Moscow accuses Ukrainians of "Potemkin village" effort

Moscow, July 25 (Interfax) - Ukrainian authorities with the help of celebrations dedicated to the Day of Russia's Baptism try to convince Patriarch Bartholomew that millions of believers allegedly stand for autocephaly, deputy head of the UOC Department for External Church Relations Archpriest Nikolay Danilevich believes.

On Wednesday at a press-conference in Kiev he criticized state officials for impeding UOC parishioner in their coming to the procession with cross and try to organize the same events of the "Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Constantinople Patriarchate."

"Free buses are provided, the entire railway carriages are booked. Many people who have nothing to do with the Church will come. They should not bring mutes to Kiev and set up "Potemkin villages" in order to show Constantinople that allegedly there are millions of believers who support the so-called autocephaly. I know that Patriarch Bartholomew got acquainted with this information," the priest said.

According to him, "the addressees, for whom they ("authorities" - Interfax) do it, know it pretty well, and when they will look at the photos and watch videos from the "procession with cross," they will divide the number of its participants by ten."

"Potemkin village" in Russian is any construction (literal or figurative) built solely to deceive others into thinking that a situation is better than it really is.

Comments

  1. mikeJuly 26, 2018 at 12:30 PM

    1. Interfax for some reasons tends to Russianise Ukrainian names even if the priest in question uses the Ukrainian version of his name himself https://www.facebook.com/mykola.danylevych

    Also, either something was lost in translation or Fr. Danylevych does not precisely know, what is a Potemkin village.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Jester of QiJuly 26, 2018 at 3:10 PM

    Not that they're wrong about Ukraine, but if that's a Potemkin village, what does one make of the MP parish in North Korea?

    ReplyDelete

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