Religious scholar names main reasons why the Romanian Church refuses to recognize the OCU

Gennady Tselkovsky, associate professor of theology and religious studies at the Ukrainian State University named after Mikhail Dragomanov, named the reasons why the Romanian Orthodox Church refuses to recognize the OCU. In addition to the OCU hindering the creation of the Romanian Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Tselkovsky also points to the canonical and political aspects of the situation. He spoke about this in an interview with RISU.

“So, the arguments of the Romanian Orthodox Church for not recognizing the OCU are as follows:

• there are two churches in Ukraine—how can we recognize anything if you yourselves cannot decide which church is Ukrainian?;
• The OCU was created as a political national project, which is not good from the point of view of Orthodoxy;
• We do not want to quarrel with Moscow;
• The OCU was created on the basis of a non-canonical Church;
• Patriarch Bartholomew acted alone, not in conciliarity,” – the religious scholar noted.

Earlier, the head of the OCU, Epiphany Dumenko, lashed out at the Romanian Orthodox Church. Dumenko, speaking out against the establishment of the Romanian Orthodox Church of Ukraine by the Romanian Church, said that the Romanian Patriarchate has no right to create parallel jurisdictions on the territory of Ukraine without the consent of the OCU. He is convinced that the OCU is fully capable of independently meeting the religious needs of Romanian-speaking believers within the Romanian vicariate, which was previously established within the organization.