For the past several months, the situation with the transfer of the community of the Holy Kazan Church in Ladyzhyn from the UOC-MP to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has been on everyone's lips.
Despite the fact that the community made a conscious and unanimous decision to move to the OCU in November last year and executed all the necessary legal documents, the local priest of the UOC-MAP, Yevhen Vorobyov, and his few supporters are in every way interfering with the activities of the newly created OCU community and periodically organizing various provocations, UNN reports .
In the third year of full-scale Russian aggression, this is hard to believe. However, unfortunately, such situations are not uncommon in Vinnytsia and other regions of Ukraine.
The reason for this is that people like Vorobyov continue to enjoy the support, albeit not public, of some government officials.
And among some MPs and officials, there are those who, in the third year of the war, do not hide their close ties to the UOC-MP.
In particular, this includes Hennadiy Mazur, a member of the Vinnytsia Regional Council from the Batkivshchyna party. On his Wikipedia page , this regional MP openly boasts that he is a full Knight of the Orders of St. Prince Volodymyr the Equal-to-the-Apostles and St. Nestor the Chronicler, which are awarded by the Moscow Patriarchate.
These orders are among the most prestigious in the hierarchy of awards of the UOC-MP.
The Order of Nestor the Chronicler is awarded to representatives of "the bishops, clergy, laity, statesmen, journalists, writers, poets, and educators for their personal contribution to publishing, church, literary, and writing activities, as well as for the spread of the bright ideals of Orthodoxy in the social and political life of Ukraine.
The Order of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Volodymyr is awarded to representatives of "the bishops, clergy, laity, as well as statesmen, workers of culture and arts for their personal contribution to the revival of spirituality, the elevation of the role of the church in the life of society and the state.
There is no information in open sources about when Mazur received the Orders of St. Nestor the Chronicler of the II and I degrees.
Mazur was awarded the Order of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Volodymyr, first class, in 2007. Therefore, it can be logically assumed that he received the Orders of the III and II degrees earlier.
Of course, it would be interesting to know what services Mazur was awarded for. Until 2007, the deputy from Yulia Tymoshenko's party worked for about eight years in the tax authorities, where he left at his own request. But, according to media reports, his desire was dictated by suspicion of abuse of office.
Then he ran an agricultural enterprise for five years, and in 2007 he returned to the tax service.
Mazur himself saysthat he once helped restore a church in his native village. It was a good deed, but not worthy of five orders.
And here the question arises: what was so important and useful that Mazur did for the Moscow Patriarchate that he was rewarded with five orders?
On the other hand, it can be assumed that the Vinnytsia Regional Council deputy pinned the awards on himself, using certain connections, and solely to flatter his ego. It must be nice to be on the same list as the former president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, when you are on the same list as the Knights of the Order of St. Prince Volodymyr.
Mazur justifies himself by saying that the orders were given to him by the late Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan) of the UOC-MP, who cannot be suspected of lacking patriotism.
But after the attack by Russia, when almost every week the special services report on the detention of priests and parishioners of the UOC-MP suspected of aiding the Russian aggressor, this argument looks strange, to put it mildly.
So what is Mazur trying to achieve? Does he refuse to give up the orders of the Moscow Patriarchate because he continues to flatter his ego, or is he waiting for the arrival of the "Russian world"?