OCU spokesman Archbishop Yevstratiy believes that Ukraine should continue to develop and continue to achieve its goals. The main problem of Russia, according to him, is that it constantly looks to the past, during the Tsarist empire.
Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zoria) of Chernihiv and Nizhyn of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine said it during the forum founded by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation "Open Ukraine". This is reported by "Siohodny" ("Today").
"Their plans for the future are turned into the past – the imaginary past. Until now, such a point of concentration for them is the imperial idea, and that is why Ukraine itself stands in the way of implementing this idea. In no case can the transit of an idea from Constantinople to Moscow be withdrawn, bypassing Kyiv. Without the entire of Ukraine, without our history, princes, the church, Moscow dates back to the beginning of the 14th century, and then - with a Ukrainian native. The ascent began when Metropolitan Petro, who hails from Volhynia, moved there," Yevstratiy said.
According to him, we will feel this misunderstanding and pressure until Russia changes its consciousness, until it understands that it is impossible to implement the imperial project and until they realize that Ukraine and Russia are not the same thing.
"We are not building Ukraine on the denial of someone or something. Our church has experience in resisting Russian aggression. The state faced this aggression in 2013-14, and we have been feeling it since 1991. And we are confident that we will win. We don't need someone else's, we protect our own. Putin's imperial model is doomed in itself. We need to actively survive and achieve our goal – to preserve Ukraine and preserve a better future," he said.