Archimandrite Cyril (Hovorun) emphasized that the bishops of the UOC-MP were incompetent enough to lose the chance to become the Founding Fathers of the Ukrainian Church, that is, the OCU.
As a person who knows the" inner cuisine " of the UOC-MP well, in an interview at RISU, he named the reasons for the non-participation of the episcopate of the MP in the creation of a new church and predicted how and when the bishops of the UOC-MP can still become members of the OCU.
"I believe that this was a historic chance that the bishops of the UOC missed. If they had not been afraid then and shown more determination – like Metropolitan Symeon or Metropolitan Oleksandr – and come – as they wanted, promised, and declared – to the council, then the changes in the OCU would have been even more radical, radical and more positive, I would have said. This was a historic chance to turn the tide very simply and easily.
Why didn't they take this chance? This is a complex question, and obviously, there is no single answer to it. Here, of course, intimidation, bribes, kidnappings – various forms of pressure were exercises, but there was also the usual inner fear that lives in many bishops: "what will I lose and what will I gain?». What if I lose a lot more than I can ever gain. This is pure pragmatism, which also played a role.
It seems to me that sooner or later these bishops (well, who will live to see it) will get back to this issue, and they will face this dilemma again: to go to the new Church or not to go, but at that time they will be solving this dilemma from a much worse position. Then they will no longer be participants in this fundamental Council, not "fathers" of this Church, but will have to join another family. These are completely different things and statuses. The chance to become the Founding Fathers of the Church, to which sooner or later they will belong, bishops of the UOC was very incompetently lost," Archimandrite Cyril said.
When it will be, according to him, it is very difficult to predict:
"I don't think it will be a transition. There will not be the model that we hoped for before and during the Council. This will obviously be a structural unification that will start with diffusion between the two Сhurches. Diffusion is probably the best way to describe this process. Two bodies that collide with each other. Maybe they can't stand each other, but the limited space in which they have to coexist together literally causes physical diffusion between these two bodies. I think that such a transition will occur when the two Churches be structurally united. Again, the UOC will have to live in another family.
There is no longer any canonical and theological sense in the existence of the UOC! When its members – priests, bishops-begin to realize that apart from hysteria and autosuggestion, there is no longer any reason for separate existence. When they start to realize this, it will certainly open the way for a reunion. However, it is obvious that Orthodox people in Ukraine must first learn to respect each other, learn to live with each other. I want to reiterate the idea that we expressed at the beginning: it is God's Providence that the Churches have not united because we do not yet know how to accept each other and live together in peace. In order to exist in the same Church, we still need to learn how to do this."