In 2024, almost 100 new parishes coordinated by the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) emerged in different countries. Priest Heorhii Kovalenko reported this in an interview with Glavcom, drawing attention to the need for a thorough analysis of the existing trend.
“This means that this activity should be analyzed from both a spiritual and a security point of view: who are these people, what narratives do they spread, and what structure are they actually part of. It is time to focus on that. We immediately said that this is a dangerous trend and this could be a network that will help the Moscow Patriarchate survive around the world,” noted priest Heorhii.
He recalled that after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, everything Russian ceased to be appealing to foreigners.
“Remember the onset of the war: everything Russian ceased to be attractive to foreigners. And meanwhile, a ‘friendly’ structure is being built, which supposedly consists of citizens of Ukraine,” noted the priest.
“We are now seeing how sluggishly the World Council of Churches is reacting to the war. Since Soviet times, the Moscow Patriarchate has been a part of a large number of international Christian and interreligious structures, has built up relations with the Vatican, and in all these churches, not only Orthodox ones, it has certain agents of influence: people who sympathize with Russia, are inspired by the ‘great’ Russian culture or spirituality,” Kovalenko said.
Priest Heorhii Kovalenko emphasized that the Moscow Patriarchate can no longer be considered an exclusively religious organization.
“The Moscow Patriarchate is actually no longer a religious organization. There is Rosatom, Rosneft, and there is the Russian Church, which performs its ideological function and has endorsed their ‘holy war’ and other features of modern-day Nazism,” he said.
Kovalenko also drew attention to the fact that many priests and hierarchs from the UOC-MP in Ukraine find themselves in a difficult situation.
“For many priests and hierarchs from the UOC-MP in Ukraine, everything is not so clear. We can imagine that this narrative will spread across Europe and it will be uttered in Ukrainian by someone holding a Ukrainian passport, who is fleeing both the war and persecution by the Ukrainian authorities. That is, an alternative reality and point of view is being created.
We see that people who were engaged in Russian propaganda in Ukraine and worked in the now virtually banned media are now engaging parishes abroad. For example, the UOJ (Union of Orthodox Journalists – ed.). The question is: what narratives are they spreading?” wondered the priest.
