As Metropolitan Leonid, Patriarchal Exarch of Africa, stated in an interview with the Serbian magazine “Print”, the scenario of a new union is being worked out in Ukraine and the country is being led to Catholicization, and both representatives of the Catholic world and the OCU openly speak about this.

“In particular, back on April 17, 2018, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics, Svyatoslav (Shevchuk), at a meeting with the US Ambassador to Ukraine, stressed that the creation of the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine is only the first step towards achieving unity between the UGCC and Ukrainians who believe themselves Orthodox. The second will be an ecumenical dialogue between the Uniates and “united Ukrainian Orthodoxy” on the restoration of the aforementioned unity,” the Metropolitan recalled.

He stressed that the reality of this “unity” is already in the fact that the UGCC and the OCU jointly switched to a new calendar style.

According to the exarch, “the Uniates want to achieve the elimination of the UOC, the infusion of its remnants into the OCU, and then the transformation of Dumenko’s organization into a Catholic structure.”

Metropolitan Leonid refers to the words of Dumenko that “the keys to uniting the OCU and the UGCC are in Rome and Constantinople.” Because in recent times, the Phanar has openly demonstrated its desire to restore prayerful and Eucharistic unity with the RCC. Therefore, the exarch believes, the formation of a new union in Ukraine with the OCU and the UGCC is necessary to prove the reality of the reunification of Orthodox and Catholics without changing the tenets of their teachings.