“Thousands of believers are calling for an end to the persecution of the Ukrainian Church” – this is the material published by the well-known Greek religious news site Romfea.

“On Tuesday, June 15, 2021, more than 20,000 members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church gathered outside the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev and the office of the President of Ukraine to demand an end to the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. <…> The hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and believers from different dioceses of Ukraine took part in the peaceful meeting,” the site writes.

At the same time, President Volodymyr Zelensky called the protest rally a gathering of “thousands of grandmothers who came in hats of the OPFL (Ukrainian opposition party)”: “something is wrong in the church again,” the head of state said, and mentioned, that “everyone has suddenly brcome so interested in this issue”, although believers have repeatedly filed protest petitions and held actions against discrimination against the UOC.

In turn, Metropolitan Luka of Zaporozhye and Melitopol noted: “I am sure that if a dozen representatives of the LGBT community would have came to the walls of the Verkhovna Rada, then every single representative of the ruling party would come out to them.”