Epifaniy Dumenko, in an interview with Volynskiye Novosti, said that priests of the UOC who want to join the ranks of the OCU will be checked for links with the Kremlin.

In particular, they will ask the OCU candidates if they used pro-Russian messages in their sermons, if they have a Russian passport and connections with the ministers of the Russian Orthodox Church.

“I am convinced that there are still many priests there who are patriots of Ukraine. Of course, those clergy and bishops who openly preached this ideology, who have Russian passports, but in the future want to go to the OCU, must repent, renounce Russian citizenship, and renounce the ideology of the Russian world. Then there will be an appropriate decision on their admission to the OCU… We will check, do everything to ensure that such people, having come to the Ukrainian church, do not destroy it from the inside, ”said Dumenko.

Epifaniy also stressed that the next step for the “passed over” communities is the transition to the New Julian calendar.

“This change will apply not only to Christmas, but also to all non-transitional holidays, such as Pokrov and Nicholas, that is, holidays respected by Ukrainian society. We must understand that if we move, then 13 days must be shifted in the calendar, ”he said.