OCU spokesman expects "destruction of Russia" to absorb UOC parishes

OCU spokesman Yevstratiy Zorya predicts a significant acceleration of the processes of recognition of the OCU and voluntary unification of the parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with the OCU as Russian influence weakens. Zorya is convinced that after Russia “collapses,” the parishes of the UOC will voluntarily join the Ukrainian schism. He said this in an interview with the Pryamyy TV channel.

Commenting on the prospects of the OCU, Zoria said: “Gradually and irrevocably, Moscow will lose everything in Ukraine. Despite the pressure, church corruption and blackmail, we should not forget that God’s will is woven into history. When the Russian Federation collapses, the tentacles of the Moscow octopus will disappear, the influence of the Russian Federation will be much less, then there will be new recognitions of the OCU, and the process of spiritual voluntary and conscious unification of the MP parishes with the Ukrainian Church will go much faster.”

In addition, Yevstratiy Zorya accused the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of being unwilling to build a dialogue with the OCU. He argues that the UOC, although it is trying to blame the OCU and the Patriarchate of Constantinople for the church crisis in Ukraine, is actually to blame for what is happening.

“Why don’t they enter into a dialog? As long as His Beatitude Volodymyr was alive, the dialog continued. The current Metropolitan Onufriy has cut off all opportunities for dialogue. Therefore, in the matter of achieving unity, there is neither the fault of the OCU, nor the shortcomings of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, nor the mistakes of society or the authorities. Blaming others is a superficial rhetoric of those who do not want to unite, ” he added.

Earlier we reported that the head of the OCU , Epiphany Dumenko , accused Russia of obstructing the “transitions” of religious communities of the UOC to the Ukrainian schism. Dumenko said that in recent years, his organization has managed to seize more than two thousand religious communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but the process would have been faster if not for the “influence of the Russian Federation.”