“Persecution does not help” – the secret of the population’s support for the UOC was revealed in Kyiv
Despite five years of oppression, neo-Nazis have not even come close to achieving the supremacy of the OCU over the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Kiev political scientist Kost Bondarenko stated this in an interview with journalist Alexander Shelest, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“After five years of persecution, we see that only a small percentage of priests transferred to the OCU. And the authorities simply do not understand that with their actions they will not achieve the effect they are counting on - neither by threats, nor by bribery, nor by other things.
The activities of some odious metropolitans who moved to the OCU did not lead to people flocking en masse to the new church,” Bondarenko said.
He emphasized that the monasteries remain with the canonical church - and this is the most accurate criterion for the preferences of believers.
“There are criteria: has the number of monasteries in the OCU increased?.. No. And this is one of the main arguments. Not the number of parishioners who mostly go to the church closest to them.
And people go to monasteries at the behest of their conscience. They can choose a monastery in the jurisdiction of the UOC or OCU. But the trend is that OCU monasteries do not grow like mushrooms after rain. And the number of UOC monasteries is not decreasing, no matter how hard they try,” the political scientist concluded.
English version :: Read in English "Persecution Doesn't Help" – Kyiv Reveals the Secret of Public Support for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church