The Council’s decision is a guarantee of canonicity for the UOC, – politologist

The outcomes of the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church will bring about significant changes in the life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This opinion was expressed by politologist Ruslan Bortnik, the director of the Ukrainian Institute for Analysis and Policy Management in the programme "Spiritual Front" on the "First Cossack" channel.

"Attacks through the Parliament on the Church, attempts to limit it in some way in sovereignty, imposing the opinion of the society that this church is Russian, have come to nothing now," Bortnik believes. "Because it is already impossible to accuse the UOC that it is a link, part, hand, foot of the Russian Orthodox Church. Indeed, today it is an independent church and the fact that it will remain in the statute of the ROC is simply a guarantee of canonicity. We must understand that it is simply impossible to take something and make it sovereign: in the 90s there was an attempt, and we remember the situation around the Kyiv Patriarchate."

At the same time, the expert did not rule out that the attacks on the UOC from the side of the radically-minded part of society will continue.

"Yes, the political ring dances around the Church will continue," Bortnik said. "But the legal component for them will be much less."