Ethnopolitics: Banning UOC with 2 million believers will derail the country

On September 13, 2022, Olena Bohdan, the head of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience of Ukraine, said that the ban on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church could lead to internal political confrontation. Bohdan expressed her point of view at the conference "Religious Peace or ‘War of Civilizations’".

According to the official, the ban on the UOC is “the easiest way to destabilize the situation in society, to create an intense confrontation between citizens, to cause a serious struggle between citizens and law enforcement agencies, a huge offense and distrust of state authorities.”

“Some in Ukrainian society think that the UOC has very few believers left, but this is not so,” recalled the head of the State Service. She added that if someone decides to “go and physically take people out of the temples” in the hope that supporters of the OCU will come instead of them, then this will not happen, since there are not so many believers in the Epifaniy’s structure.

As the UOJ wrote, the UOC has twice as many priests as the OCU, according to Olena Bohdan.

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