The spokesman of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya), has drawn public attention to the congress of ROCinU monks held in Pochaiv.
“Lawmaker A. Derkach is at the rostrum of the Pochaiv congress of monks of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine. Judging by media reports, he is a specialist in meetings with human intelligence assets, certified by the FSB Academy. The U.S. government has put him on the sanctions list as an ‘active Russian agent.’ As Dmitry Kiselyov, the luminary of Putin’s propaganda, enjoys saying: ‘A coincidence? I don’t think so,’” a spokesman for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine wrote on Facebook.
He noted that, despite these facts, some commentators on Facebook recently ridiculed the term “UOC-FSB”: “Funny? Guess who had the last laugh in Crimea and Donbas…”
“In fact, it would absurd to consider every member of the MP as someone’s asset. As in the USSR, not all clergymen were KGB agents. However, it would be enough to read through some archival materials and historical research on the work of the Kremlin’s secret services in Church to understand that the authorities had enough control over key figures to have the latter lead the events in a certain direction as if it’s their own initiative. And although the USSR collapsed, the system of communication between the MP and the Kremlin’s secret services hasn’t gone anywhere,” Archbishop Yevstratiy concluded.
