Political analyst: Zelensky promised to convert to Orthodoxy in 2019

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry and President Volodymyr Zelensky. Photo: Hromadke

Political analyst and historian Kostiantyn Bondarenko stated in an interview with journalist Oleksandr Shelest that President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky is an atheist, despite having said he would convert to Orthodoxy.

"I know that in 2019, in the presence of witnesses, Zelensky promised to convert to Orthodoxy. He made this promise at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. It happened right after his election as President," Bondarenko emphasized, adding that the promise did not have to do with the OCU, as Zelensky was on the premises of the UOC monastery complex at the time.

"We all have seen his subsequent actions," the expert concluded. Bondarenko noted that it is a mistake to consider Zelensky a Jew in a religious sense, as "he is Jewish by ethnicity but not a practitioner of Judaism; he is rather an atheist."

Commenting on the President’s remarks about his belief that God will help Ukraine, Bondarenko said that when Zelensky, as an atheist, addresses God, it sounds blasphemous.

As reported by the UOJ, President Volodymyr Zelensky previously stated that Russia deliberately destroyed Ukrainian churches and tortured and executed priests who refused to serve under Patriarch Kirill.

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