Expert: Church raiding is effective only while supported by authorities

Director of the Social Communications Agency, political expert Sergey Belashko. Photo: Golos

On July 1, 2019, “1Kozak” published a comment by political analyst Sergey Belashko on the ongoing church raiding and the lawsuit of the UOC to the OCU.

“This caused a stormy response in the Ukrainian patriotic circles, which understand that their church raiding policy is effective only as long as it is supported by all the power of the state apparatus,” the political scientist said.

Sergey Belashko stressed: “On the one hand, there is the SBU, which intimidates priests and the most active laymen; on the other hand, the regional administration, which re-registers in the absence of legal grounds or does not register documents; on the third side, there is the police, which ensures the safety of the raiders who cut down the locks on churches with a grinder, beat priests; there are activists and journalists on a short leash with the regime.”

“When this pyramid begins to collapse, you have to answer for what you have done. And schismatic priests are not up to that: they have a schism in the schism. Now they are already fighting for the re-establishment of the Kiev Patriarchate in order to oppose it to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and the “Greek priests” are even worse than the “Moscow priests”, becoming raiders and almost occupiers. They will be paid back for the double-headed eagle (the dynastic symbol of Byzantium and the emblem of the Patriarchate of Constantinople - Ed.),” he concluded and added: “Most of these cases were won in the courts by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. And Zelensky washed his hands.

We recall that political analyst Sergey Belashko has repeatedly spoken of the need for the widest possible coverage of the seizure of temples and other illegal actions that are directed against the UOC.

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