The rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary of the UOC (in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate), Archbishop Sylvester (Stoychev), said that believers and priests of the UOC (MP) are patriots of Ukraine. At the same time, he did not explain how love for Ukraine could be combined with the refusal to sever ties with the Moscow Patriarchate, which blesses the occupation of Ukraine and the killing of civilians.
In an interview for the UOC (MP) media resource Dialog.tut, Stoychev said that the rights of UOC (MP) believers are “systematically violated.”
“There is a decision of the local authorities to ban the UOC in certain regions, now a nationwide law is being discussed,” laments the hierarch.
Then he began to convince the audience that representatives of the UOC (in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate) are patriots of Ukraine: “We, believers and clergymen with the UOC (MP, – ed.), were and will remain patriots of Ukraine.”
Stoychev does not understand, or pretends not to understand, why the authorities of Ukraine at the legislative level seek to prohibit the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate on Ukrainian Orthodoxy, which may affect the restrictions on pro-Russian activities of the UOC (MP). Perhaps that is why the archbishop of this church declares: “…we are ready to defend our rights by all legal means, first in Ukraine, and then, perhaps, in European courts. Our struggle is a struggle for Ukraine, for basic European values, for freedom of conscience.”
Interestingly, the Russian Church has already appealed to the UN with complaints about the “persecution” of the UOC (MP). The head of the Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Antoniy (Servyuk), even reported on the issue. The UOC (MP) made similar appeals. All these appeals from the UOC MP are a signal to the Russian military that the Russian Church in Ukraine must be protected from the “Nazis”. However, Sylvester Stoychev, who belongs to the UOC (MP), which has not severed ties with the Russian Orthodox Church and neither does he comment on such consequences of his church organization’ actions.
Next, the bishop of the UOC (MP) manipulatively distorts facts, claiming that the authorities of Ukraine allegedly tell people, to whom and how to pray. “We do not want Ukraine to become an authoritarian state in which citizens are told which church to go to and how to pray,” says Archbishop Sylvester, although in fact the authorities have been talking about banning collaborators in cassocks for a long time and, as was already mentioned above, it was about banning the influence of the aggressor’s Church on Ukrainian Orthodoxy, primarily of the UOC MP, which still has not severed ties with the Kremlin. The connection of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP) with the Russian Orthodox Church was confirmed by a religious examination, based on the analysis of the new statute adopted in Feofania.
Thus, the UOC (MP) continues to play an important role in creating a pretext for a “crusade” of Russian troops against Ukraine. It was the clerics with the UOC (MP) who spread pro-Russian narratives among the faithful, such as “wake up, Mother Russia” and sent signals to the Kremlin about the alleged “persecution” of the “canonical church.” On the other hand, the UOC (MP) complains that the authorities in Ukraine “violate the rights of Orthodox” while fighting such crimes.
