Religious expert Oleksandr Yefremenko has commented on the “autocephaly” of the so-called UOC-MP. According to him, all decisions are first made in Moscow before the ROCinU Synod duplicates and enshrines them in the statute.
“Who is really a ‘puppet’ is the ROCinU itself, represented by Antoniy (Pakanych, ed.) as it makes no significant decisions without instructions from Moscow … It is in Moscow that appropriate decisions are passed regarding its branch in Ukraine,” writes the expert.
He has added that neither Pakanych’s opinion nor that of his immediate superior, Metropolitan Onufriy (Berezovsky), is important for Moscow’s decision-making.
“After all, all resolutions on the Ukrainian issue, starting September 2018, are adopted in Moscow, and then almost literally duplicated in the relevant decisions of Onufriy’s Synod. And the ROCinU itself, with its actions and deeds, only confirms that, and there is enough pieces of evidence that aren’t worth repeating,” Yefremenko said.
The religious expert also stressed that such subordination of the so-called “UOC-MP” is proclaimed in the very charter of this religious organization.
“It is the organization that defends the Kremlin’s geopolitical interests under the guise of religion, instilling in Ukraine a chauvinistic idea of a ‘Russian world,'” Yefremenko concluded.
It should be recalled that Oleksandr Yefremenko earlier suggested that the Amman 2.0 meeting will fixate a split of the ROC from Ecumenical Orthodoxy. He also noted that the ROC once appropriated the Kyiv Metropolis without any “conciliar discussion.”
