Zinkevich: I can’t prove that Poroshenko put pressure on me

«Митрополит» Луцкий и Волынский ПЦУ Михаил Зинкевич. Фото: risu.ua

On June 24, 2020, the OCU “Metropolitan” of Lutsk and Volyn Mikhail Zinkevich said in an interview with RISU that it is impossible to prove whether ex-president Petro Poroshenko put pressure on church leaders.

When asked if he has any fears that because of the Tomos criminal proceedings can be initiated against church leaders who participated in the creation of the OCU, Mikhail Zinkevich answered:

“I am sure that there will be no politically-inspired investigation against church leaders who took an active part in the negotiations with the Phanar. There will be separate statements by different people, but society will not react to this in any way. Neither society, nor the Church, nor Poroshenko will suffer from this.

There are many things that cannot be proved. For example, how can I prove that I was pressured by Petro Poroshenko? They will ask me: maybe, he said that he would arrest you, your relatives? It is impossible to prove this. How can you respond to the words that are spoken to you while the gestures indicate the opposite? How can you prove that you were looked at with a threat? There is no signature, and the facial expression is not yet evidence. Therefore, I believe that an attempt to pressure, unlike facts, is impossible to prove. They used to say that this is a quarrel between Patriarch Filaret and Metropolitan Epiphany, and now they will say that this is a disagreement between Zelensky and Poroshenko.”

As reported earlier, the Minister of Culture of Ukraine Alexander Tkachenko was surprised by the statements, both from the side of the former president Poroshenko and from representatives of the OCU, that the Tomos was the subject of an investigation of the SBI.
 

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