Archbishop Sylvester (Stoychev), in an interview with the Dialogue.TUT portal, noted that relations with the state in the UOC are complex, but not hopeless.

“Religious life in Ukraine has always been extremely intense and often turned into conflicts. We have a multi-confessional country, there are no confessions with a privileged status. However, the state often tended to openly support one of the confessions, refusing such support to other religious associations,” the bishop said.

He also noted that after the outbreak of a full-scale war, we saw “a number of decisions by local authorities to ban the activities of our Church communities. It is clear that such decisions were in conflict with the current legislation. Nevertheless, they were implemented. And many of our communities are deprived of the opportunity to freely carry out their mission. Now we see initiatives aimed at the actual banning of our Church by the central authorities.”

“They say that the UOC itself allowed such a situation, which only worsened during the war. But what are we being blamed for? Sermon of the so-called “Russian world”? To begin with, let me remind you that it was the Council of Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that, back in 2007, condemned “political Orthodoxy”, which presupposes the mixing of religion and politics. I believe that the concept of the “Russian world” falls under this conciliar condemnation. Sorry, but there is no doctrine of the “Russian world” in any official document adopted by the Council or the Synod of our Church!” added Archbishop Sylvester.

He noted that, perhaps, some of the priests at the parish could speak out in support of this ideology, but, “firstly, this is not the official position of the Church, and secondly, I can say with full confidence that such statements are isolated cases. Therefore, here we are dealing more with a myth than with reality.