The UOC does not comply with DESS requirements for fear of schism, - Govorun

Kirill Govorun, a former cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church who has been defrocked, spoke about the reasons why the Ukrainian Orthodox Church refuses to comply with the state’s demands to sever canonical ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. Govorun believes that the UOC is afraid of falling into schism and losing its subjectivity in world Orthodoxy. He announced this on Radio NV.

«The fear within the UOC is this: if we comply with all the DESS resolutions, especially in their first edition, we will sever ties with the ROC as required by the state, and we will be cursed! We will be excommunicated, as was done with Filaret. This will mean that we will become a schism in the eyes of global Orthodoxy. This means that, for example, when our bishops and priests travel abroad, they will no longer be able to serve as before, on the grounds that the UOC is part of the ROC. We will effectively be in a state of schism. This is their fear and one of the reasons why they do not want to change anything,» — said the former archimandrite.

Earlier, OCU lobbyist and freelance expert of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) Andriy Smirnov stated that despite the state’s demands, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church would not go so far as to sever ties with the ROC. In his opinion, the UOC is afraid of finding itself in a schism, which threatens the Church in the event of self-proclaimed autocephaly.