Believers of the UOC with crosses and banners show devotion to Orthodoxy, and parishioners of the OCU – with national flags and portraits of Ukrainian heroes.

The head of the Ukrainian Politics Foundation, Konstantin Bondarenko, during a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency devoted to statistics and analysis of the main religious groups in Ukraine, said that the example of religious processions can be observed two approaches to religiosity in the UOC and OCU, writes UOJ.

“If you look at the real situation, then political engagement makes it impossible to talk about the churching of parishioners of certain confessions. It is one thing to declare faith, and another thing to become a church. This can be observed every year, when at the end of July religious processions are organized in honor of the feast of the Baptism of Rus. At the same time, the moves of the two confessions (UOC and OCU) are different. The number of parishioners of the UOC, as a rule, is 200-300 thousand people who walk with crosses and banners, demonstrating their devotion to Orthodoxy. At the same time, at the processions of the OCU, parishioners mainly walk with national flags and portraits of the heroes of the Ukrainian pantheon. This really demonstrates the existence of two approaches to religiosity in these confessions,” said Kost Bondarenko.