A spokesman for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya) of Chernihiv, said Ukraine’s membership in NATO would be the only solid guarantee of the country’s security.
The archbishop of the OCU posted on social media an image with a reference to a statement by FSB ex-director Sergei Stepashin, who spoke of Russia’s potential occupation of Turkey had this country not been part of NATO.
“On Day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Moscow-based Father Andriy Kurayev shared a picture that explains quite clearly why Ukraine’s membership in NATO is the only possible guarantee of our security. By the way, just as the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is a guarantee of the spiritual security of the Ukrainian nation,” the spokesman for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine wrote on Facebook.
Archbishop Yevstratiy noted that Stepashin was also the head of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society, a front organization for Russia’s intelligence agencies operating with the Orthodox Churches in the Balkans and the Middle East.
“Also, looking at the situation from a church perspective, I’d like to suggest that, had there been no strong Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Kremlin and its Department of Religious Affairs, the Moscow Patriarchate, would have long seized control over global Orthodoxy,” Archbishop Yevstratiy said.
It should be recalled that Archbishop Yevstratiy earlier declared that Putin’s imperial model was doomed because it appealed to the past. He also reported about MP Vadym Novynsky who might receive UAH 20 billion annually for lobbying the ROCinU.
