On the eve of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko urged the representatives of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and religious organizations to think about the creation of a single local autocephalous church.
According to Vzglyad newspaper, Poroshenko pushes Ukraine into a new religious war.
Earlier, the head of the Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, told reporters that the Patriarchate is very concerned about the situation that is emerging “around the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – the only canonical Orthodox Church”. According to him, “one Local Orthodox Church in Ukraine is already exists – it’s the Ukrainian Orthodox Church headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphrii”.
In late January, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill said that the primates of the 15 local Orthodox churches recognized the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate, headed by the Metropolitan Onuphrii.
At that, the UOC under the Moscow Patriarchate has repeatedly reported about cases of harassment of clergy as well as seizure of the Orthodox churches by the representatives of the UOC under the Kyiv Patriarchate. In particular, the Russian Foreign Ministry earlier expressed outrage at the attack of the UOC MP temple in Rovno by the Ukrainian radicals.