Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Onuphry “is to blame” for the failure of the OCU in the issue of its recognition. This was stated by the former metropolitan of the UOC Oleksandr Drabinko, the Spiritual Front of Ukraine informed.

“In 1990, the Local Council spoke in favor of granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. But this event was delayed. Bishops Onuphry, Sergiy and Alipy withdrew their votes, and they became, in fact, the first brake on the process and the beginning of the split that began in 1990”, said the hierarch of the OCU.

Drabinko also tried to compare the healing of the schism in the Bulgarian Church with the intervention of the Phanar into the Ukrainian church problem. “There was also anathema, and everyone was excommunicated, but then was accepted in their present dignity. The Moscow Patriarch also agreed to this event. We know that the anathema that had been imposed on Filaret was political”, Drabinko recalled about Filaret.