UOC spokesperson: Kiev Patriarchate deepens the schism

In Ukraine, no church unification process is under way at the moment. This was said by deputy head of the Synodal Department of the UOC for External Relations Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich in an interview with "Apostrophe".

"To our great regret, there are no official or unofficial moves to the unification, – said Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich. – Some progress towards dialogue was before the Maidan and the beginning of the war in the East of Ukraine. Then the Kiev Patriarchate behaved relatively decently, and we did not have serious conflicts with them, and therefore it was possible to start looking for ways to overcome the schism that emerged in 1992. However, over the past two years, the relationship between us has been very upset."

Father Nikolay stressed that the cessation of dialogue about unification was facilitated by representatives of the Kiev Patriarchate.

"First, they completely messed up relations with the Church, without which they cannot obtain a canonical status, – noted the deputy head of the UOC Synodal Department for External Relations. – Parish seizures by UOC-KP supporters, aggressive rhetoric, lobbying anti-UOC bills in the Verkhovna Rada on a "change of jurisdiction", the renaming of the UOC into the "Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine," – all this completely has upset our relationship."
Archpriest Nikolai Danilevich emphasized that as long as there is schism in Ukraine or "to put it in secular and political language, religious separatism in the form of the UOC-KP flourishes, any recognition by Constantinople or by other local Orthodox Churches is out of the question. Thus, Filaret’s talks that "the unification process has already begun," do not correspond to reality. This is an attempt, in my view, to put a good face on a bad business."