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.