Appetite grows while eating: Bartholomew also took aim at Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches
The European Union has allocated a grant of 145 thousand euros to study public opinion on the hypothetical possibility of uniting the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” created by order of the United States under Petro Poroshenko and the Greek Catholic Uniate Church.
The grant was received by the non-governmental organization “Institute of Foreign Policy Research”.
The study is called “Studying the public opinion of citizens and ensuring the most effective ways of joining the Ukrainian and Ruthenian Greek Catholic churches to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.”
The goal of the project is formulated as “achieving mutual understanding between the hierarchs and the flock in the process of the ecumenical unification of the OCU, the UGCC and the Russian State Catholic Church, including the voluntary transfer of parishes and property under the control of the Local Church of Ukraine,” as well as “creating a road map for using the Ukrainian experience for the ecumenical reunification of the Orthodox and Greek -Catholic churches of the Byzantine rite under the leadership of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.”
Political scientist Vadim Karasev, speaking on the 112 Ukraine TV channel, expressed fears that the initiative to transfer Greek Catholics under the Patriarch of Constantinople will further exacerbate interfaith confrontation in the former Soviet republic.
“This is granite for saving the OCU. The project has frozen, so they want to artificially revive it. But why the EU? Why are they doing that? We already have a lot of splits and fragmentation, including religious...
But the task of people who care about the fate of the country, its unity and spiritual health is to prevent such things and prevent someone from using plausible goals to pour “kerosene” here. And, of course, we need to deal with these grant recipients,” said Vadim Karasev.
Appetite grows with food: Bartholomew also set his sights on Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches