Supreme Rada checks Yuschenko’s brother for being “Kiev Patriarchate” bishop

Interfax

Dnepropetrovsk, January 14, Interfax – Ukrainian deputies check information that their colleague and Ukrainian President’s brother Pyotr Yuschenko is a bishop of the self-proclaimed Kiev Patriarchate.

“Now I won’t claim that Yuschenko’s brother deputy Pyotr Yuschenko is supposedly a bishop of Sumy in Filaret’s Church (in the Kiev Patriarchate – IF) – we’re checking this information right now. But if it proves true, it’ll be a mockery,” Ukrainian MP Nestor Shufrich said in his interview to the Avtor TV.

Earlier Pyotr Yuschenko headed public organization For Local Ukraine that aims at establishing one Local Orthodox Church in the country independent from the Moscow Patriarchate. In this regard, some observers consider Pyotr Yuschenko a potential church leader.

Shufrich said the problem of “political Orthodoxy” in Ukraine “became sharp after 2005, when Yuschenko decided to subordinate Church.”

“Today they provoke schism in Orthodoxy, seize churches (we have incidents in the Chernigov Region and the Vinnitsa Region,) beat Orthodox priests belonging to the structure of His Beatitude Sabodan (Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine – IF), we shouldn’t tolerate it, it’s a field for the Criminal Code and the Criminal Law to work in,” Shufrich stressed.

Link to original...