On December 11, 2022, Aleksey Antipovich, director of the Sociological Group Rating, gave an interview to NV, in which he stated that people can go to the UOC and be ashamed of it at the same time.

“If there were once believers who indicated that they belonged to the confession of the UOC-MP, there were 30%, then after the full-scale invasion of Russia, as of today, there are only 2%,” the sociologist convinces.

Antipovich shares the concepts of the UOC and the community of the UOC. He explains that the latter are ordinary believers who went to this church because it is closer to them or because they liked a particular priest there.

“They really have somewhere already there, perhaps they have instructions pumped over by the UOC-MP on the non-canonicity of the OCU, there are certain well-established religious values in them, something else can be called. But this does not apply to the situation when the primate of their church says pro-Russian things, is in fact a Russian agent during the war and was one before, we just turned a blind eye to this, ”said Antipovich.

He explains that a significant decrease in those who, to the question “what church do you belong to?” pointed out to the UOC, does not mean that these people have stopped going to these churches.

“But they are embarrassed by this church, or even sincerely believe that they go to the OCU and call the OCU to us in sociology. Therefore, if this Moscow church does not change, does not change its primate, does not come out here and now with the support of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, with the condemnation of its patron Kirill, then the believer will never consider himself a member of this church. And in such a situation, the state has every right to take away all the churches from the UOC-MP and transfer them to the OCU, and there will be no more talk of any protests, because today the ideological UOC-MP is 2%,” said Antipovich NV.

When asked if there were any risks that now the Ukrainians would not agree to a ban on the UOC, he replied that the society would assess the break with the ROC positively: “The repainting of Moscow priests in Ukrainian ones will not be approved, but it will probably be swallowed up, but even this Moscow priests are not capable of. Therefore, a request to the authorities – demolish this Moscow church already.