“If one year ago somebody had said that we would come so close to the Tomos, everyone would have said what I heard from the majority of the hierarchs: Mr. President, you are a naive person… this is not possible. My answer was: Friends, there will be nothing without God’s help. But I believe that Ukraine has gained this help. …
“People criticize me, telling that the Church in a true state should be separated from the state. I totally agree with that. Especially when this state is foreign one. It is our task to protect Ukraine from that foreign church. Because we are the largest Orthodox country in Europe. …The church should be one – Ukrainian.
“…And I am extremely pleased that, among the bearers of good news from the ecumenical patriarch, exarchs who were appointed by His All-Holiness, there was also Archbishop Daniel of Pamphylia and the Western Eparchy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the United States of America. …
“We have been waiting [for the Tomos] for not four, not a hundred, but 300 years. This is the highest God’s reward for the long times of suffering that Ukrainians have undergone.”
– President Petro Poroshenko speaking on September 25 during a meeting with the Ukrainian community in the U.S. held at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York, as reported by the Presidential Administration of Ukraine.