“I'm not going anywhere,” Metropolitan Luke on joining OCU

The hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Luke of Zaporizhzhia and Melitopol, said that he does not plan to join the OCU, as he does not consider this organization a church. He said this during an online conversation with the subscribers of his YouTube channel.

“I am in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, I am not going to go anywhere. I cannot go where you are offering me, because it is not a church, it is a religious organization. But I cannot call it a Church in the sense of “Christ’s” Church, because Christ does not beat anyone, does not drive anyone away,” — he replied.

Earlier, Metropolitan Luke of Zaporizhzhia and Melitopol proposed to develop the Amman Format to the level of a platform for ongoing consultations and negotiations between representatives of the Orthodox Local Churches. The bishop believes that active communication within world Orthodoxy will help prevent interchurch crises in the future. Metropolitan Luke made this suggestion in his report read out during an international conference in Belgrade on the influence of the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the fate of Orthodoxy in Ukraine.