DESS head: Activities of "vatnik" communities of UOC will be terminated

Viktor Yelensky, head of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, said in an interview with ukrinform.ua that the activities of the parishes of the UOC, which he considers pro-Russian, will be stopped.

Answering a journalist's question about the possibility of terminating the activities of parishes with "vatnik" priests, the official said, "I know these parishes and I think that their activities can be and, obviously, will be suspended."

At the same time, he claims that “the absolute cessation of the influence of the Mospatriarchate is a process, perhaps not instantaneous but irreversible.” According to Yelensky, "the displacement of the MP is inevitable."

The head of the DESS also emphasized that the service he heads took part in the development of a government bill, which "is designed for an effective, predictable and incremental exclusion of the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate."

As the UOJ reported, the head of the State Ethnopolitics said that after the expulsion of the UOC monks from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, the state could transfer the shrine to "another monastic community not associated with the Moscow Patriarchate."