At the Bishops’ meeting of the Russian Orthodox Church it was stated that “the state power in Ukraine is persecuting the Orthodox Church and is the successor of the Bolshevik God-fighters”.

The participants of the meeting also emphasized that “faithful children of the Church are being expelled from churches, hierarchs, clergy and laity are subjected to unjust arrests and dishonorable trials, shrines are desecrated and plundered,” and the ROC hierarchs are especially bitter about the news that the clergy and laity of the UOC “are being forced to renounce God’s truth and pushed into schism.”