Zoria: Transitions to OCU falter due to aggression of UOC believers

Spokesperson of the OCU Eustraty Zoria. Photo: Channel 5

Transitions to the newly created religious organization slowed down due to the aggression of believers of the UOC during the resistance, said the spokesperson of the OCU Eustraty Zoria in an interview with Channel 5.

“It (the transition process – Ed.) has become less intensive, i.e. it has not completely stopped but is less intensive. Why? First of all, because the Moscow Patriarchate began to show much more aggression in standing up against such transitions,” Zoria said.

According to him, if the temple is located in a remote village, then it can be protected only for the sake of attracting attention, so that others change their minds to move into a new church structure.

“This is not for the sake of retaining of not even a typical church, especially an old or newly built one, but of some accommodated prayer room, transformed from a rural house in some remote village, where 150 or 200 inhabitants live <...>. Thus is not their purpose,” assures Zoria. “There are titushkas, cameras of Russian channels and so on. All this is done with one aim – through these examples to show everyone who starts potentially thinking: do you want this show? This whole circus will come to your place.”

Zoria is sure that the fault of the division of people in the villages where the UOC temples are seized lies not with those who commit these seizures but with those who oppose them: “You want to be thrown out, you want cameras to be flashing around, you want your village to be divided, to pit some relatives against others, parents against children, siblings against each other? You do not want it?! Well, keep still then."

At the same time, the spokesman for the OCU stressed that “all these things are done in a splashy manner”, while the clergy, parishioners and the media allegedly separate villagers.

Earlier, he also stated that no court will be able to cancel the registration of the OCU, and the claims of the UOC are hopeless. “Because no one can bring history back to its former state. Therefore, no court, no lawsuits can change the fact that there is such a church, that such a governing structure as the Kiev Metropolis is registered,” he explained.

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