A public figure from France, publicist, Monique Gimenez shared with News Front a view of the ongoing attempts to create the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate.
Before trying to talk about the Ukrainian Church, it is first necessary to indicate how Ukraine came to this situation, because if we won’t follow the history, it won’t be possible to understand why we came to this, as well as the problems of the Orthodox Church stemming from the current situation.
Until 1914, the imperialist countries wanted to seize Ukraine, which belonged to the Russian Empire and was an important part historically and economically, and which was an objective factor of permanent conflicts.
It should be remembered that two world wars had the Ukrainian issue as one of its reasons, and that we finally find the same main actors today from the end of the 19th century to 1914 or from 1914, at a time when Russia was the home of most of Ukraine, especially Eastern part.
During the period between the two wars, the US discovered that this is a very interesting area, since it is a favorable position for their presence in Europe. Ukraine is a vital issue for Russia and other European countries, since it is the breadbasket of Europe, it is also a treasure trove, especially the Donbass.
One extremely right-wing Polish publicist, however, is not an outspoken Russophobe, said that all the imperialists are fighting for Ukraine. They wanted to force Ukraine to be a consumer, not a producer country. This is partly true, since the 1930s, Ukrainian economic rates have prevailed and have never stopped, despite the so-called genocide of Ukrainians in the form of famine, which was neither genocide nor exclusively Ukrainian.
Countries with ambitions towards Ukraine remain the same: the US and Germany. This historical summary was necessary to explain the problems facing the Orthodox Church. In any society, religion serves as a link between believers and politics. As for the Orthodox religion, these are the lungs of the Slavic and Greek world, except for Poland, which is more prone to the Catholic rite. This religion, which goes back to the first millennium, is of great importance for people. The risk of such a split, which would be tantamount to alienate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate with the blessing of Patriarch Bartholomew, who intends to grant autocephalous Kiev, may lead to inter-religious conflict, because the Russian community living in Ukraine does not agree with this split, and if, in addition to the conflict in the Donbass, there is a conflict that can divide the Orthodox world, this can have consequences in the surrounding countries where believers observe the Orthodox rite. And this (conflict – ed.) сould even go beyond the religious framework. If this leads to a similar scenario, it will destabilize the European continent and, perhaps, provoke a third world conflict.