Image by Sardaka
President Petro Poroshenko joined thousands on the streets of Kiev on Saturday on an anniversary marking the start of the conversion of Ukrainians to Christianity, amid a push to remove what he says is a lever of Kremlin influence in Ukrainian affairs.
Poroshenko wants to establish a so-called national ‘autocephalous’ church in the majority-Orthodox country, which he says would be vital to tackling meddling by Moscow.
An Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church?
Religious divisions came to the fore in Ukraine after the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia and conflict between Ukrainian and Moscow-backed separatist forces in the east.
Two competing strands of the church, known as the Moscow Patriarchate and the Kiev Patriarchate, vie for influence in the eastern European country…
To read more visit Reuters.
Below is a video of an event sponsored by the Russian Orthodox Church, that many in Kyiv see as a provocation by Moscow. Nationalist protesters were removed from the event.
