Religious scholar Yury Chernomorets, in an interview with NV, said that the state “is not yet carrying out nightly arrests” of representatives of the UOC, but only imposes sanctions because “there is still some hope that these people can make some changes, for self-purification, and they not completely hopeless.

Among other things, Chernomorets answered the question of what the closure of the UOC means in practice and what fate the Church can expect if it is banned.

“There is a mechanism of sanctions imposed by the National Security and Defense Council, it is important to remember here that the church is not a legal entity. Legal entities are 12 thousand communities, seminaries, brotherhoods, dioceses, included in this church. A separate legal entity is the governing center of this religious organization. Therefore, today it is possible to introduce separate sanctions against the metropolis, separately against the divisions of this metropolis, that is, the synodal departments, and it is possible to introduce sanctions against the dioceses. If this backbone can be pulled out, then please, individual communities, let them decide whether they want to join the OCU, or if they want to unite in their own associations. If the latter, then they should already start some kind of consultations with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. All these communities can unite and ask for some kind of status from Patriarch Bartholomew, they can be given the right to self-determination, perhaps not everyone will join the OCU, ”he suggested.

Chernomorets also stated that “there is definitely a healthy part of the UOC, almost 500 priests frankly express their anti-Russian position, many bishops are pro-autocephalous. But people are confused. After that synod in November, the UOC-MP did not remove any of the collaborators from high posts, moreover, there was even a certain glorification of these collaborators, and against this background, the healthy part of the church fell into a real crisis.