A pompous celebration of the baptism of Kyivan-Rus every five years is not consistent with our traditions and threatens to impose Byzantine type church-state relations. This opinion was expressed by the Archbishop of Kharkiv and Poltava Ihor (Isichenko) on June 6 in Lviv during his book presentation.
"The fact that the celebration will be at the high state level with very strong political aspects greatly concerns me. In any case it does not correspond with our history and the history of the baptism of Rus. The very model of celebrating the baptism of Rus every 5 years has this danger, if not caesaropapism, but still the Byzantine type of relationship imposed on a church,"he said.
Archbishop Ihor said that the first celebration of the baptism of Rus was in the nineteenth century.
In Soviet times, in 1988, the government also decided to use that date to their greatest advantage.