President Petro Poroshenko caused a stir on Jan. 18 by branding a man who asked him when he was going to fight corruption an atheist, provocateur, and a moskal – an ethnic slur used by Ukrainians for Russians.
Poroshenko, is currently touring the country with the tomos, a scroll decree that grants independence to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from Russia. The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the leader of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, issued the tomos on Jan. 6, ending Ukraine’s church centuries-old dependence on Russia.
Poroshenko, who hasn’t announced yet whether he will run for a second term in March 31 election, has been throwing campaign-like church meetings around Ukraine.
On this tour’s latest stop, in a church in Cherkasy Oblast on Jan. 18, a local man approached Poroshenko with a question that had nothing to do with religion.
Oleg Lysak, who introduced himself as a representative of a public organization called Employers of Cherkasy Oblast, asked the president: “Petro Oleksiyovych (Poroshenko), when are you going to fight corruption?”
Lysak spoke in Russian, the first language of many Ukrainians, including Poroshenko himself.
Poroshenko, surrounded by church clerics and bodyguards, snapped.
“I have a request to you,” he responded. “Go to church, light a candle, for you are a non-believer. And the Lord will soothe you,” Poroshenko said.
Poroshenko then turned to the crowd and said: “Look, they sent a person who hasn’t even learned Ukrainian. Such moskal provocateurs are trying to split us apart.”
Lysak replied that he is as Ukrainian as the president, and he simply doesn’t want to live in a corrupt country.
Poroshenko, who has risen to the presidency in the wake of the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution on the promise to stop corruption among other things, has since changed focus.
For his re-election campaign – which he has been conducting unofficially for months – Poroshenko changed focus. The pillars of his campaign are Ukrainian military, support of Ukrainian language over Russian, and church independence from Moscow.
Poroshenko personally led the process of receiving the tomos and creation of a unified Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He has already run into flak for milking the achievement for his own benefit.
“The tomos is a victory for Ukraine (…), perhaps no less, and maybe more important than victory on the frontline,” he said on Jan. 16 during a meeting with locals in Volyn Oblast.
That statement also stirred public criticism, with Poroshenko being accused of disrespecting those who are currently fighting or who have lost their lives in Russia’s war on Ukraine in the Donbas.
