DISINFO: The Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine is being oppressed and...
SUMMARY
The Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine is being oppressed and deprived of civil rights; laws attempt to exclude the normal registration of the Orthodox parishes in Ukraine and churches are taken over by force.
RESPONSE
According to Archbishop Evstratiy, a spokesman of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the statements of Patriarch Kirill are untrue. Since the annexation of Crimea, the Moscow Patriarchate has lost most of its adherents in Ukraine. “When members of a congregation say they would like to leave the Moscow Patriarchate and join the Kyiv Patriarchate instead, Moscow tries to prevent this by all means, including by claiming that the churches are being taken over forcibly, when in reality it was the members of the same congregation who did not want to be supervised by Moscow any longer,” he said. Further debunking at Polygraph.info bit.ly/2p8DFTa, .