OCU Media Spokesman: Without UOC Parishioners, Our World Will Definitely Be Better and Safer

ishchenko with Pat. Bartholomew and Serhii Dumenko. [Credit: Mishchenko’s Facebook]

KYIV — Yaroslava Myshchenko (Samokhvalova), a prominent media figure during the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), has openly celebrated government efforts to eliminate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), declaring that Ukraine will be “better” once its parishioners are gone.

“I’m very glad that for the past ten years the authorities have stayed the course in cleansing the spiritual space. And I sincerely embrace Viktor Yelensky, the so-called ‘minister of religion,’ whose program to dismantle the Moscow Patriarchate [the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—Ed.] was adopted and proved to be the best option,” Myshchenko wrote.

She admitted that activists like herself had long sought a ban on the UOC, “since the annexation of Crimea,” and claimed that repeated invitations for UOC clergy and faithful to join the OCU were consistently rejected.

Describing her view of the UOC community, Myshchenko said she sees “godless bishops manipulating believers, narrow-minded priests, and trusting elderly parishioners who march in processions and see the enemy not in Putin, but in the leaders of the Ukrainian Church [Constantinople's OCU—Ed.] and state.”

Citing Yelensky’s 2022 statement that the UOC has “no place on our land,” Myshchenko conceded that while the Church may cease to exist legally, “de facto this community will survive until the last believer, and it is unlikely to ever be rebuilt.”

“When this is finally completed, I will be able to say to myself and everyone else: we achieved the nearly impossible. There was no other way. Glory to God. Our world without them will definitely be better. And safer,” she concluded.

The Union of Orthodox Journalists previously reported that Serhii (Epiphany) Dumenko assured Julie Davis, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Ukraine that talk of religious persecution in Ukraine was "Russian Disinformation.

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