Yelensky claims Uktrainian authorities do not want to ban UOC

The DESS head Viktor Yelensky. Photo: nfront.org.ua

Viktor Yelensky, the head of the State Ethnopolitics Service (DESS), assured that the Ukrainian authorities do not want to ban the UOC and do not demand from the church neither autocephaly nor renunciation of Orthodoxy, the Church Slavonic language and the Julian calendar. He said this in a letter to German theologian Thomas Bremer, published by Dialogue.Tut.

The DESS head said that the state "should be sure only that no religious organisation in Ukraine is connected by earthly ties with centres that are participants in the military aggression against Ukraine".

Yelensky noted that after the Council in Feofania in May 2022, the UOC "began its path away from Moscow" but did not complete it.

According to him, the UOC's clergy allegedly do not want to withdraw from the ROC's episcopate, its Synod, the Inter-Council presence, and Synodal Commissions.

Yelensky cited "the lack of evidence that the UOC is not part of the ROC" as confirmation of his words.

Yelensky noted that he does not understand why the UOC does not want to "withdraw from the ROC" but instead engages in its legal defence, including in the United States.

The head of State Ethnopolitics also assured that the issue with the UOC cannot be resolved either after the end of the war or by an All-Orthodox consensus, as "such a consensus is impossible in the foreseeable future".

As reported, the court ordered the SBI to open a case against the leaders of the State Ethnopolitics Service for inciting religious hatred against UOC believers.

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