Dumenko commented on parish "transfers" to the OCU and the resistance of UOC believers

The head of the OCU, Epiphaniy Dumenko, spoke about the «transfers» of communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to the OCU and the resistance of believers during this process. According to him, the OCU seeks for the transfers to take place “with love and peacefully,” and all incidents during the takeover of churches, he said, belong to the “enemy,” who is trying to “discredit the church on the international stage.” Dumenko shared this in an interview with “Suspilne.”

“They resist, stage provocations in order to later show this image, especially internationally,” Dumenko noted. He emphasized that the OCU is interested in a calm, peaceful transfer process, “with love, because we are building our church on the foundations of love.”

At the same time, Dumenko did not clarify the cases of harsh treatment of UOC clerics during the “transfers.” He also reported that more than “2,000 parishes from the Moscow Patriarchate” have already joined the OCU.

The head of the OCU also touched on the topic of Orthodox church architecture, emphasizing that “onion-shaped” domes and churches dedicated to the Kazan Icon or St. Alexander Nevsky represent an “ideology that has been imposed on us for centuries.” He promised that going forward, the OCU would build exclusively churches “in the Ukrainian Baroque style.”

Earlier, we reported on how Yuriy Chornomorets voiced his forecasts regarding the existence of the UOC after the state “liquidates” the legal entity of the Kyiv Metropolia and all its subordinate structures. This concerns dioceses in regions and districts, monasteries, seminaries, and synodal administrations, which “perform the functions of church ministries.” Such changes affect not only the management and financial spheres but also the legal status of parishes, churches, and property subordinate to the Metropolia.