Church raiding makes a dialogue with KP impossible, – UOC

A dialogue with the Kyiv Patriarchate is impossible because of the raiders' actions of the schismatics. On July 27, Deputy Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC, Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich, said about it on air to “Radio Svoboda”.

Archpriest Nikolai noted that the main reason for the lack of dialogue is the actions of members of the Kiev Patriarchate: "What kind of dialogue can we talk about, if they take over our temples, if our faithful are thrown out of their temples by force?"

He stressed that all the so-called "transitions" of the parishioners of the UOC to the Kyiv Patriarchate were committed under the pressure of the UOC-KP. Therefore, the cleric stressed, "these" voluntary transitions "resulted in the fact that as few as 10-15 people from the UOC KP stand in the occupied churches against the backdrop of 100-150 people from the UOC communities having to hold worships in the accommodated premises."

In addition, he commented on the desire of some political forces to obtain autocephaly for the Ukrainian Church: "Autocephaly is likely, but cannot be obtained against someone, because Russians, like other canonical Orthodox Churches, are our brothers. In fact, one should not make autocephaly the banner of the revolution."