While in Georgia on the centennial celebrations, the Ukrainian Speaker A.Parubiy observed the restoration of the autocephaly in Ukraine was keeping abreast with restoration of its statehood.
During the briefing, he said that he was going to discuss Ukraine’s autocephaly with the President of Georgia, the Chairperson of the Georgia’s Parliament and with His Holiness Patriarch and Beatitude Ilia II, as "support of the Ukrainian autocephaly by the Georgian Orthodox Church is of high importance". According to him, His Holiness Patriarch Ilia II and Ukrainian eparchs see a great deal of each other, so he does understand and know the importance of the restoration of the Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church.
In this context, the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament expressed his hope for the support of the Georgian Orthodox Church. "We look forward to the support of both the Patriarch and the Georgian Orthodox Church for the aspiration of Ukraine and all Ukrainians to create a Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church. I do hope that this idea is fully supported at the presidential and parliamentary levels, and I am in high hopes that the Patriarch will support this idea, too," said the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
A.Parubiy also notified that numerous Ukrainian hierarchs had met with the Patriarch in pursuance of the request to support the autocephaly idea, but "secular authorities are also a mouthpiece of the will of millions of Ukrainians". "We can only ask to support the will and aspirations of Ukrainians and to emphasize the destructive role, which, unfortunately, some representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church played at certain stages of the Russian aggression, when, in fact, the church was utilized as not a religious organization, but as a political tool," he said, recalling the situation with Girkin’s hired guns, the first raiding force, when those mentioned had been billeted in one of the Orthodox monasteries.
The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada highlighted that, unfortunately, the church used to be utilized as a political tool for propagation of the so-called "the Russian world", to propagandize aggression and murders of Ukrainians.
"Through emphasizing these aspects, which concern the secular authorities directly as well as Ukraine’s security and the security of every citizen, we want to stress the importance and necessity of creating a Ukrainian independent local autocephalous church," he underscored. “Our arguments are well understood and supported, and I really believe that this year we shall see this historic decision".