Notorious OCU cleric Yaroslav Yasenets leaves the structure due to disagreement with Epiphany

The notorious cleric of the OCU Yaroslav Kulik (Yasenets) publicly announced his withdrawal from this religious structure. The reason for his departure was his categorical disagreement with the course of the head of the organization, Epiphany Dumenko.

He announced his decision in a statement published on Facebook and addressed personally to Epiphany. Yasenets pointed to «categorical disagreement with your course, methods of managing the Church, as well as the openly biased, unfair and impolite attitude» on the part of the head of the OCU and his entourage. He also emphasized that he would not consider any further bans and sanctions against him valid.

Later, Yasenets published several videos in which he explained in detail the reasons for his decision. In addition to his personal conflict with the head of the OCU, he pointed out that the organization lacks the characteristics of a church, which, in his opinion, has become a «ritual service of the godless Ukrainian authorities.» Yasenets drew attention to the shortage of OCU ministers, closed churches that had previously been taken away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the degradation of monasticism and other problems in the organization’s structure.

Earlier, we reported that the priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Andrei Shimanovich, who joined the UOC-KP in July 2017, decided to return to the UOC. He was prompted to do so by the «difficult experience» of being in the structure of the OCU and «deep rational reflections.» One of the reasons why Shymanovich returned to the UOC is, according to him, «personal insults, humiliation, hand-waving, threats of physical violence.»