When the main authority for the Church persecutor is Russia
One of the main haters of the UOC in power, MP Mykyta Poturaev, gave an utterly cynical interview to Lviv media about plans to destroy the UOC.
Poturaev warned that after the courts begin to ban UOC communities, their churches will start being taken away. The authorities will expel parishioners from the Pochaiv, Kyiv-Pechersk Lavras, and all other churches belonging to the state.
But even in those rare cases where temples are privately owned by communities, believers, according to Poturaev, will not be able to pray. Allegedly, "private" churches will be left to the believers, but they will be prohibited from holding services there.
And then comes outright mockery on the verge of sacrilege.
Poturaev suggests (as if jokingly) that UOC parishioners use such churches to store vegetables, trade, or set up casinos (!). Allegedly, so that the premises do not stand idle.
According to him, the faithful will be allowed to pray "somewhere in a house". But even there, they will not be left alone. The "God's Service of Ukraine" (as he "wittily" calls the SBU) will visit them there.
And all this with sarcastic jokes and smirks. The MP relishes every word of humiliation towards UOC believers. To him, they are "an extension of the dirty Kremlin paw". But on what grounds?
At the beginning of the interview, he mentions the recent address of Metropolitan Onuphry with a declaration of the UOC's patriotic position. Poturaev mentioned His Beatitude's theses about praying for the soldiers, condemning the aggression of the RF, breaking ties with the ROC, and so on. But all this does not convince Poturaev, he does not believe it. And here's why.
It turns out that recently the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Lavrov, spoke in defense of the UOC, saying that the Ukrainian authorities have chosen a "course to destroy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church".
According to Poturaev, Lavrov allegedly implied that he considers the UOC Russian (in fact, he did not say this), and thus "set up Onuphry": "Therefore, in fact, there is no faith in all these statements from the UOC if they are so carefully protected by these bastards from across the curb (border)."
At the same time, Poturaev emphasized that the authorities are looking for ties between UOC communities and the ROC (to then ban them) in Russian documents: "Now they are studying them according to the canons of the country that their elder brothers in Moscow are trying to rebuild."
So the logic of Poturaev (and the authorities) is the following: the UOC declares itself Ukrainian, but we do not believe it. We believe Russia, which calls it its own, and therefore we will be guided by its documents.
We want to remind Poturaev that on April 28, the same Lavrov officially called Crimea, the occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions "Russian". He also urged the whole world to recognize them as Russian.
And the situation here is absolutely identical to the "church" one. And therefore, according to the logic of the collective poturaevs, Ukraine is obliged to immediately recognize these lands as Russian.
Firstly, Lavrov said so.
Secondly, it is written in Russian documents.
Absurd? Absurd. But in the situation with the UOC, no one seems to see it.
Sometimes, observing how our authorities are destroying Ukraine from within, one cannot understand: either their intellectual abilities are so modest, or they are consciously destroying the country in the interests of another state. We think it's the latter.
It's just interesting – for the "idea" or for money?
