The decision to transfer the Crimean dioceses to the ROC was initiated from Moscow as “a warning to the leadership of the UOC-MP that further estrangement from Moscow will have serious consequences for them.” Andrey Ivanets, a Crimean political scientist, thinks so.

“When we saw the decision of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church that they withdraw the three Crimean dioceses of the UOC from the subordination of Metropolitan Onuphry, it became clear that the actions of the UOC are not only camouflage, they are serious, and Moscow considers them as a danger of losing control. And this danger is so high that they decided to take away the dioceses in violation of the canonical rights of the UOC-MP,” says the political scientist.

Earlier, the former head of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Sergey Kunitsyn, claimed that Metropolitan Lazar of Simferopol and Crimea was “Ukrainian to the core.” “Lazar simply does not influence these processes. They tried to take him down there several times, and so on. But formally it remains. Therefore, he has an extremely difficult situation, ”Kunitsyn noted.