UOC bishop on dialogue with OCU: It is impossible as long as they use bats

Answering the question of a journalist from news-politics.com about the dialogue with the OCU, Bishop Victor of Baryshivka said that as long as Dumenko's supporters are determined to fight and seize churches, communication is impossible.

"Dialogue involves interlocutors that are ready to hear and listen to each other. Dialogue is a conversation between two civilized persons. Yet, dialogue is physically and virtually impossible when one of the interlocutors holds a bat in his hand and not only threatens, but also uses it in relation to the other interlocutor. Tell me, what kind of dialogue can there be with a person who broke the door in my house, broke into my home and threatens to kill all my household members?" asks the hierarch.

The bishop considers the purposeful creation of an image of the enemy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the mass media to be one of the reasons for the aggression of OCU supporters towards believers and clergy of the UOC.

"For many years, unscrupulous journalists did everything to turn ordinary people against the UOC. To some extent, they have succeeded, unsurprisingly, since who owns the information, owns the world and influences the minds of society. All you have to do it to read George Orwell, and everything becomes clear," the bishop notes.

"On the other hand, the authorities did not react to the flow of falsehood and slander against the Church, and at certain moments even assisted in it. Suffice it to recall the actions of former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko for several years to understand that aggression against the UOC is not a sporadic phenomenon, confined by the geographical boundaries of a particular region, but an entire program used for political ends," says Bishop Victor.

Also, the hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reminded that the Council in Feofaniya named specific requisites for the beginning of a dialogue with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

"First of all, representatives of the OCU must stop their hostile activities against the UOC. We are open to dialogue, but in order for it to start, the OCU must, before anything else, stop beating UOC believers and throwing them out of the temples they have built on their own," added the bishop.

Let us remind you, according to the head of the Information and Education Department of the UOC, dialogue with the OCU is "when a priest of the UOC is kicked.”

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