A massive flow of parishes and believers from the UOC to the OCU never happened
The Ukrainian government may authorize the forceful seizure of churches of the canonical UOC to replenish the parishes of the new church created from schismatics.
Political scientist Kirill Molchanov stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The situation will only worsen in the coming months. A lot will depend on how unified the position of the UOC will be. In fact, no schismatics left them. The position is quite monolithic, fully supported by the congregation. No flows are possible in a natural way, only with the use of administrative resources, power and force,” the expert said.
“I do not exclude that if the process becomes uncontrollable, there will be mass seizures of churches with various right-wing radical calls and violence, then this could be plan “B” so that martial law could again be introduced in February-March under this pretext. Then it will be possible to raise the question of postponing the election campaign.
Much will depend on Bartholomew's position. One can turn a blind eye to the fact that, in essence, a state church is being built. It is no longer possible to say that the church is separated from the state - the first person of the state is engaged in building state Orthodoxy. There is nothing spiritual in this process from the word “at all,” the political scientist noted.
He drew attention to the fact that the UOC remained the only connection between Kyiv and Donbass and Crimea, where its parishes remained.
“Few people know, but in Donbass and Crimea all Orthodox parishes retain the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, they are directly connected with Metropolitan Onuphry. Russia has not “squeezed out” anything. This is probably the only line through which Kyiv still has some connection with Donbass. And if this plan (to rename) is implemented, then we will lose this connection. These parishes will become subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church,” Molchanov concluded.
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