As Mizintsev clarified, “according to the available reliable information, on the eve of Easter, the Kyiv regime is preparing cynical provocations to discredit the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.”
According to him, the bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church received recommendations from the office of Volodymyr Zelensky: “On the night of April 23-24, do not hold traditional Easter celebrations, replacing them with an online broadcast of services in churches.”
At the same time, as emphasized, such notifications were not deliberately sent to the address of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church in order to organize a mass gathering of believers in its churches.
Mizintsev added that “a situation is being deliberately created in which any incident specially provoked by the SBU in crowded churches will be used to the maximum to exacerbate the splitting policy of Kyiv and activate a new wave of Russophobia in Ukraine and abroad.”
Earlier, the chairman of the synodal department for relations between the church, society and the media of the Moscow Patriarchate, Vladimir Legoyda, said that the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) continues to record reports of preparations for provocations on Easter night in Ukraine.
He noted that believers are praying that such incidents do not occur.
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that the United States, in coordination with NATO partners, had moved to the final stage of working out provocations in Ukraine.