Expert: U.S. attacks UOC as a defender of traditional Ukrainian values
The Biden administration will continue to attack the canonical Church in Ukraine as an opponent of the imposition of "American values", Ruslan Bortnik believes.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden will continue the attack on the UOC launched by his predecessor, as it protects traditional Ukrainian values and prevents the imposition of a hedonistic "American" way of life, Ruslan Bortnik, Director of the Ukrainian Institute for Analysis and Policy Management said in an interview with the First Cossack youtube channel.
According to him, traditional societies have their own elites, political, economic, cultural and spiritual, which prevent the implantation of alien "American values", a neoliberal political system, and the penetration of Western capital. The deconstruction of such societies is the focus of globalization, which is being promoted worldwide by neoliberal elites, centered in the United States and the West.
Bortnik notes that in terms of religion, using the example of the World Alliance for Religious Freedom created in America, we can see the attempts to reformat traditional religions, saturating them with neo-liberal messages. Therefore, in Ukraine in the next year or two, the seizures of the UOC churches will intensify, an idea of transferring Lavras to those confessions supported by the current government will be promoted, and a discourse about its "archaism" in relation to the canonical Church will be exaggerated.
“I think that the Biden administration will continue the line on globalization, neo-liberalization of world religions and on pressure, including in the religious sphere, on its political opponents and geopolitical competitors,” the expert said. Therefore, most likely the pressure on the UOC will increase, the Ukrainian authorities will be pushed to exert this pressure and the situation in the coming years will be gradually heated up to the degree of the late Petro Poroshenko."
As the UOJ reported, the hierarch of the UOC commented on the possibility of an impending strike on the Church by the authorities.
