The ex-head of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, Elena Bogdan, in an interview with Viche, said that the conclusions of the SSEFC examination on the discovery of church-canonical ties between the UOC and the ROC are unsubstantiated and full of assumptions.

Elena Bogdan criticized the composition of the specialists invited by the SSEFC, as at least four of them have a conflict of interest.

The former head of the State Service for Ethnopolitics said that the examination proceeds from the fact that the decisions of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church are binding on the UOC in accordance with the letter of Alexy II. Although, in her opinion, this issue is polemical, since the letter says that the Russian Orthodox Church hopes that this will be the case.

“And further, starting from this, experts take the papers of the ROC and, on their basis, conclude that all this is now in the UOC. But a simple question arises: what are the decisions that the UOC is now making not in Kyiv, but in Moscow? No one can name such a solution. In response, we can hear only speculation about secret coordination. But these assumptions should be dealt with by the SSU if it seems that some kind of secret coordination of Ukraine may take place there. If there really is coordination, then we must specifically find out what is being coordinated and how it has harmed Ukraine. And then the state says, “Stop coordinating secretly,” to which the religious organization replies, “We don’t coordinate.” And all this goes into some kind of absurdity, ”she said.