State Duma deputy Constantine Zatulin - ambassador John Herbst appointemnt is a provocation
Moscow, April 28, Interfax - The fact that US ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst, has been delegated from the diocese of Odessa and Zaporozhie to the All-Diaspora Council, which is to consider the re-unification of the two parts of the Russian Church, is a provocation, stated Constantine Zatulin, State Duma deputy and director of the Institute for the CIS Countries.
"The ambassador was really baptized according to the Orthodox rite. At the same time, the aim of his efforts as a person at the US State Department service is fairly evident. John Herbst acts in the interests of the USA", the political scientist stated as cited by Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily on Friday.
Zatulin stresses that in 2004-2005, all the efforts of the USA were aimed at supporting first the orange movement and then the orange power. This power itself is interested in fragmenting Orthodoxy and setting up the so-called 'one local church' in Ukraine, the newspaper writes.
"The plans for creating an 'independent' Orthodox Church, promoting the Uniates and preserving the so-called 'Ukrainian Patriarchate' set up by schismatic Filaret Denisenko is what Washington believes to be a sign of democracy in religious life".
As journalist Mikhail Leontyev stated on his part in the Odnako TV talk show broadcast last evening by Channel 1, US President George Bush, as far back as a year ago, forbade his ambassador 'any visits to the Kiev Cathedral of the Protecting Veil (Moscow Patriarchate - IF), where he, incidentally, had his own children baptized'.
'Opponents of the unification who accuse the Moscow Patriarchate of Sergianism, that is submission to the authorities, represent actually fierce neo-Sergianists of American making who have just chosen a different master', the TV observer said.