Earlier, we reported that Romanian MEP Luis Lazarus condemned the actions of radicals against the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Chernivtsi, emphasizing that the attacks affected representatives of the Romanian minority.
“Non-canonical and spiritually harmful”: Dumenko called out the UOC and again called for “unity”
The head of the OCU, Epiphany Dumenko, called the Ukrainian Orthodox Church “uncanonical” and “spiritually harmful.” At the same time, the leader of the Ukrainian schism again called on the UOC to start a dialogue with the OCU without preconditions. In addition, Dumenko accused the UOC of “forcibly” preventing its communities from “transferring” to the OCU. He stated this in a report read out at a meeting of OCU hierarchs.
«Throughout all these years, we have repeatedly, constantly, and persistently called for and continue to call for dialogue and unity among believers, clergy, and hierarchs who are still subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate. In particular, in August last year, the Primate issued an open appeal on this subject to Metropolitan Onufriy and those under his jurisdiction. We have not yet received any official constructive response to this appeal or to our other proposals and appeals. Despite this, we reaffirm our openness to dialogue without preconditions, the goal of which we see as the unification of all Orthodox Christians in Ukraine around the Kyiv throne on the principles of autocephaly and in accordance with the canonical norms and the Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos of 2019,» — Dumenko said.
In addition, Epiphanius accused the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of preventing communities of the UOC from “transferring” to the OCU. According to him, this is done by “fomenting an atmosphere of fear and hatred against the OCU.”
«We categorically reject the attempts of supporters of the Moscow Patriarchate to use force, create artificial legal obstacles, and stir up an atmosphere of fear and hatred against the OCU to hinder the unification process and the exercise of religious communities’ own free will. The final liberation from the yoke of the “Russian world” is vitally necessary for Ukraine and spiritually beneficial for Orthodoxy. Therefore, we would like to welcome the adoption last August of a law prohibiting Ukrainian religious organizations from being subordinate to Russian religious centers,» — he added.
Read also
