The Russian Orthodox Church began collecting signatures in support of the referendum on the unification of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

In Moscow, in the Church of St. Nicholas on the three mountains, the rector of which is the head of the Synodal Russian Orthodox Church on the relationship between the Church and the Company Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, there is a collection of signatures for the popular referendum on the reunification of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The document contains an appeal to the presidents of the three Slavic republics with a proposal for assistance in the preparation and conduct of a referendum to create a confederation.

The authors of the idea of ​​unification believe that the separation of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians was committed contrary to the will of the people and now impedes its free development and well -being. "We, the heirs of a thousand -year history and great civilization, the experience of creating, good neighborliness, military valor and cooperation of our ancestors, united by general culture and joint activities in the arrangement and protection of our land, and take all the best of the practical experience of our people," the Charter says.

“Having reunited, we believe in the basis of our being and development of peace and morality, faith in good, the principles of fundamental justice, equality, dignity, the desire to happiness and the well -being of our single people. Our development and future will be built with other peoples, mutually enriching our cultures and making life more comfortable and safer,” the document says.

The signing of the reunion Charter began among believers on September 21, on the next anniversary of the victory on the Kulikovo field. But the Charter is open for signing by all interested citizens, organizations and public associations. The charter is especially stipulated that other countries may join the creation of the "confederate interstate Union of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus."

It should be noted that the Russian Orthodox Church, like the secular authorities of Russia, regrets the loss of influence in the territory of the post -Soviet space. In November 2011, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill said that the collapse of the Soviet Union became the "disaster of historical Russia" and was the result of "the decline of national identity, national pride."

Blessed by the Patriarch, Vladimir Putin, blessed by the Patriarch, adheres to a similar point of view, who, in his Address of the Federal Assembly in 2005, called the collapse of the USSR "the largest geopolitical catastrophe of the century." A step towards the restoration of the Union, at least economic, many experts consider the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union and the Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, in which the Ukrainian side is possible according to the 3+1 scheme.

According to a public opinion poll conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Foundation. F. Ebert in Russia, only 10% of Russians believe that they won from the collapse of the USSR and in the course of the followed reforms.

According to the Levada Center, to date, in fact, half of the Russian citizens believe that after the August Putch of 1991, the organizers of which wanted the USSR returning, but only accelerated its collapse, the country has gone "in the wrong way." 39% of respondents evaluate the putsch as a "tragic incident", 35% - as "a struggle for power among the political elite."

According to the survey of Research & Branding Group, if referendums on the preservation of the USSR took place today, then 47% of Ukrainians would support the preservation of the Soviet Union, and would vote for the country's independence. And 70% of Ukrainians agree that the main difference between the Soviet past and the present time is that in the USSR there was a common goal for everyone and uniting everyone's idea.