President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has commented on today’s rally of the Moscow Patriarchate’s faithful and the Myriany NGO, which took place outside the Verkhovna Rada and the President’s Office.
“Look what’s happening outside the Verkhovna Rada today. It’s a shame, really. There are senior ladies and children there – all sporting OPZZh (a pro-Russian political force) caps. Something’s wrong in that church again. Is it really so that suddenly everyone is so concerned and thousands of old ladies came out wearing those yellow OPZZh caps? What does it look like, I ask. Our task, including that of the law on de-oligarchization, is that these old ladies have enough money to keep them off the streets. Throughout their lives, they’ve earned respect wherever they worked… We must bring them out of poverty,” President Zelensky said, addressing the Ukraine 30 forum, Censor.net reports.
ROCinU has already reacted to the president’s words, calling his comment a bad signal for them.
“Zelensky de facto introduced the religious issue into the political domain and the format of his confrontation with the OPZZh (a pro-Russian political force), hinting that the latter exploits the church issues to promote their interests. However, we still hope that the president simply chose the wrong wording, which messed things up,” the Pravblog Telegram channel, run by ROCinU supporters, reported.
Earlier today, June 15, Kremlin puppets with the Myriany NGO rallied outside the President’s Office, complaining about legislation aimed to bring the name of the Russian-led church in line with its true essence. They also spoke against the upcoming visit of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
Believers of the Moscow Patriarchate brought along to their rally outside the President’s Office in Kyiv boxes with signatures calling to repeal the bill set to change the title of the Russian-led church to the ROCinU (Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine), in accordance with the statute of this religious organization. That is, if passed, the bill will no longer allow ROCinU to hide under the name “UOC” as the organization will be obliged to indicate in the title its affiliation with the governing center in Moscow. Naturally, the ROCinU leadership isn’t happy about the developments so they decided to mobilize all their assets to oppose new legislation.
It should be recalled that the Spiritual Front of Ukraine earlier reported that it’s the founder of the pro-Russian propaganda group “Union of Orthodox Journalists” and “Union of Orthodox Lawyers”, millionaire Viktor Vyshnevetsky, who stands behind the Myriany NGO. Vyshnevetsky owns coal mines in the occupied areas of Donbas and sponsors the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine. According to some reports, he owes his fortune to Viktor Yanukovych’s eldest son.
Also, a spokesman for the OCU, Archbishop Yevstratiy, called the Myriany group a Kremlin project, the same as the “Russian Orthodox Army.”
The primate of the OCU, Metropolitan Epifaniy, said that ROC in Ukraine has been outlawed and cannot be called “UOC.”
