UOC priest: Someone gave the сommand to rock the boat inside the country
The priest recalled that at the beginning of the war, the rhetoric of the government reps in relation to the UOC was radically different from the one that is heard now.
On 15 December 2022, Archpriest Oleksandr Klymenko said during a news conference at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra that in his opinion "someone gave the command to rock the boat inside the country”.
Commenting on the latest developments around the UOC, the priest said that he did not know "who and why gave the command to rock the boat inside the country, but this boat is being rocked".
"Remember the first months of the war. Everyone in the highest echelons of power was constantly arguing with our opponents. There were phrases that there are no Russian churches in Ukraine, all churches are Ukrainian. There were phrases that the UOC is not the ROC, that it helps the army and so on. But literally in the last month and a half, the rhetoric has changed dramatically," Fr. Oleksandr said.
According to the UOC cleric, during this time, certain decisions regarding the UOC have been made at the National Security Council and "a flywheel of inspections" was launched.
"Checks are useless but very important in terms of media. After all, no one is to sort out whether you are guilty or not. If there is an inspection, it means there is guilt. I do not know who and why gave the command to rock the boat inside the country, but the boat is being rocked," the priest stressed.
Earlier, Archpriest Oleksandr Klymenko, commenting on the persecution of the UOC, said that this is possible only in totalitarian countries.
