Spokesman for the UOC-KP Archbishop Yevstratii (Zorya) believes that in Russia the Church serves the interests of the government and therefore after the collapse of the Putin regime the ROC would face difficult times.
This was said by the hierarch during a web conference in Glavred.
“A hundred years ago it turned a terrible disaster to the Russian Church when the monarchy fell, the new government launched a crackdown and set out to destroy the Church.
I suppose that after the fall of Putin's autocracy, perhaps not on such a scale as a hundred years ago, but the Russian Church will face the time of trials and sufferings,” he said.
According to the spokesman of the UOC-KP, currently the government offers demonstrative support to the Moscow Patriarchate, because the Church has a certain prestige in society and can help authorities.
“When the Russian Church loses credibility among the people, as it happens, and quite rapidly, and the power will turn its back on it and vice versa, rather than support it will be used as a “scapegoat,” said the hierarch.
"Now there are some signs of such tendencies among the Kremlin leadership when the outrage with the power is directed at the Russian Church, using the old Moscow-generated myth about good king and bad boyars,” Archbishop Yevstratii (Zorya) said.