The UOC is playing a give-and-take game in the hopes of surviving – like the church in the USSR
The hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church continue to remain faithful to the Moscow Patriarchate.
Metropolitan Jonathan (Eletskikh), who was sentenced to a five-year prison term in Ukraine and exchanged by Russia, stated this in an interview with the Spas TV channel, a PolitNigator correspondent reports.
"As for Ukraine, it's a game of give-and-take. But the position of a large number of the episcopate is that we are, after all, the Moscow Patriarchate, and our patriarch is His Holiness Patriarch Kirill," said Jonathan.
According to the bishop, the so-called "council" of the UOC in Feofaniya, at which the hierarchs condemned Russia and effectively renounced the ROC, was a formal concession to the Nazi regime for the sake of survival.
"For those who don't know canon law and church theology well, there may have been some consequences. But for those who are familiar with it, there have been and will be no consequences. Many state this outright. Of course, I think there have been some formal concessions. But many such concessions were made under Soviet rule as well," said Ionafan.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is playing a giveaway game in hopes of survival – like the church in the USSR.