Pavlenko said that the authorities under Poroshenko helped the OCU to equalize the chances of church organizations so that no one could raise the issue of grace.

On March 18, 2021, Rostislav Pavlenko, MP from the “European Solidarity” party, in an interview with Saken Aimurzaev, said that under President Petro Poroshenko, the government helped the OCU.

Pavlenko said that “under Petro Poroshenko, we did everything so that there was no favourite church”. This was done through “communication between the President and his team” with the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations.

“And the promotion of the OCU in its formation as a recognized church and the granting of the Tomos is, in fact, the fulfilment of the appeal of the Ukrainian Orthodox to help the recognition with state funds, and to help in the granting of the Tomos of autocephaly,” the people’s deputy said.

According to Pavlenko, all this was done “for the reasons of security and out of concern for human rights and their provision”.

“The state did all this to equalize the chances of church organizations so that no one, even theoretically, could raise the issue of some kind of grace, some kind of non-canonicity,” said the representative of the Poroshenko party.

According to Rostislav Pavlenko, the authorities under the current President Vladimir Zelensky understand less the importance of the “church issue” than under the previous President Petro Poroshenko.