The Russian Orthodox Church considers a new series of "seizures" of Churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to be the result of the recent visit of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Kyiv, where he met with the head of the OCU, Metropolitan Epifaniy Dumenko.
This is reported by Interfax.
"Of course, this is not a coincidence, and of course, the fact that the US Secretary of State met with the leader of the schism, but did not meet with any other religious leader (...), testifies once again that the so-called OCU headed by the so-called Metropolitan (actually false Metropolitan) Epifaniy is a project of the United States. A political project from beginning to end," Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations, said on the program "Church and Peace" on the Rossiya-24 TV channel.
Thus, he answered the question of the presenter, "whether there is a connection between Blinken's visit and the subsequent wave of seizures of Churches of the canonical UOC."
The Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church said that the OCU is not something that was born in the bowels of church life, but something that was created by the Americans to "once again embody the principle that they are guided by and act in accordance with: divide and rule."
"This division, which has already taken place at the political level, has now also taken place at the church level. And the person who implemented this American plan was Patriarch Bartholomew. His dependence on America is also obvious, well - known, and it is, in fact, not hidden by anyone," the Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church said.