Mikhail Pogrebinsky explained why Poroshenko screwed up with autocephaly
Petro Poroshenko failed his PR project to create a Church independent from the Moscow Patriarchate, based on the schismatic “Kiev Patriarchate,” which was supposed to receive a tomos of recognition from the Patriarch of Constantinople on the 1030th anniversary of the baptism of Rus'.
Director of the Kyiv Center for Political Research and Conflict Studies, political scientist Mikhail Pogrebinsky spoke about this on the Newsone channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“In my opinion, everything is simple here: our president set himself, in my opinion, an impossible task, but, nevertheless, he set it and made promises to everyone. He even said that by this day a decision would have been made to grant the UOC, which today is not recognized by other Orthodox Churches, that it will receive the status of autonomy. I think that it is important for him that today’s religious procession be less impressive, that there be fewer people than tomorrow’s, which will bring together representatives of the unrecognized non-canonical Orthodoxy in the world,” he noted.
“If I were an adviser to Poroshenko, I would not advise him to make a bet and take on obligations that are practically impossible to fulfill. But he took on such obligations, and this is already completely clear today. In general, I think that the process of acquiring autocephaly, if it can exist, is achieved by reaching an agreement in the canonical field of the UOC, the mother Church, the Moscow Patriarchate. I think that participation in this will someday be possible with Patriarch Kirill or with whoever comes after him, it will be possible to negotiate the status of the UOC. Today, in my opinion, this is absolutely unrealistic. No matter how they try to put pressure on him, I assume that from the United States, apparently, pressure is being exerted on the Ecumenical Patriarch,” Pogrebinsky emphasized.
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