On May 3, 2023, Metropolitan Luka of Zaporozhye, in an interview with a Serbian publication, noted that the seizure of churches by the UOC “did not begin in 2014. The root of this evil is the emergence of a pseudo-Orthodox structure, headed by the former Metropolitan of the UOC Filaret Denisenko. He erected first a schism, and then and raider policy towards our Church”.

The bishop said that “the main part of the “hierarchy” of the current structure, which received the “tomos” from the Patriarch of Constantinople, is precisely his offspring. does not fall far from the apple tree.

“At the same time, a person who did not want to faithfully serve God, but who faithfully looked into the mouth of the authorities and clearly knew the communist conjuncture of the times of the Soviet Union, always “kept his nose to the wind.” He taught this to his followers – not serving God, hide behind their deeds with “beautiful speeches” about Him, to bend under the authority, follow its instructions, and destroy its opponents. This is how they behave now. Without creating anything, those who have fallen away from the Church want only one thing – to take away churches from true believers by force in order to they could not pray and participate in the Sacraments. This is no longer a matter of politics or ideology, but a real violation of faith,” the bishop emphasized.

Metropolitan Luka also noted that the rampant church raiding fell on the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, who “became one of the main lobbyists of the OCU project.” Even then, one characteristic feature appeared in the actions of supporters of the structure of Epiphanius Dumenko. They did not disdain any means to seize the churches of the UOC, but, having achieved their goal, they simply did not want to go there. After all, it was more important for them to achieve a political result, namely, to uproot the presence of our Church in the regions. No one even thought about serving there independently. Therefore, many captured churches stood as they were, and still stand empty.”

The bishop added that when the current President was elected in 2019, “the situation calmed down somewhat. However, over time, everything returned to normal. It even got worse. weapons and poison gases, beating believers, inflicting serious injuries on them.