“Metropolitan Onufry will not go for rapprochement with the Ecumenical Patriarchate because of his beliefs,” - media

An anonymous expert familiar with the internal life of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church said that the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv and All Ukraine, will not go for rapprochement with the Patriarchate of Constantinople because he is a “Zealot” who professes extremely conservative views and rejects any manifestations of ecumenism. This was reported by Religiyna Pravda, a propaganda website that lobbies for the OCU.

“According to people who know Metropolitan Onufriy well, he has been sympathetic to such Zealot ideas (Zealots are a radical Jewish sect of the Gospel period, the term for radical Christian views — RP) since the early 1990s, which is why in 1992 he even threatened to transfer the Chernivtsi Diocese to the ROCOR if the UOC proclaimed autocephaly from the MP,” — the report says.

The anonymous source added that the Primate of the UOC actively supports the Athos Monastery of Esphigmenou, which opposes Patriarch Bartholomew. Moreover, he claims that Metropolitan Onufriy is in contact with Greek schismatics, the “old-style”.

“Actually, they have always avoided communication with Patriarch Bartholomew, considering him an ‘ecumenist heretic’ and a ‘Freemason’. Therefore, they maintained contacts with the Greek Old Calendarists, and, in particular, blessed the vicar of the Chernivtsi diocese, Longina Zhara, to take an active part in the “anti-ecumenical forum” in Greece, aimed against the Ecumenical Patriarchate,” — the expert shares.

It should be noted that the lobbyist of the OCU in the media and a freelance expert of the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, religious scholar Andriy Smirnov, said that despite the adoption of Bill No. 8371 in the second reading, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will not unite with the OCU. Smirnov believes that the reason for this is the presidency of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv and All Ukraine.