Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard

16:49:38
01/05/2018

glavnovosti.com

All shrines of the Canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church must be appropriated without waiting for the decision of the Ecumenical Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew, because the Ukrainian Orthodox Church [Moscow Patriarchate – ed] is the church of the enemy. Such an opinion was expressed on the air of the Ivano-Frankovsk broadcasting company “3-studio” by the leader of “Svoboda” and former deputy of Ukraine Oleg Tyagnibok.

“Pay attention to how now the President made a super-hit – the creation of a United Local Autocephalous Orthodox Church with its center in Kiev. I, also as a Christian and a patriot, very much want a United Local Orthodox Church with its center in Kiev to be created, especially since this is the 29th point of our program for the defence of Ukrainians,” said Tyagnibok.

He added that if Poroshenko manages to create a new church in Ukraine, Ukrainians will be ready to forgive him for all the unfulfilled promises that he once made:

“But people are already ready to forgive Poroshenko for all sins. I never went to that church. I am a Greek-Catholic brought up in a family of a Greek-catholic priest, and I didn’t betray my faith. Most Ukrainian politicians are yesterday’s parishioners of the Moscow church.”

At the same time, according to Tyagnibok, the authorities can start to take orthodox shrines already now, without waiting for the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. It is possible to start with the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and then take the Pochaevskaya Lavra.

“We in general consider that in this situation the Ukrainian authorities can do a lot of things without Constantinople. For example, to take the shrines that belong to the Moscow Patriarchate, but are actually ours – Ukrainian.

And there is no need to ask Bartholomew. Just transfer them to the possession of the Ukrainian church. The Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and the Pochaevskaya Lavra. What’s the problem? Forbid Moscow priests from accessing law enforcement structures. How is it possible that representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate [here he means that some priests defected to Kiev’s side – ed] are chaplains in the Ukrainian army,” considers Tyagnibok.

As a reminder, earlier Oleg Tyagnibok suggested to deprive military pensioners of all privileges and pensions because, according to him, all of them served the occupational Soviet regime.

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