Bremer: Repressions against UOC will affect US support for Ukraine

Zelensky during a speech in the US Congress. Photo: AP

Theologian Thomas Bremer, a professor at the University of Münster, has said in a letter to the head of the State Ethnopolitics Service, V. Yelensky, that the repression against the UOC has already negatively affected the attitude of many US politicians towards Ukraine, and he believes that this trend will worsen. Bremer's letter was published by the resource "Dialog.tut".

The German theologian notes that at the end of October in the United States a new Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson was elected, who has always been against military aid to Ukraine. And in his inaugural speech, he did not even mention Ukraine.

Bremer connects this with the policy of the Ukrainian government towards the UOC.

"He (Johnson – Ed.) is somebody for whom Christianity is extremely important. As you know, he is not the only one among the Republicans who thinks like this. It will be very easy for them to use the argument ‘Why should we support a country that bans Churches?’ One can hear already the first voices in this regard.," the theologian notes.

According to him, "the subtle details which could be arguments against that assumption do not play any role here".

"I think Ukraine should not provide an open flank for such ideas: the fight against the UOC can have grave consequences for Ukraine. I hope very much I am wrong with my fears," he writes.

He says he sees "a polarization of the society in a situation when unity is needed". I know many UOC clergy and believers who are Ukrainian patriots, and who are harassed and intimidated by the atmosphere which is now prevailing in Ukraine," the theologian writes.

"In your letter, you call me a friend of Ukraine, and I think that is a correct characterization," he writes to Yelensky. “When I express my criticism of what is happening, I do so primarily not for the UOC, but for Ukraine, because I see a development away from what I—as a friend—would like Ukraine to be, namely a democratic state where the rule of law persists."

As earlier reported, Thomas Bremer said in a letter to Yelensky that he did not see any evidence of the UOC's ties with Moscow.

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