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The election of Metropolitan Epiphanius as the “primate” of the so-called Local Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a personal defeat of President Petro Poroshenko, who insisted on electing one of the apostates from canonical Orthodoxy, Metropolitan Simeon.

By the way, in 2014, Petro Poroshenko already attempted to “push through” Simeon’s candidacy when the new head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was elected — then Poroshenko personally asked me to support this choice. In addition, Poroshenko carefully conceals his agreements with Phanar: after all, this is not about true autocephaly, but rather about an attempt to put the Ukrainian Orthodoxy under the command of Constantinople and in parallel to create a “puppet” Church managed from the Presidential Administration.

Nevertheless, we are experiencing dramatic times that will definitely be gone and left in the past, and Poroshenko’s shady undertaking called the “local church” is set up for following the fate of the renovationist Church in the Soviet Union. They say that history repeats itself as a tragedy and as farce. We have endured the tragedy. It seems that this time meddling of the authorities in church affairs has turned into a farce.

Today, the Opposition Bloc has held its VIII Congress, by which decision the Charter of the party has been changed. The Political Council has become a new governing body, and my friend and colleague Boris Kolesnikov has been elected as its head. 

The Opposition Bloc represents the interests of voters all over Ukraine, and not just voters from the southeast of the country. We were, are and will be the only ideological opposition to the incumbent authorities. We consistently and fundamentally uphold our traditional values: we declaim against Ukraine’s accession to NATO, against re-writing the history and glorifying soldiers of OUN and UPA, against the discrimination of citizens based on language. We were the first ones to support the Minsk agreements. We did and keep doing everything to restore peace in our country. 

A statement of support to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry was included in the final resolution of the Congress, which also condemned the authorities’ attempts to interfere in internal church affairs. 

Yesterday, my colleague from the Opposition Bloc’s faction in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Aleksandr Dolzhenkov, and I registered a constitutional petition with the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to commence proceedings on compliance with the Supreme Law of Ukraine of the Verkhovna Rada's resolution "On support of the appeal of the President of Ukraine to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on the provision of a tomos of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine" dated 19 April 2018.

I said and wrote it many times that these lawless steps contradict the laws of Ukraine and the canons of the Church. The Church is not an attribute of independence of a state and not a political organization. The Church lives by its own laws, which are thousands of years old.

The actions of President Poroshenko and those of the MPs who voted for this resolution contradict Article 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine – the authorities violate the basic human right that is the right to freedom of conscience and religion.

Yesterday at the conciliation board’s meeting I, as the head of the Opposition Bloc faction, raised a question about the responsibility of those in power and president Poroshenko personally for the economic consequences from imposing the martial law.

First of all, it is necessary to find out what price Ukrainian people and the economy of Ukraine will pay for the martial law. Traditionally, the authorities did not estimate the consequences of their actions and did nothing to protect citizens from possible deepening of the economic recession and from failure to fulfil social obligations, in particular, due to the budget under-performance, possible default or devaluation of Ukrainian hryvnia.

I want to ask the president, the National Security and Defence Council and those who voted for this shameful decision in the Verkhovna Rada: did they consider the losses that would be incurred by the national budget from imposing the martial law, how much less revenue would the state receive? I have no doubt that the martial law will affect every Ukrainian family, especially the population of the regions where it was introduced.

Today, at 8 a.m., the Security Service of Ukraine and the prosecutor's office, supported by special police forces, began searches in an out-of-town household of Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Pressure is being put on the vicar of Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel. Investigative activities are carried out into a completely void and obviously fabricated case. Moreover, His Grace Pavel is not the only one who is being persecuted. In recent weeks, we have witnessed unprecedented pressure from law enforcement officers on representatives of the hierarchy and priesthood of our Mother Church — for the sole purpose of committing treason and moving from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the single local Ukrainian Orthodox Church (SLUOC) newly created by Poroshenko’s administration.

“Conversations” are under way, criminal cases are opened. I am sure that all these cases will fall apart completely at the pre-trial stage, as well as hundreds, if not thousands, of other cases fabricated by the authorities against unwanted people and people opposing the authorities.