitioning from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the OCU has slowed down, in particular because UOC priests are being paid money from the “center” to counteract this scenario. She made this statement on Radio NV.

“Unfortunately, this process has slowed down a bit. But this is not without reason. Practically every transition (from the UOC to the OCU, ed.) is accompanied by a lawsuit from the UOC-MP. They are very harshly putting ”spokes in the wheels» of these transitions. It gets to the point where the community is not opposed, but their priest receives a separate payment ‘from the centre’ for slowing down his community’s transition to the OCU,» — Bogachevska said.

Earlier, the head of the parliamentary committee on humanitarian and information policy, Mykyta Poturayev, commented on information about the alleged financing of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from Russia, which has been circulating widely in the biased media for several years. The deputy claims that despite the prevalence of this version, in reality, the UOC has almost always been supported by internal sources, namely patrons and ordinary believers.