On July 27, the head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, Viktor Yelensky, discussed with the European deputies the features of the model of state-church relations formed in Ukraine, spoke about the state of interfaith relations and the development of the religious situation in the country. This was reported by the press service of the SSEFC.

The head of the SSEFC stated that he was aware of the mood among the laity and clergy of the “UOC-MP”. According to Yelensky, the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine forced the vast majority of those who supported Russian religious-political narratives in Ukraine to radically change their position.

“But Ukrainian society, the state, church environments are united, in fact, in their desire to make it impossible for the abuse of religion in the interests of the aggressor state,” the SSEFC website reports.

The website also noted that “the head of the State Employment Service elaborated on a carefully designed and well-funded campaign to implant the ideas of Russian chauvinism, exclusivity, anti-Westernism into the social fabric of Ukraine, as well as planting pockets of anti-Ukrainianism, carried out by the Russian state machine under the guise of religion from the beginning of Putin’s rule” .