Head of OCU accuses Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of lack of dialogue

On December 10, 2024, the head of the OCU, Epiphany Dumenko, delivered a speech at an event organized by the Conference of European Churches. During his speech, Dumenko criticized the Russian Orthodox Church and accused the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of being unwilling to start a dialogue with the OCU. Moreover, Epiphany Dumenko claims that it is not the representatives of the OCU who are to blame for the seizures of UOC churches, but the heads of dioceses of the canonical Church and clergy, who, in his opinion, are the ones who provoke conflicts on the ground. The text of Dumenko’s report is published on the official website of the OCU.

“Until the beginning of 2014, while Metropolitan Volodymyr of blessed memory was alive, he facilitated and encouraged dialogue as much as possible. Metropolitan Onufriy immediately blocked any attempts to continue the dialogue – not only formal and public, but even private and unofficial ones. Over the past 10 years, Metropolitan Onufriy has not given any constructive response to any of our many appeals that are regularly sent to him and to the jurisdiction he heads. This also applies to my appeal to start a dialogue without preconditions, which I made on August 15 this year – it also remained unanswered. You can read the text of this appeal in English translation. But this does not mean that there is no dialog and interaction at all. Dialogue continues at the level of the laity and at the level of priests. Its fruit is the ongoing process of communities leaving the Russian church jurisdiction and uniting with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. More than 2 thousand communities have already completed this process,” – said the head of the OCU.

In addition, Dumenko urged not to blame the OCU for the fact that sometimes in Ukraine there are conflicts between representatives of the UOC and the OCU, obviously referring to the seizure of UOC churches. In these “incidents,” Dumenko again accused Metropolitan Onufriy and the hierarchs and priests of the UOC in the regions, who, as he claims, use “Russian tactics,” provoking conflicts and making themselves victims in them.

“Our Church is also systematically accused by critics and opponents that incidents in certain communities are the reason for the lack of dialogue. In fact, the situation is quite the opposite. Because the reason for such incidents is precisely the deliberate blocking of any dialogue by Metropolitan Onufriy and his hierarchs and their provocation of conflict in the communities. All of this is very similar to Russian tactics, where the fact that Ukraine is resisting the Kremlin’s hybrid aggression is declared by Moscow as the reason for its attacks. Moscow constantly pretends to be the victim of aggression, which is allegedly only forced to defend itself,” – Dumenko added.

Earlier we reported that the heads and representatives of many Local Orthodox Churches, human rights organizations and other international institutions criticized those responsible for the seizure of the Cathedral and diocesan administration of the Cherkasy Diocese of the UOC, which was carried out on October 17, 2024, in the interests of the OCU and with the support of radical paramilitary groups. However, the OCU itself cynically claims that it was the UOC believers, led by Metropolitan Theodosius of Cherkasy and Kaniv, who attempted to seize the cathedral.