Self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that Ukraine “must be returned into the bosom of true faith” after the “Orthodox schism”.
He said this during a visit to the Church of the venerable Optina Elders in Minsk on the feast of the Nativity of Christ according to the Julian calendar. This is reported by Novinarnya citing the Belarusian state agency BelTA.
“We need to do everything possible to return Ukraine to the bosom of our true faith. And there was even a schism in religious areas that will be very difficult to overcome. This is what they wanted to present to us in 2020 – autocephaly, the schism of our church, and so on and so forth. You know all that. We avoided it. And I don't want this to happen again among our neighbors,” the Belarusian dictator said.
In his speech, Lukashenka also said that he “had taken a tougher course to preserve sovereignty and independence, but at the same time to strengthen ties with friendly and fraternal states.”
“I must tell you that this year will not be easy. The world will change in a serious way. The world will change in terms of uniting peoples and states in unions. It will not just be difficult for states like us to survive alone – it will be impossible. That is why I have taken a tougher course to preserve our sovereignty and independence so that we can be a state. But we were in close contact with our closest friends and brothers,” the Belarusian leader said.
"I am talking about Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. It doesn't matter what happens there today. There, the people are outcasts to the extreme, and this cannot continue,” Lukashenko explained.