Mass media hawking fake on UOC believers’ protests against the President

Presidential Administration in Bankovaya St. Photo: News

“The parishioners are to be delivered to Kiev at night from October 21 to 22 to begin a ‘prayer stand’ at the President’s Office at 11 Bankovaya St. in the morning,” the Religion in Ukraine portal said on October 18, claiming that the protest rally “was blessed by three metropolitans of the UOC (MP), one of whom is a member of the Synod”: Metropolitan Agafangel of Odessa and Izmail, Metropolitan Iriney of Dnepropetrovsk and Pavlograd, as well as the Abbot of the Holy Assumption Pochaev Lavra, Metropolitan Vladimir of Pochaev. Following the Religion in Ukraine, this news was disseminated by other resources, in particular by RISU, as a proven fact.

According to media reports, "another protest rally (of believers of the UOC – Ed.) is planned for October 22 near the walls of the Presidential Administration, directed against the president-initiated project ‘Country in a Smartphone’ and the upcoming lifting of the moratorium on the sale of land in Ukraine."

In this regard, it is said that “in the social networks of the UOC (MP), announcements are being circulated calling to take part in the protest rally”, which was reportedly blessed by the hierarchs. The publication even indicates the number of the bank account where one needs to transfer money in support of the action.

The UOJ contacted all three of the above UOC hierarchs, who reported that none of them had given their blessings for the protests in Kiev or knew anything about them. Thus, it can be confidently stated that “Religion in Ukraine”, “RISU” and other publications that published this information disseminate fake and provocation against the UOC.

Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, Deputy Head of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC, also commented on these publications, stressing that the UOC has nothing to do with the announced actions.

“Nobody turned to the Kiev Metropolis of the UOC for blessing to hold such an action, nor did His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and all Ukraine Onufry give any blessings for such an action,” the UOC spokesman wrote on his Facebook page. “In addition, a link is provided in social networks to the aforesaid three metropolitans of the UOC, with whose blessing this action is supposedly to take place. The Kiev Metropolis also contacted these hierarchs who reported that they had not given any blessing for this action and had nothing to do with it. And this is natural for if this action expressed the position of the Church or had a general church character, it would have to be coordinated with the Primate. Thus, summing up, it should be said that the UOC has nothing to do with this action, did not give its blessing for its implementation and does not bear any responsibility for it.”

As reported by the UOJ, earlier Ukrainian media published a fake saying that Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus supports separatism in Georgia.

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