Religious experts: UOC believers will be goaded to fight for their temples

Protopriest Georgy Kovalenko also participated in the round table

This was mentioned at the round table "The Problem of Approval of the Single Local Orthodox Church in Ukraine", which was held on June 25-26 in Kiev under the auspices of X Congress of the International Association of Ukrainians, the Department of Religion Studies at G. Skovoroda Institute of Philology, and public organization Ukrainian Association of Religious Experts, reports Tatiana Derkach on the website RISU.

One of the event moderators, religious scholar Alexander Sagan, said that if Constantinople fails to grant Tomos, this will undermine its status as an arbiter of the Orthodox world and entail "a detonation of the conciliarity principle” which is to be secured by the Ecumenical Patriarch."

But in the event that Patriarch Bartholomew "reinforces the constitution of Ukrainian autocephaly", it will receive a "powerful ally" in the person of the "young Ukrainian local church".

Another participant of the round table – the former UOC Spokesman Protopriest Georgy Kovalenko – noted that "it is clear now to everybody that Ukraine is going to create two parallel competing Orthodox jurisdictions."

"Are they ready to coexist peacefully?" Kovalenko asked rhetorically.

Liudmila Filipovich, head of the Department of Philosophy and History of Religion of the Department of Religious Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, believes that there are certain risks for the religious world in Ukraine.

In particular, these risks "primarily consist in curtailing religious freedom and the interreligious peace in Ukraine through purposeful destabilization of the religious environment, including through provoking believers of the UOC-MP to protest actions and struggle for temples. Such developments might repeat the scenario of the 90's."

Earlier, leader of the UOC KP Filaret claimed, that the Kiev Pechersk and Pochaev Lavra should be handed over to the "Church", as well as a bill has to be adopted that will have religious communities determine what jurisdiction they want to be under. Another bill, in his opinion, should help to establish the ownership of the temples by members of the communities voting, according to which the temples should go to the majority.

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