Ex-speaker of UOC reneges on the Church to become pagan?

On 25 March a program ”Secret Faith Code: Christians or Pagans” hosted by the UOC ex-speaker, father Georgiy Kovalenko went on air on 1+1 channel.

The first minute of the video plot features a scene where he initially puts on ecclesiastical robes but then takes them off as a sign of denial claiming that after 25 years in faith he leaves the Church which does not give him right answers.

Among the questions “the Church does not answer” there is one “what was real Jesus like?”, “what is the true sense of religious holidays?” According to the authors of the project, real God “is not as he is portrayed” – there are a lot of pagan elements in Christianity having survived up to the present day. One of the examples of pagan “rudiments” in the program is an element taken from the Baptism Sacrament and symbols on the walls of St. Sophia.

Pagans were a developed civilization rather than savage worshipers of idols who “used democratic rights and freedoms,” the program states. According to the host, Prince Vladimir baptized Rus solely because it “consolidated the state” and opened “external political horizons.”

The Nativity of Christ was celebrated by Christians on the winter solstice, since “for an ancient folk this period was special – the daylight began to increase which meant a new beginning and revival of mice and men,” claimed Georgiy Kovalenko.